Then another remembers her amusement when one of her nephews had just
started to go to the coach for London, and the doctor, coming in
unannounced, left his hat on the hall table, which the active servant
seeing, and jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Martineau (travelling
in a felt) had left his high hat behind him, rushed off with it to
the coach-office, half a mile away; so that when the doctor wanted to
go, his hat was off to the coach; and "the old lady did laugh so."
Only a week or two before her death, she was merry enough to ask her
doctor that dreadful punning conundrum about the resemblance between
an ice-cream vender, and an hydrophobic patient--the answer turning
on the legend "Water ices and ice creams" (water I sees, and I
screams)--telling him that it was a _professional_ conundrum. At the
same time she was kind enough to repeat to him the compliments which
a visitor of hers had been paying his baby. This was the lighter side
of the aged woman's life, the more serious aspect of which is shown
in some of her letters to Mr. Atkinson. The last of these letters
must now be given:--
AMBLESIDE, May 19, 1876.
DEAR FRIEND,
Jenny, and also my sister, have been observing that you ought to
be hearing from us, and have offered to write to you. You will
see at once what this means; and it is quite true that I have
become so much worse lately that we ought to guard against your
being surprised, some day soon, by news of my life being closed.
I feel uncertain about how long I _may_ live in my present state.
I can only follow the judgment of unprejudiced observers; and I
see that my household believe the end to be not far off. I will
not trouble you with disagreeable details. It is enough to say
that I am in no respect better, while all the ailments are on the
increase. The imperfect heart-action immediately affects the
brain, causing the suffering which is worse than all other evils
together,--the horrid sensation of not being quite myself. This
strange, dreamy _non-recognition of myself_ comes on every
evening, and all else is a trifle in comparison. But there is a
good deal more. Cramps in the hands prevent writing, and most
other employment, except at intervals. Indications of dropsy have
lately appeared: and after this, I need not again tell you that I
see how fully my household believe that the end is not far off.
Meantime I have no cares or troubles beyond the bodily uneasiness
(which, however, I don't deny to be an evil). I cannot think of
any future as at all probable, except the "annihilation" from
which some people recoil with so much horror. I find myself here
in the universe,--I know not how, whence, or why. I see
everything in the universe go out and disappear, and I see no
reason for supposing that it is not an actual and entire death.
And for _my_ part, I have no objection to such an extinction. I