Our girls have withheld from her air, food, exercise--the three great
factors of her powers--and have given for them miserable substitutes.
Though kind, she cannot be put off with excuses. She is inexorable, and
the same results will follow our neglect of her laws, whether it be due
to a want of acquaintance with them or want of attention. It is as much,
if not more, from these causes, then, that our girl has become ill than
from the supposed overwork. Overwork might have been the immediate
cause; that is to say, her collapse might have followed upon a little
extra pressure or hurry of work; but the real cause will be found to lie
in that steady neglect of the primary laws of health to which we have
alluded, and upon which too much emphasis cannot be laid. Had it not
been so, the fatigue engendered by an extra hour's work would have been
set right by a good night's rest.
And when our girl is ill, her recovery will depend upon the degree to
which she is enabled to meet the demands of Nature. If she can have
plenty of rest, peace of mind, fresh air, light, digestible, and
nourishing food, sunshine, and genial surroundings, she will soon be
herself again. But if our brave worker has not these indispensables, or
has them in a chance, get-me-if-you-can sort of way, then she lingers
on, and often rises from her couch but half cured, and plunges on again
under the old conditions, until something occurs which some persons call
"a chance," some by another name, which mercifully changes the current
of her life for a while, or perhaps for a permanency.
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