Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/93

88 ordinary life presents; and the situation of the sick child is often too much like that of the lame boy; for though the mother stays beside it, all the rest are gone; they are gone with their thoughtless laughter, bounding over the green lawn; and well the little sufferer knows how they are enjoying life, and enjoying it not the less because it is not with them.

It is a common thing with nurses, and with mothers too, to endeavor to console the invalid by telling of the many choice and excellent things prepared to gratify its appetite, of which the others are not permitted to partake; of the ripe fruit which has been sent as a present for it, and it alone; or of the treat which is in store for the first day of convalescence, by which it will be distinguished as an object of envy to the rest. All this is practised again and again in the nursery and the sick-room; and then, as the child grows better, it is found fault with for being selfish and greedy, as if selfishness was not a natural and necessary consequence of such a mode of treatment.

How much better would it be, to make the season of sickness a time for drawing the bonds of family affection closer, for directing every thought and every expression of kindness with twofold tenderness to the alleviation of suffering—and if not of bodily suffering, to that of the mind, so as to convince the invalid that illness is scarcely an affliction when it is the means of calling forth so vast an amount of sympathy and love. Nor indeed is bodily illness an affliction at all to be compared to those visitations of a darkened spirit, which convey the impression that we are not cared for by those we love, that we are not essential to their happiness, and that life to them would be as full of interest and enjoyment, if we were sleeping in the grave. With the watchful eye of a mother ever near, the kind voices of gentle sisters speaking softly by the bed of pain, the sweet flowers gathered by a brother's hand and brought up fresh with dew, the fond inquiries of an anxious father arriving earlier than his wont—with all those sweet appliances and means which are prompted by affection in a united and considerate family, illness,