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Chapter 6 |
Page 6 |
When the fit of insanity was coming on there were premonitory symptoms; they would then start off together for the asylum where for a time she must be confined. One of their friends relates how on one occasion he met the brother and sister weeping bitterly as hand in hand they slowly paced together in a little foot path across the fields, and joining them he found that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum. This was not something that occurred once or twice only, but frequently, and was liable to occur at any time; it was not for a year or two only, but for thirty-five years, until death separated them. He “did not nerve himself to bear his awful charge for a month or for a year; he endured his cross through life, conscious that there was no escape from its burden and from its pains.” The indescribable pathos of this story is equaled only by the matchless devotion and constancy of the brother to his sister in all her sad and terrible lot and by her tender, all absorbing affection for him. Wordsworth has written of this devoted affection:
“Her love
Was as the love of mothers; and when years,
Lifting the boy to man’s estate, had called
The long protected to assume the part
Of a protector, the first filial tie
Was undissolved; and in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven
With life itself.
* * * * *
“Through all visitations and all trials
Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched
From the same beach one ocean to explore
With mutual help, and sailing–to their league
True as inexorable winds or bars,
Floating or fixed, of polar ice, allow.”
Page 6
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