The mistresses of houses, who cannot even go over their own house once a day, are incapable of judging for these women.  For they are incapable themselves, to all appearance, of the spirit of arrangement (no small task) necessary for managing a large ward or dairy.

[26]

[Sidenote:  Nurses often do not think the sick room any business of theirs, but only the sick.]

I once told a “very good nurse” that the way in which her patient’s room was kept was quite enough to account for his sleeplessness; and she answered quite good-humouredly she was not at all surprised at it—­as if the state of the room were, like the state of the weather, entirely out of her power.  Now in what sense was this woman to be called a “nurse?”

[27] For the same reason if, after washing a patient, you must put the same night-dress on him again, always give it a preliminary warm at the fire.  The night-gown he has worn must be, to a certain extent, damp.  It has now got cold from having been off him for a few minutes.  The fire will dry and at the same time air it.  This is much more important than with clean things.

[28]

[Sidenote:  How a room is dusted.]

If you like to clean your furniture by laying out your clean clothes upon your dirty chairs or sofa, this is one way certainly of doing it.  Having witnessed the morning process called “tidying the room,” for many years, and with ever-increasing astonishment, I can describe what it is.  From the chairs, tables, or sofa, upon which the “things” have lain during the night, and which are therefore comparatively clean from dust or blacks, the poor “things” having “caught” it, they are removed to other chairs, tables, sofas, upon which you could write your name with your finger in the dust or blacks.  The other side of the “things” is therefore now evenly dirtied or dusted.  The housemaid then flaps every thing, or some things, not out of her reach, with a thing called a duster—­the dust flies up, then re-settles more equally than it lay before the operation.  The room has now been “put to rights.”

[29]

[Sidenote:  Atmosphere in painted and papered rooms quite distinguishable.]

I am sure that a person who has accustomed her senses to compare atmospheres proper and improper, for the sick and for children, could tell, blindfold, the difference of the air in old painted and in old papered rooms, coeteris paribus.  The latter will always be musty, even with all the windows open.

[30]

[Sidenote:  How to keep your wall clean at the expense of your clothes.]

If you like to wipe your dirty door, or some portion of your dirty wall, by hanging up your clean gown or shawl against it on a peg, this is one way certainly, and the most usual way, and generally the only way of cleaning either door or wall in a bed-room!

[31]

[Sidenote:  Absurd statistical comparisons made in common conversation by the most sensible people for the benefit of the sick.]