1832 -37. KINDNESS TO PATIENTS. 37 



iVoin the hospital, he was brought home triumphantly as a guest 

 for the night, and next day left with the good wishes of the 

 household. In token of gratitude came a letter from the sailor's 

 sister, in Christ Church, Isle of Wight, addressing the boy in 

 jacket as " Honoured Sir," much to his amusement. A beau- 

 tiful letter it was. The wanderer had been followed everywhere 

 by the prayers of his mother and sister, and now he was restored 

 to them in peace and safety. 



Like trees which yield an acrid poison when slightly pierced, 

 but contain for those who penetrate to their core a sweet and 

 refreshing juice, so must suffering be met without shrinking, 

 and its inner chambers entered for the relief of the sufferer, if 

 we are to obtain the blessing of the merciful, as did this 

 " Honoured Sir," by the instincts of a kindly heart and healthy 

 moral nature. The shock, however, of his first experience of 

 the operating theatre was sufficient to make him shrink from a 

 speedy repetition of such scenes. In a joint family epistle of 

 October 20th, 1832, Daniel says : " Two other operations have 

 been performed at the Infirmary, but George did not see either ;" 

 while Mary remarks, " sometimes when George comes in and 

 tells me that he has been preparing 12lbs. senna, etc., I ask him 

 if he never feels sick. On the contrary, he says ' he is hungrier 

 than before.' " Thus did the brave little heart bear its first hand- 

 to-hand fight with the foes of this sin-cursed world. 



His kindness to the sailor may be taken as a specimen of the 

 liberality that constantly emptied his own purse and lightened 

 those of his friends. An outer coat with large pockets caused 

 much amusement to all who knew the varied nature of its con- 

 tents from day to day, while it made them wonder little that 

 the nurses, with whom he was a favourite, declared " they never 

 saw sic a laddie." His brother Daniel recalls an incident of 

 those days thus : " I specially remember one poor Pole, lan- 

 koski, an old lancer of Napoleon's Eussian Legion, who could 

 not speak a word of English. George cheered his slow conva- 

 lescence by talking to him in French ; and at length, when the 

 gaunt fever- stricken patient was sufficiently recovered to move 

 about a little, the delightful news was brought to him that a 

 Polish countryman lay in one of the beds of a neighbouring 



