lf lasts: but
when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the
convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and
unselfishness is put to the test.

Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently
unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish
convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long
bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions
for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless,
or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who
have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know
how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she
often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without
power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over
those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and
apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.

Those who feel the sympathy of experience will surely wish, under all
such circumstances, to exercise untiring patience and unremitting
attention; but, however strong this wish may be, they cannot execute
their purpose if their own health has been injured by previous
unnecessary watchings, by exclusion from fresh air and exercise. Those
whose nervous system has been thus unstrung will never be equal to the
painful exertion which the recovering invalid now requires. How much
better it would have been for her if walks and sleep had been taken at
times when an attentive nurse would have done just as well to sit at the
bedside, when absence would have been unnoticed, or only temporarily
regretted! This prudent, and, we must remember, generally self-denying
care of one's self, would have averted the future bodily illness or
nervous depression of the nurse of the convalescent, at a time too when
the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as
act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel
deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your
own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers.

I have dwelt so long on this part of my subject, because I think it very
probable that, with your warm affections, and before your selfishness
has been hardened by habits of self-indulgence, you might some time or
other fall into the error I have been describing. In the ardour