They don't want you to be lachrymose and whining with them, they like
you to be fresh and active and interested, but they cannot bear absence
of mind, and they are so tired of the advice and preaching they receive
from every body, no matter whom it is, they see.
There is no better society than babies and sick people for one another.
Of course you must manage this so that neither shall suffer from it,
which is perfectly possible. If you think the "air of the sick room" bad
for the baby, why it is bad for the invalid too, and, therefore, you
will of course correct it for both. It freshens up a sick person's whole
mental atmosphere to see "the baby." And a very young child, if
unspoiled, will generally adapt itself wonderfully to the ways of a sick
person, if the time they spend together is not too long.
If you knew how unreasonably sick people suffer from reasonable causes
of distress, you would take more pains about all these things. An infant
laid upon the sick bed will do the sick person, thus suffering, more
good than all your logic. A piece of good news will do the same.
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