HIXTS FOR THE SICK-ROOM. 173 



horizontally, lie observed to be ragged, composed of fragments one 

 below the other, sometimes reaching near the earth. These he re- 

 garded as so many stepping-stones which assist in conducting the 

 stroke of the cloud. To represent these by experiment, he took two 

 or three locks of fine loose cotton, tied them in a row, and hung 

 them from his prime conductor. When this was excited, the locks 

 stretched downward toward the earth; but, by presenting a sharp 

 point erect under the lowest bunch of cotton, it shrunk upward to 

 that above it, nor did the shrinking cease till all the locks had 

 retreated to the prime conductor itself. "May not," says Franklin, 

 " the small electrified clouds, whose equilibrium with the earth is so 

 soon restored by the point, rise up to the main body, and by that 

 means occasion so large a vacancy that the grand cloud cannot strike 

 in that place ? " 



-+*+- 



HIXTS FOE THE SICK-ROOM. 



WHEN" a woman thinks of making deliberate choice of the pro- 

 fession of a sick-nurse, she can, of course, take into careful 

 consideration if her character and temperament are or are not suited 

 for so arduous and trying an avocation. If she is a person of excit- 

 able nature, and possessed of but little self-control, she can be wisely 

 counseled to give up the idea of a life for which she is so thoroughly 

 unfit ; but no peculiarities of character or temperament can exempt a 

 woman from being called upon by the plain voice of duty, at one time 

 or other of her life, to take her stand by the bedside of one dear to 

 her, and soothe as best she may many a weary hour of restlessness 

 and pain. 



Very few, indeed, are the women who escape this rule most have 

 to take upon themselves the burden of attendance in a sick-room 

 and perhaps there are few subjects upon which the generality of 

 women are so well-intentioned, and yet so ignorant. With the very 

 best and kindest meaning in the world, attention bestowed upon a 

 suffering person may be productive of more discomfort than comfort 

 to the patient, and endless annoyance to the physician, just because 

 the zealous, but alas ! untrained and undisciplined volunteer does 

 everything the wrong way. 



Again, from a mistaken and unreal idea of true delicacy and re- 

 finement, many women shrink from ever seeing or learning anything 

 about suffering or sorrow ; and so, when the inevitable fate brings 

 the sights and sounds of pain, the dreadful realities of death, cruelly 

 home to them, they are paralyzed by terror, and useless, nay, worse 

 than useless to those most dear to them. Even as I write, sad in- 

 stances rise before my mind of a lack of moral courage, an utter im- 



