The reed bent, but did not break: the storm
passed, and it stood erect as before.
There was no worry, nor fever, nor fret about him; but instead,
cheerfulness, patience, and unfailing perseverance. His mind,
amidst all his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and serene. He
went about his daily work with an apparently charmed life, as if
he had the strength of many men in him. Yet all the while he knew
he was dying, his chief anxiety being to conceal his state from
those about him at home, to whom the knowledge of his actual
condition would have been inexpressibly distressing. "I am
cheerful among strangers," he said, "and try to live day by day
as a dying man." (12)
He went on teaching as before--lecturing to the Architectural
Institute and to the School of Arts. One day, after a lecture
before the latter institute, he lay down to rest, and was shortly
awakened by the rupture of a bloodvessel, which occasioned him the
loss of a considerable quantity of blood. He did not experience
the despair and agony that Keats did on a like occasion; (13)
though he equally knew that the messenger of death had come, and
was waiting for him. He appeared at the family meals as usual,
and next day he lectured twice, punctually fulfilling his
engagements; but the exertion of speaking was followed by a second
attack of haemorrhage. He now became seriously ill, and it was
doubted whether he would survive the night.
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