"That self-same moment I could pray,
And from my neck so free
The albatross fell off, and sunk
Like lead into the sea."
I sometimes think that women bear their burdens with less apparent struggle, less toil or complaint, than men; and this although they own more of the horse's anxious temperament than the sluggish nature of the ox and the ass. If they have less "nerve" than ourselves—less of the coolness which springs from constitutional insensibility to danger—they have more of that mettlesome spirit which is sometimes called "pluck," that indomitable courage which acknowledges no failure for defeat, which never sleeps upon its post, which can bear up bravely even against the sickness and depression of unremitting pain. It is proverbial that in all phases of mere bodily suffering they show twice the patience and twice the fortitude of the stronger sex;
