LIFE IN BRITAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1941, Page 5

LIFE IN BRITAIN

LUXURY OF BEING ILL. The luxuries of life have long since been abandoned in Britain, some with regret, many with relief. Among the latter, says the "Listener” of London, may be reckoned the luxury that comparatively few indulge in, but those that do stop at no half-measure —the luxury of being ill. “It is dainty to be sick,” wrote Emerson, “if you have leisure and convenience for it.” When we say that this particular form of luxury has been abandoned with regret, we use the word “regret” objectively, for no one expects our hypochrondriacs and valetudinarians to skip with joy now that their opportunities for self-expression have been so catastrophically reduced. Their fate indeed must be a sad one, with those long, cosy chats with the doctor mostly a thing of the past, with fewer sympathetic ears into which to pour their troubles, and with no prospect at all of wintering in the south of France. Even our own south coast this summer will hardly be the place it was, so far as bath-chairmen are concerned. There is nothing, in fact, for the valetudinarian to do, these days, except to get well. Here's health to him!