spirit had forsaken it, fell heavily upon us all. To me it was a tomb. A pitying clergyman was one of the first who said aught to comfort me. Neither should I have been comforted, when he laid his hand upon my head, and said, "Poor bird! like a sparrow alone upon the housetop," save that he was aged, like her for whom I mourned. But this strong emotion, the first troubler of life's hitherto serene current, did not leave my health unscathed. The suffocating pain with which Grief is wont to seize its victims by the throat, continued to oppress me when I attempted to speak.
My sleep, heretofore unbroken as that of infancy, became a series of tossings; and even now I shudder at the thought of the spasm that used sometimes to seize me, when, at rising in the morning, I first stepped from my bed to the floor. I made no complaint of these symptoms. I thought they were henceforth to be a part of my being, and solaced myself with poetry, that blood of the crushed grape which gushed over me like a flood. But the parental eye was quick to detect the change in its idol. A physician was summoned. I think I see now that cautious, Mentor-like person, so grave and courteous, his countenance marked with deep thought and kindness. Dr. Philemon Tracy—I number him among my benefactors. From his father he inherited medical skill and fame, monopolizing the principal practice of the city. Yet, let the pressure of his business be ever so great, he studied a new case as a
