on my lungs. So there was an end put to my public-school life. Lew House was let for three years, and a Cambridge man was secured as my travelling tutor. Horses and carriages were bought and the coachman put in livery.
I have no doubt that I was feeling the after effects of the attack of whooping-cough, for on one occasion I was struck down with pleurisy, could hardly breathe, and suffered acutely in my lungs. However, I was speedily relieved by the application of a mustard poultice, to which I felt such gratitude that when it was taken off I asked my mother to let me kiss it.
Over familiarity, however, interferes with ardour of affection, and the frequency with which my skin was made acquainted with mustard poultices made me cool towards them. I had them not only applied to my chest and to my back, but also on one occasion behind and below my ears. There the poultice was kept on so long that when removed it carried off my skin with it, and the fresh growth was brown as the hide of a West Indian. My feelings were much hurt when, on going up to Exeter, my grand-aunts reproached me for not washing my neck. Then I took to wearing high "gills" and chokers. The normal colour did not return for a couple of years.
In the intervals between mustard plasters I was usually supplied with large diachylon heart plasters, applied to the chest, where they clung like limpets to a rock.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
Not only did the windows of apothecaries display in those days outspread yellow wax-bedaubed chamois leathers, but also, what was more interesting, globes full of water, containing leeches. I have on my chest to this day the triangular scars produced by the bites of these blood-suckers. I doubt whether recourse is had to leeches in the present day.
What a radical transformation has taken place in the character of the night-light. When I was a child this consisted of a thin iron cylinder perforated with many round holes. Inside was placed a rush-light and the whole stood in a basin or a soup plate full of water, on the floor.[1]
If the object of the night-light was to super-induce sleep, it
- ↑ A representation of one is in the plate, "The Middle-aged Lady in the Double Bedroom," in Pickwick.
