THE SICK STUDENT. "Look at me. Why, the winds sigh through my bones, Shake their green leaves in mockery, as to say, Monday, JUNE.-Every day forces upon me a stronger conviction that my existence is almost at an end. I am thin, and pale, and weak, and my nerves are in a frightful state. The slightest agitation makes me tremble. My mind is also harrassed. Certain circumstances haunt me like demons. I am continually oppressed with a dark sense of danger and hopelessness. cannot depict the prostrating power of this thought, when it has become perpetual. When I am alone at night it affects me the most. I often wish my task was done. Wednesday. I overheard a conversation last night, which affected me strongly. I had been in the early part of the evening complaining of the toothache, and had received a visit from a physician. When he took his leave I followed him down stairs, without being observed, to ask him a question, when this brief colloquy arrested me on the steps: 66 "Well, doctor," said my friend, can you do any thing for his teeth?" "Nothing," was the reply. 66 They are decaying very rapidly. They will not last long." There was a moment's pause. Then the cold voice again. "They'll last long enough for his use. They're poor, white, sickly things, and have the true consumptive look." "Do you think him so ill?” "I think he may last the summer, but the first cold will sweep him off." "And travelling, doctor, would not that have some effect?" "Well, I don't know; perhaps yes. A summer voyage, and a residence in the south of France, might assist him in lingering out; but it would be only a reprieve. He must die soon.” Then the street door opened. "You'll have a pleasant walk, doctor?" "Good night." The door was closed. I stole back to my room, breathless, not with terror, but with the intense nature of the feelings and thoughts which were concentrated and crowded together in that moment. "He must die soon." The words rang in my ears. I looked down at my long white fingers. I listened to the beating of my heart, and thought how certainly they must soon be mouldered and still. Strange as it may seem, a feeling of delight and exhiliration crept over me. A spirit of calm defiance against all the miseries which had weighed me down to the dust. Life to me had been no friend, death was no enemy. I stood upon the awful edge of a sublime precipice, from which I was not to be hurled with violence and horror, but I was about to glide off like an eagle floating on expanded wings, leaving anguish and despair behind. I went to the window. The stars were shining, and the serene blue sky was most delicately stained with a few transparent clouds, floating like fairy barks on that azure tide. I had been fascinated with the study of astronomy, and there was not a planet, and scarcely a star, which was not familiar to me, and enriched in my gaze with some pure and happy association. At certain periods of my life I had consulted them with that kind of capricious and feigned superstition in which sanguine and solitary young people often indulge. Some, too, were hallowed by their connection with particular events, I had watched them with persons dear to me; they had been the themes of my contemplation in times of health and hope. There they were, bright in their immortal beauty, and all these I was to leave, to leave them with all their lucid glory-forever. Others would gaze on them when the grass should be growing over my cold, dead bosom. The universal hush and mellow lustre of night would come down again on the breathing earth; the rich flowers would burst again from their verdant mass of leaves; and the lulling murmur of waters would charm the lonely wood. Every thing I admired, every thing I loved-I must be torn from all-then I was overcome, and I wept. A new feeling grew up in me, opening to my mind like the dawn of morning. A new existence-endless, careless! There is nothing so stupendous as the thought of a hereafter. The tears ceased coursing each other down my cheeks. I was lost, bewildered in wonder. Its exciting nature took from me the power of further reflection, and I slept. The last idea in my mind was that I had the consumption-and even when my heavy eyelids closed and slumber sealed them, the same dark consciousness went into my wild vague dreams. I wandered through pathless wilds with an arrow in my side; often striving to extract it, but in vain. Then I came to a fair city. The crowd were everywhere seeking pleasures in the gayest trifles. Now in the dance. Then in the sunny promenade, listening to laughter and music-but always the arrow was in my side, and I had no voice to claim assistance, or make known my awful situation. Then a lovely child, one dear to me in my waking moments, came to me and kissed me, and offered to relieve my suffering by drawing out the fatal dart, but a monstrous gigantic serpent seized her even from my side, and enveloped her tender form in his loathsome green folds. I cannot go on, although it was but a dream, nor dwell on the sight from which I fled-and wherever I fled, the dragon pursuing me, and my convulsive, yet fruitless exertions to fasten doors after me, which would open and leave me exposed. I awoke, and wiped the cold drops from my forehead. Saturday. I have been reading to day. How calm I am! Can it result from philosophy? I could spend an existence in reading. My impressions are almost as vivid as reality. To sit in a still room with the summer morning air blowing in upon my forehead gently-what can life afford better? All human passions can be called up in me by a book. By it I am metamorphosed into a different being. But this moment I really dreamed myself a healthy vigorous man. I had become the character I was perusing, when the sight of my skeleton hand shocked me, and recalled my wandering imagination. I no longer feel pleasure in the prospect of death. At first it was a novelty-but I have become too familiar with it. I shrink and tremble. Even now a cold shuddering ran over my frame. I would give the world for health. Compared with it, what is fame? What is money? I start when I reflect sometimes that to gain each of these, men have flung it away. Grant me but health, Fortune, I ask no more. No matter in what lowly station my lot may be cast. No matter how blighted my fame-how poor-how insignificant. All are unworthy a thought to him who can stride free and strong over the green fields, and simply breathe the air of heaven. Free me from disease, and wreck me on a deserted island. I would live on fruits and lie all day in the sun-I would herd with the beasts and be happy in the joy of physical strength-I would be a dunce an idiot-any thing but the dying wretch I am. The thought is too dreadful for en durance. Monday. The doctor said I might be cured by a voyage. I have been striving to raise the means necessary to go to France. It is impossible. Because I am poor I must die. Some around me waste thousands on the most worthless pleasures. Oh, mysterious world! Tuesday. I learned today that but for this disease I might have obtained a most lucrative situation with* Tuesday.-It is two weeks since I wrote last in this book. I have been confined to my bed, but am bettermuch better. My pains are mostly gone, and my spirits much raised. Oh, if I should recover after all! Thursday. I am in a fine glee today. My health is rapidly improving. What a stupid fellow is that doctor who said I must die. To be sure I must dieso must we all-but I hope for many a bright year yet. I took a little walk this morning. How strangely beautiful every thing looks out doors. I never was so happy. The sun warmed my chilled limbs. I only want a little care and exercise to be a well man. Friday. Still on the recovery. Indeed, I am getting quite hearty again. How kind every body in the house is to me. I am continually receiving little relishes and flowers as presents. How delightful! I shall certainly regret to leave these excellent people, but I am resolved to spend the next winter at the south. Monday. Every pain is passing away. I rambled yesterday through a little garden and wood at the seat of my friend, whither he had conveyed me in a carriage. It was delightful to feel the perceptible return of vigor and health. I inhaled the breath of the flowers. I reposed beneath the shady trees. I sat by the murmuring streams, and looked down into its transparent depths. How beautiful-how wonderfully and exquisitely beautiful-how beautiful all nature is, could men but spare time from the common interests and low passions of life to regard it as it deserves. When any one can so far overcome these influences as to give up his soul to the contemplation of nature, he becomes a poet, a painter, an orator-something great, pure, glowing, and elevated-something full of living fire and glory-and why may not I be one? I will-I will. Temperance shall, hereafter, be my aim to insure my health. I will brace up these great and growing energies which I feel stirring within me. I will no more despond, but cope with those who have gone before me in a track of brightness, and whose works have made them immortal. What would Burns have been if, instead of being abandoned to the drifting currents of adversity, like a wretched ship tossed on the black sea, he had been in early youth placed in a counting-house, where mere business had occupied all his time? He would have been lost to the world; and so thousands must be because they do not strive-they do not seek to labor up the dazzling steep, but are content to repose in inglorious indolence at the base. I will breathe out the fire that is in me. My future years shall be. Here the student dropped his journal, being seized with a cough, which left him a corpse. It is an awful, and yet a consoling symptom of the dreadful disease of which he fell the victim, that frequently, in proportion as the sufferer approaches the crisis, he deems himself retreating from the fatal brink. watched the gleaming up of his spirits, and listened to his confident plans for the future with the most pecu |