I protested most warmly, as I had all reason to do, that for years past I had never known time pass on so happily; that in the peaceful calm we lived, I had tasted a higher enjoyment than all the most buoyant pleasures of healthier and younger days had ever given me. “But,”--I believe I tried to smile as I spoke,--“but recollect, Sir Gordon, I have got my billet: the doctors have told me to go, and die, at Naples. What a shock to science if I should remain, to live, at Como!”
“Do so, my dearest friend,” said he, grasping my hands within both of his, while the tears swam in his eyes; “I cannot--I dare not--I have not strength to tell you, all that your compliance with this wish will confer on me Spare me this anguish, and do not leave us.” As he uttered these words he left me, his emotion too great to let me reply.
The sick man’s selfishness would say, that his anxiety is about that wasting malady, whose ravages are even more plainly seen than felt.
Turn the matter over how I will, I cannot reconcile this eager anxiety for my remaining with any thing but a care for myself. It is clear he thinks me far worse than I can consent to acknowledge. I do not disguise from myself the greater lassitude I experience after a slight exertion, a higher tension of the nervous system, and an earlier access of that night fever, which, like the darkness of the coming winter, creeps daily on, shortening the hours of sunlight, and ushering in a deeper and more solemn gloom; but I watch these symptoms as one already prepared for their approach, and feel grateful that their coming has not clouded the serenity with which I hope to journey to the last.
Kind old man! I would that I were his son, that I could feel my rightful claim to the affection he lavishes on me; but for _his_ sake it is better as it is! And Miss Howard--Lucy, let me call her, since I am permitted so to accost her--what a blessing I should have felt such a sister to be, so beautiful, so kind, so gently feminine! for that is the true charm. This, too, is better as it is. How could I take leave of life, if I were parting with such enjoyments?
She is greatly changed since we came here. Every day seems to gain something over the malady she laboured under. She is no longer faint and easily wearied, but able to take even severe exercise without fatigue; her cheek has grown fuller, and its rosy tint is no longer hectic, but the true dye of health; and instead of that slow step and bent-down head, her walk is firm and her air erect; while her spirits, no longer varying from high excitement to deep depression, are uniformly good and animated. Life is opening in all its bloom to her, as rapidly as its shadows are closing and gathering around me. Were it mine to bestow, how gladly would I give what remains of flickering life to strengthen the newly-sprung vitality, her light step, her brilliant smile and dark blue eye! That coming back to health, from out of the very shadow of death, must be a glorious sensation! The sudden outbursting of all this fair world’s joys, on a spirit over which the shade of sickness has only swept, and not rested long enough to leave its blight. I think I read in that almost heroic elevation of sentiment, that exquisite perception of whatever is beautiful in Lucy, the triumph of returning energy and health. She is less fanciful and less capricious, too. Formerly, the least remark, in which she construed a difference of opinion, would distress or irritate her, and her temper appeared rather under the sway of momentary impulse than the guidance of right principle. Now, she accepts even correction, mildly and gratefully, and if a sudden spark of former haste flash forth, she seems eager to check and repress it; she acts as though she felt that restored health imposed more restraint and less of self-indulgence than sickness. How happy if one were only to bring out of the sick chamber its teaching of submission, patience, and gratitude, and leave behind its egotism and its irritability! This she would appear to aim at; and to strive is to win.