that is very evident--a feeling of hurry retards our
work, it does not hasten it, and the more quietly we can do what is
before us, the more quickly and vigorously we do it.

The first necessity is to find ourselves out--to find out for a fact
when we do hurry, and how we hurry, and how we have the sense of hurry
with us all the time. Having willingly, and gladly, found ourselves
out, the remedy is straight before us.

Nature is on the side of leisure and will come to our aid with higher
standards of quiet, the possibilities of which are always in every
one's brain, if we only look to find them.

To sit five minutes quietly taking long breaths to get a sense of
leisure every day will be of very great help--and then when we find
ourselves hurrying, let us stop and recall the best quiet we know--that
need only take a few seconds, and the gain is sure to follow.

_Festina lente_ (hasten slowly) should be in the back of our brains all
day and every day.

"'T is haste makes waste, the sage avers,
And instances are far too plenty;
Whene'er the hasty impulse stirs,
Put on the brake, Festina Lente."

CHAPTER XXIV

_The Care of an Invalid_

TO take really good care of one who is ill requires not only knowledge
but intelligent patience and immeasurable tact.

A little knowledge will go a great way, and we do not need to be
trained nurses in order to help our friends to bear their illnesses
patiently and quietly and to adjust things about them so that they are
enabled to get well faster because of the care we give them.

Sometimes if we have only fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen
minutes at night to be with a sick friend, we can so arrange things for
the day and for the night that we will have left behind us a directly
curative influence because our invalid feels cared for in the best way,
and has confidence enough to follow the suggestions we have given.

More depends upon the spirit with which we approach an invalid than
anything else.

A trained nurse who has graduated at the head of her class and has
executive ability, who knows exactly what to do and when to do it, may
yet bring such a spirit of self-importance and bustle that everything
she does for the invalid's ease, comfort, and recuperation is
counteracted by the unrestful "professional" spirit with which the work
is done.

On the other hand, a woman who has only a slight knowledge of nursing
can bring so restful and unobtrusive