EMILY DOUGLAS. LETTER XLIII. ARTHUR HOWARD TO FREDERICK DOUGLAS. _Selby._ My dear Frederick, Alas! I cannot rejoin your party for the present. I reached this place with as little delay as winds, waves, and mail coaches permitted, and found my poor mother so frightfully altered, that I should scarcely recognize her at the distance of a few paces. I was not aware, till I arrived at home that she had had a paralytic stroke, which she cannot endure to have known, and Louisa would not risk the communication by letter, lest I might, inadvertently, betray a knowledge of the fact on meeting her. Of this there is no danger in telling it to _you_, and in doing so, I explain at once how impossible it is for me to quit England while matters remain in their present precarious condition. You will rejoice to hear that domestic misfortunes have had the happiest effect on my sister’s mind. She is wonderfully changed, and her whole attention is devoted to the melancholy duty of watching our invalid, whose illness appeared immediately after a sudden and unlooked for demand of £2,000 on the miserable Crayton’s account, accompanied by an earnest request from Adelaide that her mother would honour the bill, or, at least, give security for its payment at a future day. This was impossible, for my poor mother was overwhelmed by debts of her own. The grief and mortification which are now her portion are not rendered more tolerable by the accompanying reflection that she brought them on herself; and it is the cruel nature of her complaint to aggravate every vexation by the dreadful irritability which is one of its constant symptoms, as I am informed by Doctor Leach, who is in daily attendance at Selby. Need I say that almost every hour is occupied in endeavouring to soothe our poor patient, and relieve Louisa’s care? _You_ know nothing of the hopeless task which we have daily to encounter. The life that is led by fashion’s votaries, ill prepares the mind I see for finding refuge in the only consolations which a sick room supplies. How often am I irresistibly led to a comparison of my uncle’s couch with that on which my poor mother’s faded form reclines! We can impart no comfort. We fail of amusing, as of consoling her. Neither book nor conversation delights, the affrighted spirit turns in anguish from viewing the grave as it gapes beneath, and dares not seek for refuge in Him who is neglected while the blood circulates freely in the veins, and the wheel rolls on, as if it were never to meet obstruction. I never pondered on these things till I lived at Glenalta, and I am now endeavouring to impress them on Louisa. Cards are my poor mother’s only resource, and my sister, Turner, and I, are in constant requisition. We play whist to amuse her, and suffer her to win every game. Perhaps by keeping her mind as calm and unruffled