he valley of the shadow of death,
whose power had changed his physical agony into the delicious languor of
love. To save him from death, to bring him back to life, she struggled
courageously with his disease. She surrounded him with those divining
and instinctive cares which are a thousand times more efficacious than
the material remedies known to science. While engaged in nursing him,
she felt no fatigue, no weariness, no discouragement. Neither her
strength, nor her patience, yielded before the task. Like the mothers in
robust health, who appear to communicate a part of their own strength to
the sickly infant who, constantly requiring their care, have also their
preference, she nursed the precious charge into new life. The disease
yielded: "the funereal oppression which secretly undermined the spirit
of Chopin, destroying and corroding all contentment, gradually vanished.
He permitted the amiable character, the cheerful serenity of his friend
to chase sad thoughts and mournful presentiments away, and to breathe
new force into his intellectual being."

Happiness succeeded to gloomy fears, like the gradual progression of a
beautiful day after a night full of obscurity and terror, when so dense
and heavy is the vault of darkness which weighs upon us from above, that
we are prepared for a sudden and fatal catastrophe, we do not even dare
to dream of deliverance, when the despairing eye suddenly catches a
bright spot where the mists clear, and the clouds open like flocks of
heavy wool yielding, even while the edges thicken under the pressure
of the hand which rends them. At this moment, the first ray of hope
penetrates the soul. We breathe more freely like those who lost in the
windings of a dark cavern at last think they see a light, though indeed
its existence is still doubtful. This faint light is the day dawn,
though so colorless are its rays, that it is more like the extinction of
the dying twilight,--the fall of the night-shroud upon the earth. But it
is indeed the dawn; we know it by the vivid and pure breath of the
young zephyrs which it sends forth, like avant-coureurs, to bear us the
assurance of morn and safety. The balm of flowers fills the air, like
the thrilling of an encouraged hope. A stray bird accidentally commences
his song earlier than usual, it soothes the heart like a distant
consolation, and is accepted as a promise for the future. As the
imperceptibly progressive but sure indications multiply, we are