the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi! Perhaps if the would-be
reformer would take a look frequently at those objects in his whilom
sick-room which so riveted his fevered attention, some of their old
association would return upon him, and do him good. The ancients
practiced the memory in this way. After a course of meanderings through
a garden, each object represented and recalled some piece of knowledge
which it was important the pupil should retain in his mind. "Few
persons," says Thomas a Kempis "are made better by the pain and languor
of sickness; as few great pilgrims become eminent saints." Here lies
your bachelor now. He has always felt that when he got sick he could get
his gruel stewed as well by the hired girl of his landlady, as the
French say, as by a wife. He lies up there, O, so in need of care and
kindness!