"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_. "I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no new friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old--and the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances, of past pleasures. "I am sensible that I am surrounded by a multitude of very worthy people, plain-hearted souls, sincere, and kind.--But they have hitherto eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of their families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them. "Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them--and could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of GOD'S judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love him too. "I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave my heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny passed on in their everlasting rotation,--and I suffered myself to be carried along with them without complaining." CHAPTER XII Allan told me, that for some years past, feeling himself disengaged from every personal tye, but not alienated from human sympathies, it had been his taste, his _humour_ he called it, to spend a great portion of his time in _hospitals_ and _lazar houses_. He had found a _wayward pleasure_, he refused to name it a virtue, in tending a description of people, who had long ceased to expect kindness or friendliness from mankind, but were content to accept the reluctant services, which the often-times unfeeling instruments and servants of these well-meant institutions deal out to the poor sick people under their care. It is not medicine, it is not broths and coarse meats, served up at a stated hour with all the hard formalities of a prison,--it is not the scanty dole of a bed to die on--which dying man requires from his species. Looks, attentions, consolations,--in a word, _sympathies_, are what a man most needs in this awful close of mortal sufferings. A kind look, a smile, a drop of cold water to the parched lip--for these things a man shall bless you in death. And these better things than cordials did Allan love to administer--to stay by a bed-side the whole day, when something disgusting in a patient's distemper has kept the very nurses at a distance--to sit by, while the poor wretch got a little sleep--and be there to smile upon him when he awoke--to slip a guinea, now and then, into the hands of a nurse or attendant--these things have been to Allan as _privileges_, for which he was content to live, choice marks, and circumstances, of his Maker's goodness to him.