Fields. He paid her for it what many
people would consider a handsome compensation--exactly the sum that
Stuart Mill paid Carlyle for burning up the first volume of his "French
Revolution"--but it was a trying affair for both sides. How so bulky an
object as a novel in manuscript could have been lost without its falling
into the hands of some person who knew what to do with it, is most
difficult to imagine.
That so many of the world's benefactors are doomed to incalculable
torments here on earth may be a good argument for immortality, but for
Divine Providence it is no better evidence than the Lisbon earthquake
which so startled the optimists and thinking men of the last century.
There is no telling why this is so; for misfortune falls upon the just
as well as the unjust, and often no human foresight can prevent it.
Louisa Alcott supposed that she was nearly well of her fever when
inflammatory rheumatism set in. The worst of this was the loss of sleep
which it occasioned. Long continued wakefulness is a kind of nervous
cremation, and resembles in its physical effect the perpetual drop of
water on the head with which the Spanish inquisitors used to torment
their heretics. Any mental agitation makes the case very much worse, and
it requires great self-control to prevent this. It was melancholy to
behold her at that time. Her pallid face, the dark rings about her eyes,
and her dreary, hopeless expression might have penetrated the most
obdurate heart.
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