Rest! Ah, what a delicious word to the sick and wearied man. Rest in mind and body! How unsatisfactory appear the gaudy pictures of the dreamer of Patmos compared with the simple words of the Master, "I will give you rest." I can hardly say why I selected Hampton for rest. I knew nobody here, and had never been here. But somehow I had taken up the impression that it was one of those old East Virginia towns that had been blown ashore by the tempest of civil war and lay stranded on the beach of the briny ocean of life. And that was the sort of place that quiet was to be found in. My first night was a happy confirmation of my choice. Standing on the wharf at which lay a little steamer, the scene was beautiful. The new moon hung in the west and cast its glittering line over the water for miles and miles away. Thick in the little harbor lay the slender masts of vessels with steady lights glowing in their rigging. Across the narrow bay stood the Normal School with its three stories brightly lighted, and further away was the gigantic Soldiers' Home with a thousand lights burning. To the east was the long bridge across Hampton creek, with every few minutes a lighted omnibus or a pair of carnage lamps going leisurely across. Further yet was a railroad train lighted and flying across the trestle bridge. At the opening of the little bay were fisher boats, coming in with all sail spread, the loud laughter and chaffing of the men easily heard at this distance. Turning inland, you see a broad street, with shade trees on each side casting dark shadows. The lights twinkle its whole length and at one point there is a bright spot—a pretty, white hotel with a treble deck of verandahs. That is my home for many days to come and there I am to be at rest. The call of the bugle sounds on the night air; it is the "taps" at the Soldiers' Home; the salt water is beating with lazy monotone against the shore; the fisherman have tied up their boats; the last omnibus has crossed the bridge; the young moon is getting to her bed and I turn my face toward the long street and the bright hotel. A man of high-toned and poetic mind would here insert something about his thoughts turning to his mountain home. Alas! mine are turned with eager curiosity to what my breakfast tomorrow would be, reflecting as I do that I am now in the land, or rather water, of oysters, soft crabs and fish. After all, of what common clay we are made!

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The redeeming feature of ill-health, to me, has been that for the last few months I have been thrown with many invalids and enjoyed their confidence to the fullest, (and sometimes the most, to some extent). There seems to be a sort of free-masonry among sick people by which they at once become friendly and familiar. There is, also, if you only knew it, an aristocracy of ill-health; that is, a man with two complaints stands much higher with his fellow invalids than a man with one; and a man who has been sick for five years stands immeasurably higher than a mere cadet who has not been sick six months. Having only a two years' standing, I was forced to bear the contempt which I received from chronic cases, but I repaid it with interest on some evidently shoddy invalids, who were trying to work their way into society on an attack of only a few weeks duration. I remember one case, however, in which our whole aristocratic circle was swept into insignificance by a little lady, whom I saw after I left Hampton, and who didn't weigh ninety pounds. She had been an invalid, she said, for fifteen years, and while I do not recollect precisely her afflictions, it appears to me that she had had chronic trichnia spiralis for that length of time, with intermittent cerebro spinal meningitis tending towards hydrophobia. This imposing patient cowed the whole invalid circle. But one man showed the slightest resistance, and that was old man Smith, who had been very proud of his chronic liver complaint. He told me in confidence the next day that he believed "the whole story was a —— ——." It is due to the company, however, to say that the narration was received with polite expressions of sympathy and wonder, while there was at the same time a silent conviction that it was of this complication of diseases that Ananias died. If a lady could rout us, however, it was not permitted to a man. When another of these aristocratic invalids, one of those "four giant shows under one canvas," came along, varying in sex from the first mentioned, he was speedily brought to grief. At supper, the first evening of his arrival, one of our circle having asked him with incautious politeness "how he was?" the new arrival opened on us with a sonorous discourse filled with chronic afflictions mixed up with pious reflections. I think he would have established his claims to high rank had not a consumptive-looking boarder with a haggard face taken advantage of a pause in the speech, and without looking up from his plate, remarked in a squeaky voice, "The remainder of the service will be concluded at the grave." The interruption was a bombshell. I have said that there is a free-masonry among invalids; I might add that it almost amounts to the old co-operation plan. I have been offered advice without limit and even medicine from my fellow sufferers. I have also been furnished with a list of their own attending physicians, all of whom have performed remarkable cures. It is a full and complete list of fifty-eight physicians in good professional standing, and I will dispose of it at a moderate compensation to any apothecary or undertaker who desires to purchase.

Where was I? Oh, speaking of invalids! Sickness is to be dreaded with many because of death, but from the high moral plane from which I regard it, it is chiefly objectionable on account of the lying it gives rise to. Directly a man gets well on the way down hill, the good natured world gets this lie photographed, and each man presents him a copy—"Why, I never saw you looking better in my life!" For the first few copies that are presented him the poor devil is grateful; of the next few he is suspicious, and thereafter he is worried, vexed and profane. If you remonstrate against the truth of the assurance and call attention to the prominent skeleton which you are presenting to the public eye, the good natured liar looks you unflinchingly in the eye while he presents you with another lithograph bearing this inscription: "Oh, I didn't mean that you were fatter, I meant that your skin is clearer and your eyes are brighter." Not having a sample of your former skin, nor another pair of eyes handy to confute him with, this well-meaning liar walks off triumphantly. I, myself, however, am no better than the rest of them, though my presenting the lithograph cost me dearly one day. In one of the towns where I stopped, a young girl came to the hotel the shadow of what she had been. I suppose one evening I must have felt unusually chipper and kindly myself, for, coming up on the porch where she was sitting, I dashed off the old lithograph, "Why you are looking so much better." Her eyes—I never saw eyes that had so much of the other world and so little of this in them—turned on me with a half kind, half reproachful look, and at once filled with tears. She merely said gently, "Thank you," and got up and walked away. God forgive me, that I should have interrupted a soul so near to setting sail, to pay a lithographed and lying compliment. Three weeks later, in another town, I was told that she had gone on the last long voyage. I have burned my lithographs.