I have dwelt so long on this part of my subject, because I think it very
probable that, with your warm affections, and before your selfishness
has been hardened by habits of self-indulgence, you might some time or
other fall into the error I have been describing. In the ardour of your
anxiety for some beloved relative, you may be induced to persevere in
such close attendance on the sick-bed as may seriously injure your own
health, and unfit you for more useful, and certainly more self-denying
exertion afterwards. How much easier is it to spend days and nights by
the sick-bed of one from whom we are in hourly dread of a final
separation, whose helpless and suffering state excites the strongest
feelings of compassion and anxiety, than to sit by the sofa, or walk by
the side, of the same invalid when she has regained just sufficient
strength to experience discomfort in every thing;--when she never finds
her sofa arranged or placed to her satisfaction; is never pleased with
the carriage, or the drive, or the walk you have chosen; is never
interested in the book or the conversation with which you anxiously and
laboriously try to amuse her.
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