no chance of such recovery
as might be hoped for: whereas, if he could once cheerfully agree to
enter a hospital, he would have every chance of rallying, and all the
sooner for being free from any painful sense of obligation. If the
treatment should succeed, this passage in his life would be something to
smile at hereafter, or to look back upon with sound satisfaction; and if
not, he would have friends about him, just as he would in a lodging.

The effect was what I wished. My letter gave no offence, and did him no
harm. He only begged for a few days more, before deciding that he might
satisfy himself whether he was getting well or not: if not, he would
cheerfully go wherever his friends advised, and believe that the plan
was the best for him.

In those few days arrangements were made for his being received at
the Sanatorium,--an institution in which sick persons who had either
previously subscribed, or who were the nominees of subscribers, were
received, and well tended for a guinea a week, under the comfortable
circumstances of a private house. Each patient had a separate chamber;
and the medical attendance, diet, and arrangements were of a far higher
order than poor Patrick could have commanded in lodgings. Above all, the
resident surgeon--now a distinguished physician, superintendent of a
lunatic asylum--was a man to make a friend of,--a man of cultivated
mind, tender heart, and cheerful and gentle manners. Patrick won his
heart at once; and every note of Patrick's glowed with affection for
Doctor H--. After a few weeks of alternating hope and fear, after a
natural series of fluctuations of spirits, Patrick wrote me a remarkably
quiet letter. He told me that both his doctors had given him a plain
answer to his question whether he could recover. They had told him
that it was impossible; but he could not learn from them how long they
thought he would live. He saw now, however, that he must give up his
efforts to work. He believed he could have worked a little: but perhaps
he was no judge; and if he really was dying, he could not be wrong in
obeying the directions of those who had the care of him. Once afterwards
he told me that his physicians did not, he saw, expect him to live many
months,--perhaps not even many weeks.

It was now clear to my mind what would please him best. I told him,
that, if he liked to furnish me with the address of that house in Dublin
in which his thoughts chiefly lived, I would take care t