Life in the Sick-room: Essays |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
amidst appears become inured believe blessing bodily body cause cheerful chest of drawers clear comfort complacency conceive condition consolation death disease distress divine doubt duty ease emotions empiricism ence endure enjoy epistolary evanescent evil experience eyes familiar fear feel friends Göthe habit happy heart heaven heavenly hope hour human illness interests inuring process invalid irritability James Walker kind less letters liability light live longest day look matter mind misery moral natural ness never night objects observe one's opinion ourselves passing pathy perhaps persons pity pleasure power of ideas present privilege quackeries regard rest rience scene scrupulosity season sense seraph severe pain sick prisoner sick-room singu smile society solace soul speak speculative spirit strong suffering sweet sympathy tacle telescope temper things thought tion true trust truth watch Water-Cure weakness wise wonder words
Popular passages
Page 109 - He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know At first sight if the bird be flown ; But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown. And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.
Page 127 - Fiery? the fiery duke? — Tell the hot duke, that— No, but not yet; — may be, he is not well. Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound ; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppressed, commands th"e mind To suffer with the body.
Page 59 - More servants wait on man Than he'll take notice of, in every path He treads down that which doth befriend him, When sickness makes him pale and wan. Oh mighty love ! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him.
Page x - Thou must endure, yet loving all the while, Above, yet never separate from, thy kind, — Meet every frailty with the gentlest smile, Though to no possible depth of evil blind. " This is the riddle thou hast life to solve ; But in the task thou shalt not work alone ; For, while the worlds about the sun revolve, God's heart and mind are ever with his own.
Page 33 - True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both.
Page 63 - ... away amidst his chat, till the wife appears, with a shawl over her cap, to see what can detain him so long ; and the daughter follows, with her gown turned over head (for it is now chill evening), and at last the sociable horseman finds he must be going, looks at his watch, and, with a gesture of surprise, turns his steed down a steep broken way to the beach, and canters home over the sands, left hard and wet by the ebbing tide, the white horse making his progress visible to me through the dusk.
Page 167 - Him whose thoughts and ways are not as ours, — but whose tenderness Then how we burst in, and take up the word ! What have we not to say from the abundance of our hearts, — of that benignity, — that transcendent wisdom, — our willingness, — our eagerness, — our sweet security, — • till we are silenced by our unutterable joy ?
Page 25 - All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus ; There is no virtue like necessity.
Page 63 - I know every 8tack of the one on the heights. Against the sky I see the stacking of corn and hay in the season, and can detect the slicing away of the provender, with an accurate eye, at the distance of several miles.
Page 157 - ... or that of others, we can do the work to which all this is only subsidiary, — we can cherish a sweet and holy temper, — we can vindicate the supremacy of mind over body, — we can, in defiance of our liabilities, minister pleasure and hope to the gayest who come prepared to receive pain from the spectacle of our pain; we can, here as well as in heaven's courts hereafter, reveal the angel growing into its immortal aspect, which is the highest achievement we could propose to ourselves, or...