_THE VALETUDINARIAN._
"Some men employ their health, an ugly trick,
In making known how oft they have been sick;
And give us, in recitals of disease,
A doctor's trouble, but without his fees."
COWPER.
This is a talker who may very properly occupy a place in our sketches.
It may not be necessary to give a description of his person. And were it
necessary, it would be difficult, on account of the frequent changes to
which he is subject. It is not, however, with his bodily appearance that
we have to do. He cannot perhaps be held responsible for this
altogether. But the fault of his tongue is undoubtedly a habit of his
own formation, and may therefore be described, with a view to its
amendment and cure.
The Valetudinarian is a man subject to some affliction, imaginary or
real, or it may be both. Whatever may be its nature, it loses nothing by
neglect on his part, for he is its devoted nurse and friend. Night and
day, alone and in company, he is most faithful in his attentions. He
keeps a mental diary of his complaints in their changing symptoms, and
of his general experience in connection with them. Whenever you meet
him, you find him well informed in a knowledge of the numerous
variations of his "complicated, long-continued, and unknown
afflictions."
* * * * *
Mr. Round was a man who will serve as an illustration of this talker. He
was formerly a merchant in the city of London. During the period of his
business career he was remarkably active and diligent in the
accumulation of this world's goods. He was successful; and upon the
gains of his prosperous merchandise he retired into the country to live
on his "means." The sudden change from stirring city life into the
retirement and inactivity of a rural home soon began to affect his
health; and not being a man of much education and intelligence, his mind
brooded over himself, until he became nervous and, as he thought, feeble
and delicate. His nervousness failed not to do its duty in his
imagination and fancy; so that, with the two in active working, a
"combination of diseases" gradually took hold of him, and "told
seriously upon his constitution."
Mr. Round, having given up his business in the city, now had a business
with his afflictions in the country. He studied them thoroughly, in
their internal symptoms and external signs. He could have written a
volume of experience as to how he suffered in the head, the nerves, the
stomach, the liver, the lungs, the heart, etc.; how he suffered when
awake and when asleep; how he suffered from taking a particular kind of
food or drink; and how he did not suffer when he did not take a
particular kind of food and drink; how he thought he should have died a
thousand times, under certain circumstances which he would not name.
These things he could have pictured in a most affecting manner to his
reader. But it was not in writing that Mr. Round described his
multitudinous ailments. It was in _talking_. This to him was great
relief. A description of his case to any one who was patient enough to
hear him through did him more good than all the pills and mixtures sent
him by Doctor Green, his medical attendant. This habit of talking about
his sickness became as chronic as the sickness itself. He seemed to know
little of any other subject than the real and imaginary complaints of
his body; at least, he talked about little else. If in conversation he
happened to commence in the spirit, he soon entered into the flesh, and
there he ended. If by an effort of his hearer his attention was diverted
from himself, it would with all the quickness of an elastic bow rebound
to his favourite theme. Out of the sphere of his own "poor body," as he
used to call it, he was no more at home in conversation than a fish
wriggling on the sea-beach.
Mrs. Blunt invited a few friends to spend an evening at her house. The
company was composed mostly of young persons, in whom the flow of life
was strong and buoyant. The beginning of the evening passed off amid
much innocent enjoyment from conversation, singing, music, and reading.
In the midst of this social pleasure, who should make his appearance
but Mr. Round, accompanied by Mrs. Blunt? She introduced him to the
company, and to be polite, as he thought, he shook hands with every one
in the room. This performance took up the best part of half an hour, as
he gave each one a brief epitome of his imaginary disorders. As he was
speaking first to one and then another, the whole party might have heard
his melancholy voice giving an account of some particular item of his
affliction. One could hear the responses at intervals to his
statements,--"Oh"--"Ah"--"A pity you are so sick"--"Why, I never"--"Dear
me"--"Is it possible?"--"Why, how can you live so?"--"I wonder how you
survived that,"--coming from various parts of the room. Not only on
entering, but during his stay, he talked about his symptoms, his fears,
his hopes, his dangers, in respect to his "dreadful sickness."
Occasionally he would point to his eyes, observing "how sunken and
bedimmed!" then to his cheeks, saying "how pale and deathly they seem!"
Then again, he would call attention to the thinness of his hands and
arms, saying, "He was not near the man he used to be, and he feared he
never should be again. Although he was out that evening, he ought not to
have been, and he expected to suffer severely through the night for it.
If he had the health he once had, or the health of his friend next him,
there was nothing he would enjoy more than that evening; but now he was
past it. His doctor had been visiting him for years; but he didn't seem
to get any better, and he thought he should have to give him up, or
lose all the money he had. O dear! the room was too warm, he could not
breathe; that door must be opened; that singing distracted him; he loved
the piano once--now his nerves could not stand it. He thought it became
young people to be very serious and devout in the prospect of an
affliction which might be as melancholy as his was. But he could not
remain any longer; he was afraid of stopping out nights, and therefore
he must wish them good-bye and retire."
This was about the substance of all he said during his visit. He was
like an iceberg rolled into the genial temperature of the social
atmosphere. What did those young people care to know about his health,
excepting the usual compliments at such times? The room was not an
hospital, and the company a collection of inquiring, medical students.
He was no worse that evening than he had been months before. But as he
had not seen most of them until now he probably thought that would be an
interesting opportunity to entertain them with a full and particular
account of "his complicated and long-continued afflictions."
As soon as Mr. Round had gone from the room a general rallying was the
result.
"The bore is gone, the valetudinarian has made his exit," exclaimed
Master Thompson, rather excited.
"O how pleased I am that he has left!" said Miss Young.
"So am I," responded Mr. Baker, "for he is one of the greatest plagues
that ever came near me. He is enough to give one the horrors, in
hearing so much of his sick talk."
"He was not satisfied in simply telling us that he was not very well;
but he must enter into a long and tedious detail of all his sicknesses,"
observed Mr. Wales.
"Well, poor man, he is to be pitied, after all. He suffers a great deal
more in his imagination from his sickness than we have in reality by
hearing him tell of it," said Miss Swaithe, a little sympathetically.
"I don't know about that," said young Spencer.
"Is Round gone, then?" asked Mr. Burr, a young man who had left the room
soon after he came in, having been annoyed with his valetudinarian
twaddle.
"He's no more," answered Miss Glass, in a tone somewhat ironically
funereal.
"Why, he's not dead, is he?" inquired Mr. Burr, quickly. "I should not
be surprised if he were; for, judging from what he said, one would
expect him to die any moment."
"O no; he's not the one to die yet, be sure of that; but he's gone for
the night," said Miss Glass.
"Thank goodness for his departure: I do not mean to another world, but
from this company. Yet where would be the harm in wishing him in heaven,
where none shall ever say they are sick?" said Mr. Ferriday.
"I see no harm in wishing a good thing like that," said Miss Bond--"a
good thing for him and other people too."
"Don't be so unkind and unmerciful," said Mrs. Grant.
"I do not think I am so," replied Miss Bond, "for if he was in heaven,
he would be cured of all his diseases; and he says he never shall be in
this world. And then other people would be happily exempted from the
misery of listening to his invalid tales every time they met with him."
"How his wife does to live with him I cannot tell," remarked Miss Bond.
"I suppose she is used to him," said Mr. Burr.
"Come now, let us have no more talk about Mr. Round, or we shall be
catching some of his diseases," said Miss Crane.
Soon after the above talk had ceased, Mr. Burr took up a copy of
Cowper's poems which lay on the table. He opened on the subject of
"Conversation," and, in reading, came to the part which describes the
Valetudinarian. Having read it over to himself, he could not refrain
asking permission to read it aloud.
"Although we have dismissed the subject of Mr. Round," said Mr. Burr,
"yet, if the company have no objection, I would like to read from
Cowper's poems a short piece which I think will interest you, as being
descriptive of the Valetudinarian, who has been with us this evening."