still it was grinding away as hard as millstones
could go. And oats, I believe, wear out the
material sooner than wheat. If I had not been
knocked out of the race, I could not voluntarily
have fallen out for a rest, until some time next
autumn. In this way busy men may be thankful
for an occasional illness, to save them from
themselves.

I wonder if I shall find many readers to
sympathise with me when I say that a
continuance of good health sets me speculating in
this manner—"What a long spell of health I
have had! Half the winter gone and I have not
caught cold—haven't had a cough, nor an attack
of indigestion for ever so long. Surely I shall
have something the matter with me soon." It
is almost like longing to be ill. But nothing
astonishes a weakly person, who has been
accustomed to illness, so much as an unusually
long period of good health. It is something he
did not expect; it is like a gift to him. Robust
persons who have never been accustomed to
physical suffering, will find it difficult to understand
this feeling. Their wonder is that they
should ever be ill at all. I have noticed that the
moral effect of illness upon the strong man is
the moral effect of health upon the weak man.
When a strong man is stricken down, he takes to
his prayers. But the time when the weak man's
thoughts are most elevated towards spiritual
things is when he is well. The latter is too
thankful to Heaven for its abundant mercies to
begin whining the moment he is laid upon a bed
of sickness. To my mind, that which induces a
spirit of thankfulness is the best chastener of
the heart. It is not a scourge, but a purifier.
I have no belief in the rod, either moral or
physical. When I am in health, and have the
full enjoyment of all my faculties, and when the
sun shines, and all nature is beautiful around
me, then I am good. I cannot say that my
heart is touched in the same way by affliction
and gloom. It is not then in a spiritual way
that I profit by illness, but simply because it
enables me to throw off my cares as I throw off my
clothes, and put my mind to rest with my body.

To descend to some common-place
particulars, in illustration of the pleasures of
illness, I will mention first of all the delight of
being able to think without a purpose. When
I am well, all my thinking must take a practical
direction. I have no time to indulge in loose
fancy. Whatever thoughts may enter my head
I must mould and shape them for use. I must
parcel them out, and pigeon-hole them. And
there is the involute process of thinking about
thoughts, overhauling the aforesaid mental
pigeon-holes to see that everything is ready to
hand, a process which is very wearing and
painful. But sitting here by the fireside, utterly
incapacitated, I give free rein to my fancy, and set
myself to think about nothing. And when you
don't try to think, what pleasant thoughts enter
your head unbidden! You may call upon the
divine Nine, or any other source of inspiration,
until you are hoarse, without bringing down the
pleasant fancy which pops upon you unasked
for, like a fairy's gift. You sit by the fire with
your feet among the cinders, staring vacantly
at the coals, and a vision of beauty reveals
itself in the flame. These are the pleasant
daydreams which the mind enjoys when it has an
opportunity of playing the idler.

Another pleasure of illness is found in the
opportunity which it affords you of reading
books. Busy men, in these days, cannot afford
time to read any but a very few of the best
books. And perhaps no class has so little time
for reading of a fanciful kind as the literary class.
An author or a journalist is obliged to confine
himself to works of the highest fame. He has
just time enough, and barely, to make himself
acquainted with the thoughts and feelings of the
dii majores. The minores he must neglect
altogether, until he is introduced to them by the
leisure which is enforced by illness. What a
deal of pleasant and profitable reading of this
kind I got through during that month when I
was laid up with rheumatism! At such times,
too, one has leisure and inclination for old
favourites, for Homer and Horace, Aristophanes
and Terence, Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy.
One cannot make up his mind to read good
books when his head is full of business, or when
he is in a hurry. I would not insult a favourite
author of mine by reading him on the top
of an omnibus or in a railway train. I give
him all the honours of a cleanly swept hearth
and a newly trimmed lamp. I wash my hands,
I anoint my head, I put my mind in full dress,
and then I am ready to receive him. But it is
only when I am ill that I can render him full
honour in this respect.

Not the least of my pleasures of illness is
derived from the daily visits of the doctor. It is
not every one, I know, who delights to have the
doctor in the house; but I do. My doctor and
I are peculiarly situated towards each other.
We are on visiting terms, we belong to the same
club, we go out on the spree together—very
mild sprees; a visit to the theatre now and then,
a pic-nic in the summer, an occasional Covent
Garden supper, with harmony—we move in the
same set, and know each other's tastes and habits
intimately. My doctor knows that I believe
very little in physic, and he wisely abstains from
taxing the little faith I have in that regard.
Besides, he is one of those sensible fellows
who have great confidence in the virtues of
juicy mutton and generous wine. When I call
him in to prescribe for my cold, which I feel
assured is going to lay me up for a week or
two, does he order me physic and slops? No;
he says, "Drink two glasses of sherry at once,
have a good nourishing dinner, and go to bed
early; meantime I'll send you something; but
keep yourself warm, and take plenty of nourishment."
And then we drop the professional
subject, and talk about the last new book, or
the last new play, until I quite forget that I
am a patient, and he quite forgets that he is
my medical adviser—for at parting he merely
alludes to my malady with a "by-the-by."

As regards physic there is a tacit understanding