'I have been hindered by a vexatious and incessant cough, for which
within these ten days I have been bled once, fasted four or five times,
taken physick five times, and opiates, I think, six. This day it seems
to remit.
'The loss, dear Sir, which you have lately suffered, I felt many years
ago, and know therefore how much has been taken from you, and how little
help can be had from consolation. He that outlives a wife whom he has
long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same
hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he
has shared much good or evil; and with whom he could set his mind at
liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity
of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is
stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless, till it is driven
by external causes into a new channel. But the time of suspense is
dreadful.
'Our first recourse in this distressed solitude, is, perhaps for want
of habitual piety, to a gloomy acquiescence in necessity.
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