Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/144

Rh illness mitigated by the skill of modern science, and the comforts of civilized life, that a slight degree of bodily indisposition is looked upon as an evil scarcely worth the pains which any systematic means of remedy would require.

It is only when health is lost, and lost beyond the hope of regaining it, that we become sensible of its real value. It is then we tax the ingenuity of the physician, and the patience of the nurse, to bring us back, if only so near as to stand upon the verge of that region of happiness from which we are expelled. It is then we see the folly of those who play upon the brink of the precipice which separates this beautiful and blessed region from the troubled waters below. It is then we resign our wealth, our friends, our country, and our home, in the hope of purchasing this treasure. It is then we feel that, although, when in the possession of health, we neglected many opportunities of kindness, benevolence, and general usefulness, yet when deprived of this blessing, we would kneel at the footstool of mercy, to ask those opportunities again, in order that we may use them better.

In early youth, however, little of this knowledge can be experimentally acquired. Little does the pampered child of fond and indulgent parents know what illness is to the poor and the destitute; or what it may be to her when her mother's hand is cold and helpless in the tomb, and when her own head is no longer sheltered by a father's roof. Thus we find young girls so often practising a certain kind of recklessness, and contempt of health, nay, even encouraging, I will not say affecting, a degree of delicacy, feebleness, and liability to bodily ailments, which, if they were not accustomed to the kindest attentions, would be the last calamity they would wish to bring upon themselves. How important is it for such individuals to remember, that the