FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39  
40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>   >|  
lst it sang its song of life and hope to their hearts, treacherously withdrew them to darkness and the worm. Osborne's feelings were those of thoughtlessness and extravagance; but he had never been either a libertine or a profligate, although the world forbore not, when it found him humbled in his poverty, to bring such charges against him. In truth, he was full of kindness, and no parent ever loved his children with deeper or more devoted affection. The death of his noble son and beautiful girl brought down his spirit to the most mournful depths of affliction. Still he had two left, and, as it happened, the most beautiful, and more than equally possessed his affections. To them was gradually transferred that melancholy love which the heart of the sorrowing father had carried into the grave of the departed; and alas, it appeared as if it had come back to those who lived loaded with the malady of the dead. The health of the surviving boy became delicate, and by the advice of his physician, who pronounced the air in which they lived unfavorable,--Osborne, on hearing that Mr. Williams, a distant relation, was about to dispose of his house and grounds, immediately became the purchaser. The situation, which had a southern aspect, was dry and healthy, the air pure and genial, and, according to the best medical opinions, highly beneficial to persons of a consumptive habit. For two years before this--that is since his brother's death--the health of young Osborne had been watched with all the tender vigilance of affection. A regimen in diet, study and exercise, had been prescribed for him by his physician; the regulations of which he was by no means to transgress. In fact his parents lived under a sleepless dread of losing him which kept their hearts expanded with that inexpressible and burning love which none but a parent so circumstanced can ever feel. Alas! notwithstanding the promise of life which early years usually hold out, there was much to justify them in this their sad and gloomy apprehension. Woeful was the uncertainty which they felt in discriminating between the natural bloom of youth and the beauty of that fatal malady which they dreaded. His tall slender frame, his transparent cheek, so touching, so unearthly in the fairness of its expression; the delicacy of his whole organization, both mental and physical--all, all, with the terror of decline in their hearts, spoke as much of despair as of hope, and placed
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39  
40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

hearts

 

Osborne

 

parent

 
health
 
beautiful
 

affection

 

malady

 

physician

 
highly
 

opinions


regulations
 

transgress

 

consumptive

 

persons

 

sleepless

 

beneficial

 

losing

 

parents

 
regimen
 

brother


watched

 

tender

 

vigilance

 

expanded

 

exercise

 

prescribed

 

medical

 

justify

 

transparent

 

touching


unearthly

 

slender

 
beauty
 

dreaded

 

fairness

 

expression

 

decline

 
terror
 
despair
 

physical


mental

 
delicacy
 

organization

 

promise

 
notwithstanding
 
burning
 

circumstanced

 

discriminating

 

natural

 

uncertainty