Changes in the
weather, or a damp east wind, did not account to me for his relapses; I
knew he was in the grasp of a fell, a fatal disease; it might let him
go awhile, give him a little respite, as a cat does the mouse she has
caught,--but he never could escape,--his doom was fixed.
But you may be sure I gave him no hint of it, and he never seemed to
suspect it for himself. One could not believe such blindness possible,
did we not see it verified in so many instances, year after year.
Often, now, I thought of a passage in an old book I used to read with
many a heart-quake in my girlish days. It ran thus:--"Perhaps we may
see you flattering yourself, through a long, lingering illness, that
you shall still recover, and putting off any serious reflection and
conversation for fear it should overset your spirits. And the cruel
kindness of friends and physicians, as if they were in league with
Satan to make the destruction of your soul as sure as possible, may,
perhaps, abet this fatal deceit." We had all the needed accessories:
the kind physician, anxious to amuse and fearful to alarm his
patient,--telling me always to keep up his spirits, to make him as
cheerful and happy as I could; and the cruel friends--I had not far to
seek for them.
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