She entered the
room hastily, and so did I. But it was to see a spectacle,
compared with which that of my benefactor stretched on his bier
would have been a happy one.
The easy-chair filled with cushions, the extended limbs swathed
in flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and nightcap, showed illness;
but the dimmed eye, once so replete with living fire--the blabber
lip, whose dilation and compression used to give such character
to his animated countenance--the stammering tongue, that once
poured forth such floods of masculine eloquence, and had often
swayed the opinion of the sages whom he addressed,--all these sad
symptoms evinced that my friend was in the melancholy condition
of those in whom the principle of animal life has unfortunately
survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a moment at me,
but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went on--he, once
the most courteous and well-bred--to babble unintelligible but
violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he
himself had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table
at his elbow. His eyes caught a momentary fire from his
irritation; but he struggled in vain for words to express himself
adequately, as, looking from his servant to his niece, and then
to the table, he laboured to explain that they had placed it
(though it touched his chair) at too great a distance from him.
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