Life in the Sick-Room; Essays by an Invalid (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844 edition. Excerpt: ... the real moral life of society, I perceive that, till death satisfies us in regard to a local heaven, we may well be satisfied with that which lies all round about us--not mute, while tender and pitying voices speak to us; nor wholly unseen, while tearful or kindling eyes meet our own. Thus, in some few of its leading aspects, does Life appear to the invalid. 104 DEATH TO THE INVALID. " To smell a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body: no less are the thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul." Fuller. " And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams, Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep. Henby Vaughan. What subject is so interesting to the full of life as that of death? What taste is so universal in childhood and youth as that for learning all that can be known of the thoughts and feelings of the dying? Did we not all, in our young days, turn to the death part in all biographies; to the death articles in all cyclopaedias; to the discourses on sickness and death in all sermon books; to the prayers in the prospect of death in all books of devotion? Do not the most common-place writers of fiction crowd their novels with death scenes, and indifferent tragedy writers kill off almost all their characters? Do not people crowd to executions; and do not those who stay at home learn all they can of the last words and demeanour of the sufferers? Are not the visions of heroic children, (and of many grown children), chiefly about pain and a noble departure? Is there any curiosity more lively than that which we all feel about the revelations of persons resuscitated from drowning? Is it not their nearer position to death which makes sick persons so awful to children who are not...