FEBRUARY 197 



Max Miiller ventured to express his doubts, apologising 

 for differing from him on any physiological fact. ' It 

 is quite a mistake,' said Humboldt, ' though it is a very 

 widely spread one, to think that we want seven or eight 

 hours' sleep. When I was your age I simply lay down 

 on the sofa, turned down my lamp, and after two hours' 

 sleep was as fresh as ever.' 



Of all servants that I have known in my life, the 

 ones I have admired and respected most are the chil- 

 dren's nurses. The love and devotion they give to 

 children not their own is extraordinary. The highest 

 life which George Eliot could imagine for 'Romola,' 

 after the disappointment and failure of her own life, was 

 to attend and minister to the children of others. Nurses 

 will often refuse to leave children, even when it is for 

 their interest to do so, knowing all the same, quite well, 

 the time will come when the children will leave them, as 

 an animal leaves its mother when it no longer wants 

 her. I asked a nurse of this type once, when she was 

 getting old, why she had never married. 'O, m'um,' 

 she said, ' can't you guess ? I had passed my life in the 

 nursery amongst ladies and gentlemen ; my own class 

 who wished to marry me were distasteful to me, and I 

 was too proud for anything else.' This last half- 

 sentence, with its faint allusion to having once loved 

 someone above her, touched me supremely. Servants 

 must so often pass through a temptation of the kind 

 pride in those they love being such a great stimulus to 

 the affection and constancy of women. I think it is 

 very desirable that children should early come down- 

 stairs for their meals, and the nurse go to hers with the 

 other servants. She does not very often like this; but 

 it is for her good, and much more for her own happi- 

 ness, that she should not lose touch with her class and 

 isolate herself on a slightly raised position, which, from 



