82 MORE POT-POURRI 



him to get there. When the day came that he had to 

 give in and remain at home to die, a young and healthy 

 man replaced him in the signal-box, which had in no way 

 been disinfected or whitewashed, and which, from its 

 construction, was a sun-trap and the best dust-and-germ- 

 producer that could be. A cattle-truck would have been 

 differently treated ! The young man caught the disease 

 .and died in a few months. 



I find in talking even to educated people a con- 

 siderable tone of resentment on this subject. ' What ! ' 

 they say, ' are our consumptives to be treated like lepers ? ' 

 The poetry that hung about consumption in the early 

 days of this sentimental century, its association with the 

 South, with Madeira's orange groves and the sunshine of 

 the Mediterranean, is now not easy to eradicate. The 

 modern cure is stern, rough, and unattractive, and it is 

 difficult at first to believe it to be the best for the hard, 

 hacking cough and hectic flush of the patients. 



The homeward journey from Germany was much 

 less pleasant than my journey out had been, in con- 

 sequence of the fatal date having come which decides 

 that German railway carriages shall be heated or, as 

 we English think, over-heated. This causes considerable 

 suffering to those who stupidly, like myself, forget that 

 an almost summer dress is required with plenty of wraps 

 to prevent any chill on leaving the carriage. We passed 

 Coblentz at early winter sunset-time, and I never saw 

 anything more beautiful than all the tones of blues and 

 pearly-grays under a sky spread with wave upon wave of 

 bright pink clouds. Not Turner himself could have come 

 near to the delicate yet brilliant effect. Skies are fleeting 

 enough, and the waves of rosy clouds quickly disappear, 

 but the despairing swiftness of an express train is the 

 quickest of all ; and in a moment Coblentz, with its towers, 

 its fortress, and its beautiful sunlit sky, was out of sight. 



