“Good gracious!” I exclaimed, “am I to swallow all these poisonous things?”
“There is no occasion for alarm, madam. I don’t propose to prescribe all these things at once. The first thing I shall order is very important—it is a simple but nutritious diet. Eat plenty of ripe fruit; drink pure, distilled water; take plenty of gentle but regular exercise, and sleep as much as possible. You must be surrounded by agreeable society, have plenty of fresh air and excellent food, and with temperance, avoiding all excitement and mental exertion, I hope you will soon be well.”
“But, doctor, suppose baby Laura falls down-stairs or the house takes fire?”
“You are to be kept ignorant of all such things. The medicine you need is perfect rest, for after all it is the most powerful therapeutic agent when you understand its nature and the indications for its use. You rest your body in sleep, you rest your mind by looking on beautiful things, hearing good music, and thinking of nothing. Sleep is a preventive of disease, and the want of it, if carried too far, causes death. Sleep is balm to the careworn mind and over-wrought brain. In these days of emulation and worry, the waste of nerve force must be repaired by sleeping and cessation from all work. Now is the time to stop, lest you come to the door of the insane asylum. I repeat, absolute rest,” said the doctor, striking his cane on the floor, “and no stimulants to excite rapid circulation. The brain recovers slowly and resents too early demands on it after any injury. The general health must be maintained at the highest possible standard, and you must not worry. You must be a philosopher.”
“Doctor,” said I, “I can do better than that; I can be a Christian. I can say, ‘Yes, Lord,’ to whatever God sends. That is the philosophy of Hannah Whitall Smith, and I have tested its efficacy.”
“Yes, madam, I too,” said the doctor, “would recommend anything of a soothing, tranquilizing character. I shall call to-morrow; good morning.”
I have reflected somewhat since those days, and when a woman tells me now that she is suffering from nervous prostration I know that she is struggling with a disease—a mournful, painful, destructive actuality. Emerson says, “when one is ill something the devil’s the matter.” I know it is so with a woman, for all the peace and joy of life go out of her with sickness. I believe, too, that she would be subject to less nervous prostration if she had greater part in the more enlarging and ennobling human activities. But as mother earth reinvigorated him who touched her, so what life we have comes from God, and indwelling with the Divine ought to renew us body and soul. Christ Himself may not have revealed the miracle of health to the apostles, but He taught them to use it. Mankind soon lost connection with the spiritual dynamo of revitalization—except most intermittingly. But has this been so through necessity or by reason of gross materialism? Among “the greater things than these” of the promise, may not highly spiritualized natures already be refinding the natural laws of healthful living through emphasizing the rightful dominance of man’s spiritual being? “All my fresh springs are in Thee!” “I will arise in newness of life” cannot refer to the soul without including the body, for the greater includes the less. The tendency to give less and less medicine; the declaration of the medical world that drugs are not curative; the healing of the body by the invisible forces of nature, as is being done every day—all these things electrify with the hope that the world is about to discover “the miracles in which we are nourished.” The revelation of the 20th century may be how to pull out that “nail of pain” which, according to Plato, fastens the mind to the body; and the joy of simple, harmonious existence may become a reasonable hope to suffering mortals.
After this experience of illness I made a trip through Canada and the East. With new vigor and the old interest I resumed my home duties and was preparing to enjoy our New Orleans carnival season, when one morning the housemaid announced: “Mis’ Calline, I do b’lieve Rex is come, fur dar’s er ole man at de do’ wid er shabby umbril an’ de ole-es’ han’bag—an’ he say he’s you’ cousin!” I hastened to meet him, and knew at once who it was; but the old man was in an exhausted condition. He said: “I have some brandy with me, and I need it. I have been very sick, but I thought I was well enough to come to see you once more before I die.” I administered a stimulant to old cousin Jimmie, and in a cheerful strain he continued: “Oh, you’re so like your ma, cousin. She was an angel, and your worldly-minded old pa gave her lots of trouble, for your ma was pious, and she had a hard time to get him into the church. Cousin David was a fine man, too, and he had to give in at last to the blessed persuasion of cousin Betsey, your angel-mother.”
The next day I observed cousin Jimmie was holding a wooden whistle in his hand, and blowing softly into it. I inquired what it was. “This whistle,” he said, “is older than your old spinning-wheel and the ancient chiny in the corner cupboard.” “But, I enquired, what is the use of it?” Cousin Jimmie replied: “They called up the crows with it, so they could shoot ’em.” “I always regarded crows as harmless creatures whose inky blackness of color was very useful as a comparison,” I replied. “Well, you never knowed anything at all about crows,” said cousin Jimmie. “I tell you, when a crow lights on a year o’ corn, they eats every single grain before they stop; and I tell you they are suspicious critters, too—these crows! I used to thread a horsehair into a needle and stick it in a grain o’ corn, and draw the hair through, and tie it, and throw it around, and they would pick it up and swallow the corn. Then I would stand off and watch the rascals scratchin’ their beaks tryin’ to get rid o’ the hair, until they got so bothered they would quit that field and never come back. I was a little boy, them days.” “Yes,” said I, “and boys are so cruel.” “Maybe so,” said cousin Jimmie; “but I wa’n’t ’lowed to have a gun to shoot ’em—crows nor nuthin’ else. Boys was boys them days, not undersized men struttin’ ’round with a cigyar in their mouths, too grand to lay holt of a plow handle. Why, some big boys, sixteen years old, can’t ketch a horse and saddle him, let alone put him to a buggy all right. I know that for a fact!”
“Do you like roast lamb and green peas, cousin Jimmie?—for that is what we have for dinner to-day; but I can order anything else you like better?” “I’m not hard to please, cousin,” he answered. “I like good fat mutton—and turnips; but cousin, them turnips must be biled good and done. Done turnips never hurt nobody. Why, when I had the pneumony last winter I sent and got a bagful—and I had ’em cooked all right; and way in the night, whilst I had a fever, I would retch out and get a turnip and eat it. Bile ’em good and done and they can’t hurt nobody—sick or well.”