But at the office, something
in my looks induced them to send a faithful clerk with me in the cab to
our house, Woodland Cottage, Higher Broughton. So he and I went away. I
found afterwards, that some of the clerks said, "We shall never see him
again." But they did - shaky and seedy, as he was, for many a long day.
Well, just as our cab mounted the small hill on which our house stood,
the faithful clerk, with more zeal than discretion, said, "You look
awful ill, sir; why your face is as white as my shirt." I looked at his
shirt, seemingly guiltless, for days past, of the washerwoman.
But I was within three minutes of home: and I was distressed at the
thought of alarming my wife, who was not in a condition to be alarmed.
So, with what little strength I had left, I rubbed my forehead, face,
nose, lips, chin, with my clenched fist, to restore some slight colour.
Entering our door, I said, "I am rather worn out, and will go to bed.
Up all night. Work done. Now, please, I will go to bed."
So, after every affectionate care that a good wife could pay, I
swallowed my narcotic pill - and slept, slept, slept - till, at eight in
the morning, the sun was coming in, charmingly, through the windows.
Nothing seemed to ail me. What weakness, what nonsense, said I. But I
had promised to remain in bed till Mr. Smith came. But I sent down for
my clerks, and at 11 a.m. I was in full activity, dictating to one man,
listening to another, and giving orders to a third, in, as I thought,
the fullest voice - when in came Mr. Smith. He looked round in doubt,
and then went down stairs. I have only just forgiven him for that. For
in a moment up came my wife. "Edward," she said, "Mr. Smith declares
that if you do not give over at once, you will have brain fever." Oh!
unwise Smith. The words were hardly out of my wife's mouth, when I felt
I could do no more. Had the world been offered to me, I could have done
no more.
Alas! my nerve was gone.
At that tune I was working for a livelihood. Fortunate that it was so,
otherwise a lunatic asylum, or a permanent state of what the doctors
call hypochondriasis, might have followed.
After some years of struggle with this nerve-demon, the child of
overwork, I wrote, in 1850: -
"I am not fond of writing, and I know I must do it badly. Still I feel
that the little narrative I am about to put together may do some good
to some few people who may be suffering. I know that the roughest and
dullest book ever written, had it contained a similar relation to this
of mine, would have brought balm to my mind and hope to my heart not
many years ago.
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