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The Two Invalids
by
We could not say nay to this. It was true, because unselfish, philosophy.
“Doesn’t that hammering annoy you?” we ask.
“What hammering?”
“In the new building over the way.”
She listens a moment, and then answers–
“Oh no. I did not remark it until you spoke. Such things never disturb me, for the reason that my mind is usually too much occupied to think of them. Though an invalid, and so weak that my hands are almost useless, I never let my thoughts lie idle. A mother, with three children, has enough to occupy her mind usefully–and useful thoughts, you know, are antidotes to brooding melancholy, and not unfrequently to bodily pain. If I were to give way to weaknesses–and I am not without temptations–I would soon be an unhappy, nervous, helpless creature, a burden to myself and all around me.”
“You need sympathy and strength from others,” we remark.
“And I receive it in full measure,” is instantly replied. “Not because I demand it. It comes, the heart-offering of true affection. Poorly would I repay my husband, children, and friends, for the thousand kindnesses I receive at their hands, by making home the gloomiest place on all the earth. Would it be any the brighter for me that I threw clouds over their spirits? Would they more truly sympathize with me, because I was for ever pouring complaints into their ears? Oh no. I try to make them forget that I suffer, and, in their forgetfulness, I often find a sweet oblivion. I love them all too well to wish them a moment’s sadness.”
What a beautiful glow was on her pale countenance as she thus spoke!
We turn from the home of this cheerful invalid with a lesson in our hearts not soon to be forgotten. Ill-health need not always bring gloom to our dwellings. Suffering need not always bend the thoughts painfully to self. The body may waste, the hands fall nerveless to the side, yet the heart retain its greenness, and the mind its power to bless.