One of the first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh and eat immensely, and fly through the halls asking if one couldn't take a bit of stuffed veal. And while one still sinks lower, failing down to the verge of the grave, it is only to hear of the most cherished friends in another town leading the whirl with tableaux and private theatricals. Finally is realized the dire denouément, that, though one lay with breath flickering away, the daily grocer would come driving up without any velvet on his wheels or any softness in his voice, and that the whole routine of affairs is to proceed, whoever goes or stays. This cold-heartedness it seems will kill one at any rate. Rather the universe should sigh and be darkened. To pass unheeded is worse than to die. Just now it is impossible to compass even the satirical mood of Pope, who declared himself not at all uneasy that many men for whom he never had any esteem were likely to enjoy the world after him. But before one has time to die, the absent friends write such a kind, sorry letter, in which they do not say anything about private theatricals, and, as Thad Stevens said of that speech, one knows of course that it was all a hoax! Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over the face, creeping down to the street with what steadiness can be summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil never comes up; underneath there is some one forty years old and an invalid. Having thus moved against the enemy's works, it is best to retire upon what spirit there is left. It is after this sally that, when the landlady hears a hammering of a Sunday, she comes directly to the room of this robust person, who is obliged to confess that, even if so inclined, she has not strength enough to break the Sabbath.
But the anxiety of every one to show some friendliness to a sufferer is only equalled by the usual inability. We all read of that Union soldier in the hospital visited by an elderly woman bound to do something when there was nothing to be done, and who finally succeeded in bathing the patient's face, while he, poor fellow, still struggling in the folds of the towel, was heard to exclaim, "That's the fourteenth time I've had my face washed to-day!"
Far more unobtrusive is the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen, sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies in process of being devoured by the most rubicund people in the house. But it matters not; it is the sending and getting that are the dainties. Amid all these niceties, however, the office of nurse might certainly be made a sinecure; and just at this point her labors are really quite arduous; for any invalid blessed with many favoring friends soon would sink under the care of crockery and baskets to be properly delivered, while to attend to the accompanying napkins is little less than to preside over a small laundry. And then, as every one tastefully sends her choicest wares to enhance their contents, the invalid also finds that she is the keeper of all the best dishes of the best families.
There is nothing like a well-fought resistance in the early stages of invalidism. Keep up the will, and if need be the temper. There are times when to grow heavenly is fatal,—when one is to let the soul run loose, and to gather up the gritty determination of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who, when told that she must be blistered or die, exclaimed, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die!" Indeed, it is often necessary to reverse the decision of the doctor who gives one up, and simply end by giving him up. The numbers are untold who have died solely from being given up,—I do not mean of the doctors. Poor, timid mortals! they only heard the words, and meekly folded their hands and went. On the other side, there is no end to the people who have been given up all through their lives, and who have utterly refused to depart. They have a kind of useless toughness which prevents them from dying, without endowing them to live. These animated relics often show no special fitness for either world, and they are not even ornamental.
I have somewhere seen the invalid enjoined to talk as if well, but treat himself as if ill. And to certain temperaments a little of this diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,—they who accost one in the street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be out,—they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one walked the world on water-gruel,—they who come to try to make you comfortable while you do live. All these are very kind, but to a sanguine person they are crushing.
We are all aware that there is no surer way to produce a given state of mind or body, than to constantly address the victim as if he were in that state. It is a familiar fact that a stout yeoman once went home pale and discomfited from a little conspiracy of several wags remarking how very ill he looked; and that another, who was blindfolded, having water poured over his arm as if being bled, finally died from loss of blood without losing a drop; and Sir Humphrey Davy mentions one wishing to take nitrous oxide gas, to whom common atmospheric air was given, with the result of syncope. And if the well can be thus wrought on, what can be expected of the weak? This habit of depressing remark comes possibly from the feeling that invalids like to magnify their woes, ailments being regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True, there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely to be held as though alive when he is dying."
Likewise the friendliness which keeps reminding one of the fatal end serves none. It is both impolitic and impolite; as if there were an unsightly mole upon the face, and every visitor remarked, as he entered, "Ah, I see you still have that ugly mole!" With all these comforters it is finally better to do without their devotions than to be subjected to their discouragements. How much Pope resented this rude style of criticism may be seen from his tart exclamation, "They all say 't is pity I am so sickly, and I think 't is pity they are so healthy."
Yet that incurable sufferer, Harriet Martineau, testifies that when a friend said to her, with the face of an angel, "Why should we be bent upon your being better, and make up a bright prospect for you? I see no brightness in it; and the time seems past for expecting you ever to be well,"—her spirits rose at once with the sturdy recognition of the truth. And Dr. Henry, with the same directness, wrote to his friend, "Come out to me next week; I have got something important to do,—I have got to die."
This must surely be called the heroic treatment; but for those who are not equal to such, it is good to have a physician of tact, who shall not doom them regularly every day. Plato said that physicians were the only men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the vanity and falsity of their promises. And yet one is not usually deceived by this flattery; but it is vastly more comfortable to hear pleasant things instead of gloomy, and the sick would rather prefer a dance to a dirge. Of this amiable sort must have been the attendant who caused Pope to say, "Ah, my dear friend, I am dying every day of a hundred good symptoms"; and still more charming the adviser chosen by Molière, who, when asked by Louis XIV., himself a slave to medicine, what he did about a doctor, said, "O sire, when I am ill, I send for him. He comes; we have a chat and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes; I don't take it,—I am cured."
Perhaps few are aware of the various heroisms of the chronic patient. It must have been prophetic that the Mexicans of olden time thus saluted their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure, suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage, cried out for the fatal axe to be carried by his side.