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LIFE IS SWEET. 101 
" What," I asked a friend, who had been on a 
delicious country excursion, " did you see that 
best pleased you?" 
My friend has cultivated her love of moral more 
than her perception of physical beauty, and I was 
not surprised when, after replying, she went on to 
say, " My cousin took me to see a man who had 
been a clergyman in the Methodist connection. 
He had suffered from a nervous rheumatism, and 
from a complication of diseases, aggravated by 
ignorant drugging. Every muscle in his body, ex- 
cept those which move his eyes and tongue, is 
paralyzed. His body has become as rigid as iron. 
His limbs have lost the human form. He has not 
lain on a bed for seven years. He suffers acute 
pain. He has invented a chair which affords him 
some alleviation. His feelings are fresh and kind- 
ly, and his mind is unimpaired. He reads con- 
stantly. His book is fixed in a frame before 
him, and he manages to turn the leaves with an 
instrument which he moves with his tongue. 
He has an income of thirty dollars! This pit- 
tance, by the vigilant economy of his wife, and 
some aid from his kind rustic neighbors, bring the 
year round. His wife is the most gentle, patient, 
and devoted of loving nurses. She never has too 
much to do to do all well ; no wish or thought 
goes beyond the unvarying circle of her con- 
jugal duty. Her love is as abounding as his 
wants her cheerfulness as sure as the rising 
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