The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-08

with scathing, though somewhat irrele-
want, attack upon husbands, as a class;
| the sporting editor signing himself Work
ing Man. and garnishing his contribu-
ton with painfully elaborated orthograph-
icai iapses. arranged TO give an air of
| verlsImilitude to the correspondence.
while, at the same time, not To offend
! the susceptlbiiities of the democracy
iron which the paper derived its
chief supportl, had replied, indicating the
British father, and giving what purported
TO be stirring midnight experiences of his
own. The gallery man. calling himself
with burst of imagination Gentleman and
Christian. wrote Indignantly that he con-
! sidered the CITATION OF the SUBJECT 10 De
| both imp:ous and indicate and added he
was surprised that a paper holding the ex-
attec and deservedly popular position of
The - should have opened It's columns
| TO the nralnless vaporings of Mother OF
| SIX and Working Man
| The topic had, however. fallen Hat.
| With the exception of one man who had
| invented a new feeding bottle. and thought
| he vas going TO advertise il for nothing,
the outside public did net respond. and
| over the editorial department gloom had
| sett ed down.
| "One evening, as two or three of US were
| incoming about the stairs, praying secretly
| for war or a famine Todhunter, the town
| reporter, rushed past US with cheer and
| burst into the sUb-editor's room. We fol-
| lowed. He was waving his notebook above
his head, and clamoring, after the manner
Of people in French exercises, for pens, ink
"'What's up?' cried the sub-editor.
catching his enthusiasm; influenza again p
BETTER than that = shouted Todhunter
Excursion steamer run down, hundred
| and twenty-five lives lost-four good col
| umns OF heartrending scenes
| by Jovep said the SUB. couldn't have
| happened at better time either'-and
then he sat down and dashed off leader
cite, in which he dwelt upon the pain and
regret the paper felt at having TO announce
the disaster, and drew attention to the ex-
| ceptlonaliy narrowing account provided
by the energy and talent OF our special
| reporter.
| 1T is the law of nature" said Jephson;
I'VE are not the first party of young philos-
ophers who have been struck with the fact
that one mans misfortune is another
mans opportunity"
| Occasionally, another woman's,"I OBJ
| served.
was thinking of an incident told me
| by nurse. II a nurse in fair practice
does not know more about human ma
| ture-dOes not see clearer into the souls of
men and women than all the novelists in
little Bookland put together-it must be
because she is physically blind and deaf.
| All the wo-ld's stage. and all the men and
| women merely players; so long as We are in
| good health We play our parts out bravely
| to the end, acting them, on the whole, ar
| tIsticaliy and with sIrenuousness, even to
the extent of sometimes fancying ourselves
the people We are pretending to be. But
| with sickness comes forgetfulness of our
| part, and carelessness of the impression We
| are making upon the audience. We are
| too weak to put the paint and powder on
| our faces, the stage tinery lies UNDECIDED
| by our side. The heroic gestures, the vir-
tuOus sentiments are WEAKNESS to US. In
| the quiet, darkened room, where the foot
lights of the great stage no longer glare
upon US, where our ears are no longer
| strained to catch the clapping or the hiss
ing OF the town, we are, tor brief space,
ourselves.
This nurse was q quiet, demure little
woman. with pair of dreamy, soft gray
eyes that had curious power of absorb
ing everything that passed before them
without seeming to look at anything.
Gazing upon much life laid bare had given
to them slightly cynical expression, but
there was background OF kindliness be-
hind.
During the evenings of my GONZALES
cence she would talk to me of her nursing
experiences. l have sometimes thought l
would put down in writing the stories that
she had told me, but they would be sad
reading. The majority of them, l fear,
of human nature. and God knows there is
little need for US to point that out to each
other, though so many nowadays seem
to think it the only work worth doing. A
few OF them were sweet, but / think they
were the saddest, and over one or two a
man might laugh, but it would not be
pleasant laugh.
II never enter the door of house to
which l have been summoned" she said
to me one evening, without wondering,
as l step over the threshold, what the
story is going to be. l always feel inside
sick room as if l were behind the scenes
of lite. The people come and go about
you, and you listen to them talking and
laughing, and you look into your patients
eyes, and you just know that it's all
play"
The incident that Jephson's remark had
noon. as sat propped up by the fire, try
ing TO drink glas. of port wine. and feel
ing somewhat depressed at discovering I
did not like it.
'One of my first cases." she said, twas
a surgical operation. / was very young at
the time. and made rather an awkward
mlstake-not professional mistake, l
don't mean-but a mistake of another
kind that l ought to have had more sense
than to make.
'My patient was a good-looking,
pleasant-spoken gentleman. They were
WSiI-to-dO pSOplc ilSlliS III oOutQ
ton. The wife WAS a pretty, dark little
woman, but l never liked her from the
first; she was one OF those perfectly proper,
frigid sort of women, who ALWAYS give me
the idea that they were born in a church.
and have never got over the chill. How
ever, she seemed very fond of him, and he
of her: and they talked very prettily to
each other-tOo prettily TO be quite
genuine, l should have said. if I'd known
as much then as do now. but it did me
good to hear them at the time.
THE operation was difficult and dan
gerous one. When he woke up he was, as
the doctor told me he would be, highly
delirious. kept him as quiet as could.
but toward evening, as the delirium
only increased, began to get anxious.
/ bent down close to him and
listened to his rawlings. Over and over
again, l heard the name Louise WHY
wouldn't Louise come to him? 1t was
SO unkind of her-they had dug a great
pit and were pushing him down into it
oh why didn't she come and save him?
He should be saved if she would only
come and take his hand.
His cries became so pitiful that
could bear them no longer. His wife had
gone 10 attend prayer meeting, but the
church was only in the next street. I
called IN one OF the maids to watch him
for minute, and slipping on my bonnet
ran across. / told my errand to one
of the vergers, and be took me TO her. She
was kneeiing, but | could not vait