Poland -- History -- Stanislaus II Augustus, 1764-1795 -- Fiction
That his new patient possessed some property was sufficient to ensure
the respect and medical skill of Mr. Vincent; and when he entered his
own house, he told his wife he had found "a very good job at Mrs.
Robson's, in the illness of her lodger--a foreigner of some sort," he
said, "who, by her account, had feathered his nest well in the spoils
of battle (like Moore's honest Irishman) with jewels and gold." So
much for the accuracy of most quotations adopted according to the
convenience of the speaker.
When the Count Sobieski quitted the Hummums, on the evening in which
he brought away his baggage, he was so disconcerted by the
impertinence of the man who accosted him there, that he determined
not to expose himself to a similar insult by retaining a title which
might subject him to the curiosity of the insolent and insensible;
and, therefore, when Mrs. Robson asked him how she should address
him, as he was averse to assume a feigned name, he merely said Mr.
Constantine.
Under that unobtrusive character, he hoped in time to accommodate his
feelings to the change of fortune which Providence had allotted to
him. He must forget his nobility, his pride, and his sensibility; he
must earn his subsistence. But by what means? He was ignorant of
business; and he knew not how to turn his accomplishments to account.
Such were his meditations, until illness and delirium deprived him of
them and of reason together.
At the expiration of a week, in which Mr. Vincent attended his
patient very regularly, Sobieski was able to remove into the front
room; but uneasiness about the debts he had so unintentionally
incurred retarded his recovery, and made his hours pass away in
cheerless musings on his poor means of repaying the good widow and of
satisfying the avidity of the apothecary. Pecuniary obligation was a
load to which he was unaccustomed; and once or twice the wish almost
escaped his heart that he had died.
Whenever he was left to think, such were his reflections. Mrs. Robson
discovered that he appeared more feverish and had worse nights after
being much alone during the day, and therefore contrived, though she
was obliged to be in her little shop, to leave either Nanny to attend
his wants or little William to amuse him.
This child, by its uncommon quickness and artless manner, gained upon
the count, who was ever alive to helplessness and innocence. Children
and animals had always found a friend and protector in him. From the
"majestic war-horse, with his neck clothed in thunder," to "the poor
beetle that we tread upon"--every creature of creation met an
advocate of mercy in his breast; and as human nature is prone to love
what it has been kind to, Thaddeus never saw either children, dogs,
or even that poor slandered and abused animal, the cat, without
showing them some spontaneous act of attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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