TEE LITTLE EEALTE OF LADIES. 



355 



If any one should deny this, you may at once 

 conclude either that his mental powers are of a 

 considerably higher order than those of Newton 

 (who attributed all his success to close and pa- 

 tient study), or, what is intrinsically at least some- 

 what more probable, that he has not yet traversed 

 the true path himself. But it would be a mere 

 exercise of unprofitable casuistry to inquire which 

 is the less untrustworthy guide, he who affirms 

 that the whole road is easy, or he who is contin- 



ually pointing out fancied difficulties. Here, as 

 in everything to which the human mind or 

 hand can be applied, nothing of value is to 

 be gained without effort; and all that your 

 teacher can possibly do for you is to endeavor, so 

 far as in hira lies, to make sure that your individ- 

 ual efforts shall be properly directed, and that as 

 little energy as possible shall be wasted by any 

 of you in a necessarily unprofitable direction. — 

 Contemporary Review. 



THE LITTLE HEALTH OF LADIES. 1 



By FRANCES POWER COBBE. 



IN the following pages I propose to speak, not 

 of any definite form of disease, but of that 

 condition of petite sante, valetudinarianism, and 

 general readiness to break down under pressure, 

 wherein a sadly large proportion of women of 

 the higher classes pass their years. It is un- 

 necessary, I think, to adduce any evidence of the 

 prevalence of this semi-invalidism among ladies 

 in England, or its still greater frequency abroad, 

 and (emphatically) in America. In a very mod- 

 erate circle of acquaintance, every one knows a 

 score of cases of it, of that confirmed kind which 

 has scarcely any analogue in the physical condi- 

 tion of men. If we take a state of perfect sound- 

 ness to be represented by 100, the health of few 

 ladies will be found to rise above 80 or 90 — that 

 of the majority will be, I fear, about 75 — and a 

 large contingent, with which we are now specially 

 concerned, about 50 or 60. In short, the health 

 of women of the upper class is, I think, unques- 

 tionably far below par. Whatever light their 

 burners were calculated to shed on the world, the 

 gas is half turned down, and cannot afford any- 

 thing beyond a feeble glimmer. 



Of the wide-extending wretchedness entailed 

 by this petite sante of ladies it would be easy to 

 speak for hours. There are the husbands whose 

 homes are made miserable by unsettled habits, 

 irregular hours, a cheerless and depressed, or 

 else, perhaps, an hysterically excitable or peevish 

 companion ; the maximum of expenditure in their 

 households, with the minimum of enjoyment. I 



1 To avoid misapprehension, it may be well to say 

 that this word is here used in its older seuse of the 

 " Loaf-givers." The ill-health of women who are loaf- 

 winners ia, alas I another and still more sorrowful 

 subject. 



think men, in such cases, are most sincerely to 

 be pitied, and I earnestly wish that the moans 

 which they, and also their mothers and sisters, 

 not unnaturally spend over their hard lot, could 

 be turned into short, sharp words, resolutely pro- 

 viding that their daughters should not adopt the 

 unhealthful habits and fall into the same miser- 

 able state, perpetuating the evil from generation 

 to generation. 



As to the poor children of a feeble mother, 

 their case is even worse than that of the husband, 

 as any one may judge who sees how delightful 

 and blessed a thing it is for a mother to be the 

 real, cheerful, energetic companion of her sons 

 and daughters. Not only is all this lost, but the 

 presence of a nervous, exigeante invalid in the 

 dwelling-room of the family is a perpetual damper 

 on the healthful spirits of the children ; and, in 

 the case of the girls, the mother's demands on 

 their attention (if she be not a miracle of un- 

 selfishness) often break up their whole time for 

 study into fragments too small to be of practical 

 use. The desultoriness of a home wherein the 

 mistress spends half the day in bed is ruinous to 

 the young, unless a most unusual degree of care 

 be taken to secure them from its ill effects. 



Pitiable, however, as are the conditions of the 

 husband and children of the Lady of Little Health, 

 her own lot — if she be not a mere malingerer — is 

 surely still more deserving of sympathy. She 

 loses, to begin with, all the keen happiness of 

 health, the inexplicable, indefinable bien-etre of 

 natural vigor — 



" the joy of morning's active zeal, 

 The calm delight, blessing and West, 

 To sink at night to dreamless rest." 



