Wanted.—A Dose of Grammar.
The inundation of notes that followed for many months could not have been sent back unopened, the last refuge under the circumstances, for some of them might have related to the well-being of the sick. My pen certainly was ready enough, but could I waste my thunderbolts in such an atmosphere?
The depreciated currency, which purchased only at fabulous prices by this time; the poor pay the government (feeling the necessary of keeping up the credit of its paper) gave to its officials; the natural craving for luxuries that had been but common food before the war, caused appeals to be made to me, sometimes for the applicant, oftener for his sick wife or child, so constantly, that had I given even one-tenth of the gifts demanded there would have been but little left for my patients.
Daily Trials.
It was hard to refuse, for the plea that it was not mine but merely a charge confided to me, was looked upon as a pretext; outsiders calculating upon the quantity issued to my department and losing sight of the ownership of the quantity received.
Half a dozen convalescent men would lose their tasteless dinner daily at the steward’s table, and beg for “anything,” which would mean turkey and oysters. Others “had been up all night and craved a cup of coffee and a roll,” and as for diseases among commissioned and non-commissioned men, caused by entire destitution of whiskey, and only to be cured by it—their name was legion. Every pound of coffee, every ounce of whiskey, bushel of flour or vegetables duly weighed before delivery, was intended for its particular consumers; who, if they even could not eat or drink what was issued for them watched their property zealously, and claimed it too. So what had I to give away?
The Ishmaelite.
The necessity of refusing the live-long day, forced upon naturally generous tempers, makes them captious and uncivil, and under the pressure the soft answer cannot be evoked to turn away wrath. Demands would increase until they amounted to persecutions when the refusals became the rule instead of the exception, and the breach thus made grew wider day by day, until “my hand was against every man, and every man’s hand against me.”
Besides, there was little gratitude felt in a hospital, and certainly none expressed. The mass of patients were uneducated men, who had lived by the sweat of their brow, and gratitude is an exotic plant, reared in a refined atmosphere, kept free from coarse contact and nourished by unselfishness. Common natures look only with surprise at great sacrifices and cunningly avail themselves of the benefits they bestow, but give nothing in return,—not even the satisfaction of allowing the giver to feel that the care bestowed has been beneficial; that might entail compensation of some kind, and in their ignorance they fear the nature of the equivalent which might be demanded.
Mrs. Marthy Brown’s Son.