This voyage of ours is lonely,
the more so if we find a companion,
only to suffer the bitterest loss.
In truth we are alone.
The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, seems to be going in a disastrous direction; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, help us, help the one we love most?
