Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 424 | Page 6

either of my
income or my expenditure. I have never known life under any other
form; I have never known what it was to be denied the gratification of
one desire which wealth could purchase, or obliged to calculate the cost
of a single undertaking. I can scarcely realise the idea of poverty. I see
that all people do not live in the same style as myself, but I cannot
understand that it is from inability: it always seems to me to be from
their own disinclination. I tell you, I cannot fully realise the idea of
poverty; and you think this must make me happy, perhaps?' she added
sharply, looking full in my face.
'I should be happy, madam, if I were rich,' I replied. 'Suffering now
from the strain of poverty, it is no marvel if I place an undue value on
plenty.'
'Yet see what it does for me!' continued my companion. 'Does it give
me back my husband, my brave boys, my beautiful girl? Does it give
rest to this weary heart, or relief to this aching head? Does it soothe my
mind or heal my body? No! It but oppresses me, like a heavy robe
thrown round weakened limbs: it is even an additional misfortune, for
if I were poor, I should be obliged to think of other things beside
myself and my woes; sand the very mental exertion necessary to
sustain my position would lighten my miseries. I have seen my
daughter wasting year by year and day by day, under the warm sky of
the south--under the warm care of love! Neither climate nor affection
could save her: every effort was made--the best advice procured--the
latest panacea adopted; but to no effect. Her life was prolonged,
certainly; but this simply means, that she was three years in dying,
instead of three months. She was a gloriously lovely creature, like a fair
young saint for beauty and purity--quite an ideal thing, with her golden
hair and large blue eyes! She was my only girl--my youngest, my

darling, my best treasure! My first real sorrow--now fifteen years
ago--was when I saw her laid, on her twenty-first birthday, in the
English burial-ground at Madeira. It is on the gravestone, that she died
of consumption: would that it had been added--and her mother of grief!
From the day of her death, my happiness left me!'
Here the poor lady paused, and buried her face in her hands. The first
sorrow was evidently also the keenest; and I felt my own eyelids moist
as I watched this outpouring of the mother's anguish. After all, here was
grief beyond the power of wealth to assuage: here was sorrow deeper
than any mere worldly disappointment.
'I had two sons,' she went on to say after a short time--'only two. They
were fine young men, gifted and handsome. In fact, all my children
were allowed to be very models of beauty. One entered the army, the
other the navy. The eldest went with his regiment to the Cape, where he
married a woman of low family--an infamous creature of no blood;
though she was decently conducted for a low-born thing as she was.
She was well-spoken of by those who knew her; but what could she be
with a butcher for a grandfather! However, my poor infatuated son
loved her to the last. She was very pretty, I have heard--young, and
timid; but being of such fearfully low origin, of course she could not be
recognised by my husband or myself! We forbade my son all
intercourse with us, unless he would separate himself from her; but the
poor boy was perfectly mad, and he preferred this low-born wife to his
father and mother. They had a little baby, who was sent over to me
when the wife died--for, thank God! she did die in a few years' time.
My son was restored to our love, and he received our forgiveness; but
we never saw him again. He took a fever of the country, and was a
corpse in a few hours. My second boy was in the navy--a fine
high-spirited fellow, who seemed to set all the accidents of life at
defiance. I could not believe in any harm coming to him. He was so
strong, so healthy, so beautiful, so bright: he might have been immortal,
for all the elements of decay that shewed themselves in him. Yet this
glorious young hero was drowned--wrecked off a coral-reef, and flung
like a weed on the waters. He lost his own life in trying to save that of a
common sailor--a piece of pure gold bartered for the foulest clay! Two
years after this, my husband died of typhus fever, and I had a nervous
attack, from which I have never recovered.