THE BOARD AND THE VELVET.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXIV, 16 June 1900, Page 1108

THE BOARD AND THE VELVET.

"A throne,” said Napoleon, “is a board covered with velvet.” Strip the velvet from the throne and you have nothing left but bare, vulgar boards; replace the velvet and you have the most coveted symbol of human power and glory. How easy the transition, how vast the difference! There is no operation in chemistrymore sharp and sudden than that in human life whereby extremes of feeling follow each other —tears rarefying into smiles and smiles condensing into tears. Is happiness, or is power, so poor a thing, then, that it drop® into its antithesis at a touch —at a breath? Let us not be too hasty with our answer, as we may be wrong. The great French Emperor was a cynical fellow, and right well he loved a throne, even though it was only an upholstered board. An<J we love life and its blessings, even though they are uncertain and shaky. Hence, when we hear a. man say, “I had no pleasure in life, and did not eare what became of me,” we are interested to know the reason why. The person from whom we quote these .words explains himself thus: — “For over two years,” he tells us, “I suffered from loss of appetite, sleeplessness and nervousness. Prior to May, 1894, I had always been strong and hearty. At this time I began to feel that something had come over me —I felt so low and weak. After eating my- face would flush and the food gave me great pain across my chest and

at the left side. I had a cutting pain around the heart, and bad attacks of palpitation.” I beg to interrupt our good friend a moment at this point. The burning of a barn or a hayrick may make a bigger blaze than the burning of the cottage we live in. But the latter alarms and excites us most because we do live in it. On the same principle a very painful ailment of the hand or foot may cause little or no mental anxiety, while a disturbance of the heart’s action does, for the heart is one of the three houses which life resides in, the other two being the brain and the lungs. Yet, as generally happens in so-called heart troubles, the worry was needless, as we shall presently see. “For weeks together,” continues the narrator, “I got no proper sleep, and. in truth, so bad was this condition that I dreaded going to bed. My nerves were thoroughly unstrung and affected the left side of my face, which was quite drawn. I suffered martyrdom with facial neuralgia. “As time went on I grew to be so low and miserable that I had no pleasure in life, and did not care what became of me. I consulted a doctor, but none of his medicines helped me. Better and worse, I continued to suffer until a friend told me about Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup, and persuaded me to try it. I got a bottle from Mr Pulham. Grocer, Spring Road, and after taking it a short time I felt it was doing me good. I slept well and had less distress after meals. This encouraged me to persevere with it, and gradually I got stronger, and the nerve pains wore away. I now enjoy good health, and have recommended this medicine to many- of my customers. You can publish this statement as you like. (Signed) Harry Wenden, Hairdresser, 171, Spring Road, St. John’s, Ipswich, July 17th, 1896." Mr Wenden’s explanation of his loss of life’s pleasure is commonplace after all. And yet how much more important than if it were unique or exceptional, because the commonplace is the universal. It is disease, my gentle reader, that tears the velvet from thrones, that robs the cottager of his sleep, that makes the baby cry in its cradle, that strips the strong man of his vigour, that wipes the bloom from the cheeks of fair women, that hurries humanity to the churchyard with bowed heads and bleeding feet. And the most pitiless ogre of all diseases is the one from which Mr Wenden suffered, and which Mother Seigel’s Syrup cures —indigestion, dyspepsia. Even without the velvet, Health is the best of thrones, and this great remedy helps to keep you seated safely- and happily upon it.