BLIND AND DEAF
Oh, human soul! as long as thou canst so
Set up a mark of everlasting light,
Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,
To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam—
Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.
Mary Grant, pauper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature-charts in a corner of the ward, and she began volubly to deny the charges.
"The woman's deaf, so it is no good shouting at her, and I believe she is angry because I can't talk on my fingers; but what with looking after both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking their temperatures and feeding them, and giving them their medicine, I have not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Hunt, too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her antics; and as to scraping the butter off Grant's bread I hope as the Committee did not attend to such a tale."