Talkers Part 10

Close your ears to his slanders whenever and wherever you meet him.

"Lend not your ears," says an old writer, "to those who go about with tales and whispers; whose idle business it is to tell news of this man and the other: for if these kind of flies can but blow in your ears, the worms will certainly creep out at your mouth. For all discourse is kept up by exchange; and if he bring thee one story, thou wilt think it incivility not to repay him with another for it; and so they chat over the whole neighbourhood; accuse this man, and condemn another, and suspect a third, and speak evil of all."

XII.

_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 ill.u.s.tration 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 acc.u.mulation 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 const.i.tution."

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 circ.u.mstances 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 mult.i.tudinous 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 pa.s.sed 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 Gla.s.s, 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 Gla.s.s.

"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."

General consent being given, Mr. Burr read as follows:--

"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 troubles, but without his fees; Relate how many weeks they kept their bed, How an emetic or cathartic sped; Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot, Nose, ears, and eyes, seem present on the spot.

Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, Victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill; And now--alas for unforeseen mishaps!-- They put on a damp nightcap and relapse; They thought they must have died, they were so bad; Their peevish hearers almost wish they had."

"That's capital," cried out Mr. Strong.

"It is Mr. Round's character to a tick," said Mrs. Blunt, who was better acquainted with him than any one else in the room.

"It seems to me," said Miss Young, "that Cowper must have had Round before him when he wrote those lines."

"Cowper is a splendid poet," observed young Brown, who was rather pedantic; "he is my favourite among the poets. I have been accustomed to read him from my boyhood. I always admire his description of character.

Who but a Cowper could have written that admirable extract just given to us by Mr. Burr, and which was read with such elegance?"

"Come," said Mr. Burr, "give us a tune on the piano, Miss Armstrong."

The company again left the Valetudinarian for their social enjoyments; and not long after left Mrs. Blunt's for their respective homes.

XIII.