Off-Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humor

"Do you know the symptoms?" he asked.

"Mrs. N—had a cancer in her breast, and my symptoms all resemble hers."

"How do you know?"

"Mrs. A—has been here, and she is quite intimate with Mrs. N—. All my symptoms, she says, are precisely like hers."

"I wish Mrs. A—was in the deserts of Arabia!" said my husband, in a passion. "Even if what she said were true, what business had she to say it? Harm, not good, could come of it. But I don't believe you have any more cancer in your breast than I have. There is an obstruction and hardening of the glands, and that is about all."

"But Mrs. N—'s breast was just like mine, for Mrs. A—says so. She described the feeling Mrs. N—had, and mine is precisely like it."

"Mrs. A—neither felt the peculiar sensation in Mrs. N—'s breast nor in yours; and, therefore, cannot know that they are alike. She is an idle, croaking gossip, and I wish she would never cross our threshold. She always does harm."

I felt that she had done me harm, but I wouldn't say so. I was a good deal vexed at the way my husband treated the matter, and accused him of indifference as to whether I had a cancer or not. He bore the accusation very patiently, as, indeed, he always does any of my sudden ebullitions of feeling. He knows my weakness.

"If I thought there were danger," he mildly said, "I would be as much troubled as you are."

"As to danger, that is imminent enough," I returned, fretfully.

"On the contrary, I am satisfied that there is none. One of your symptoms makes this perfectly clear."

"Indeed! What symptom?" I eagerly asked.

"Your terrible fears of a cancer are an almost certain sign that you will never have one. The evil we most fear, rarely, if ever, falls upon us."

"That is a very strange way to talk," I replied.

"But a true way, nevertheless," said my husband.

"I can see no reason in it. Why should we be troubled to death about a thing that is never going to happen?"

"The trouble is bad enough, without the reality, I suppose. We are all doomed to have a certain amount of anxiety and trouble here, whether real or imaginary. Some have the reality, and others the imagination. Either is bad enough; I don't know which is worse."

"I shall certainly be content to have the imaginary part," I replied.

"That part you certainly have, and your full share of it. I believe you have, at some period or other, suffered every ill that flesh is heir to. As for me, I would rather have a good hearty fit of sickness, a broken leg or arm, or even a cancer, and be done with it, than become a living Pandora's box, even in imagination."

"As you think I am?"

"As I know you are."

"Then you would really like to see me have a cancer in my breast, and be done with it?" I said this pretty sharply.

"Don't look so fiercely at me," returned my husband, smiling. "I didn't say I would rather you would have a cancer; I said I would rather have one, and be done with it, than suffer as you do from the fear of it, and a hundred other evils."

"I must say you are quite complimentary to your wife," I returned, in a little better humour than I had yet spoken. The fact was, my mind took hold of what my husband said about real and imaginary evils, and was somewhat braced up. Of imaginary evils I had certainly had enough to entitle me to a whole lifetime exemption from real ones.

From the time Mrs. A—left me until my husband came in, the pain in my breast had steadily increased, accompanied by a burning and stinging sensation. In imagination, I could clearly feel the entire cancerous nucleus, and perceive the roots eating their way in all directions around it. This feeling, when I now directed my thoughts to my breast, was gone—very little pain remained.

After tea, my husband went out and returned in about an hour. He said he had been round to consult with our physician, who assured him that he had seen hundreds of cases like mine, not one of which terminated in cancer; that such glandular obstructions were common, and might, under certain circumstances, unless great care were used, cause inflammation and suppuration; but were no more productive of cancer, a very rare disease, and consequent upon hereditary tendencies, than were any of the glandular obstructions or gatherings in other parts of the body.

"But the breast is so tender a place," I said.

"And yet," returned my husband, "the annals of surgery show ten cancers in other parts of the body to one in the breast."

In this way my husband dissipated my fears, and restored my mind to a comparatively healthy state. This, however, did not long remain; I was attacked on the next day with a dull, deeply-seated pain in one of my jaw-teeth. At first, I did not regard it much, but its longer continuance than usual began to excite my fears, especially as the tooth was, to all appearance, sound.

While suffering from this attack, I had a visit from another friend of the same class with Mrs. A—. She was a kind, good-natured soul, and would watch by your sick-bed untiringly, night after night, and do it with real pleasure. But she had, like Mrs. A—, a very thoughtless habit of relating the many direful afflictions and scenes of human suffering it had been her lot to witness and hear of, unconscious that she often did great harm thereby, particularly when these things were done, as was too often the case, apropos.

"You are not well," she said, when she came in and saw the expression of pain in my face.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing more than a very troublesome tooth-ache," I replied.

"Use a little kreosote," said she.

"I would; but the tooth is sound."

"A sound tooth, is it?" My visitor's tone and look made my heart beat quicker.

"Yes, it is perfectly sound."

"I am always afraid of an aching tooth that is perfectly sound, since poor Mrs. P—had such a time with her jaw."

"What was that?" I asked, feeling instantly alarmed.

"Which tooth is it that aches?" my friend asked.

I pointed it out.

"The very same one that troubled Mrs. P—for several months, night and day."

"Was the pain low and throbbing?" I eagerly asked.

"Yes; that was exactly the kind of pain she had."

"And did it continue so long as several months?"

"Oh, yes. But that wasn't the worst! the aching was caused by the formation of an abscess."

"A what?" A cold chill passed over me.

"An abscess."

"At the root of her tooth?"

"Yes. But that wasn't so bad as its consequences; the abscess caused the bone to decay, and produced what the doctors called a disease of the antrum, which extended until the bone was eaten clear through, so that the abscess discharged itself by the nostrils."