Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. VVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
not sunk, or he must acknowledge His means of cure. Impelled,
therefore, by a feeling equally beyond his doubting or his proving, he
did that which for years German sophistry had taught him to forbear;
he gave but little, but he felt that he gave his best--he _prayed_ for
the suffering creature, and in the name of One who suffered for all,
and from that hour God's grace forsook him not.
But the most characteristic sympathizer on the occasion was Sir Thomas
----, the fine old gentleman who had shouted so loudly from the
balcony. He was at home in this valley, owned the whole range of hills
on one side of the lake from their fertile bases to their bleak tops,
took up his abode generally every summer in this hotel, and felt for
the stricken woman as if she had been a guest of his own. Ever since
the fatal accident he had gone about in a perfect fret of
commiseration, inquiring every half-hour at her door how she was, or
what she had taken. Severe bodily illness or intense mental distress
had never fallen upon that bluff person and warm heart, and abstinence
from food was in either case the proof of an extremity for which he
had every compassion, but of which he had no knowledge. He prescribed,
therefore, for the poor lady every thing that he would have relished
himself, and nothing at that moment could have made him so happy as to
have been allowed to send her up the choicest meal that the country
could produce. Not that his benevolence was at all limited to such
manifestations; if it did not deal in sentiment, it took the widest
range of practice. His laborers were dispatched round the lake to
watch for any traces of the late catastrophe; he himself kept up an
hour later planning how he could best promote the comfort of her
onward journey and of her present stay; and though the good old
gentleman was now snoring loudly over the very apartment which
contained the object of his sympathy, he would have laid down his life
to save those that were gone, and half his fortune to solace her who
was left.
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