Volume 2

Passages from the diary of a late physician / [Samuel Warren].

  • Warren, Samuel, 1807-1877
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Passages from the diary of a late physician / [Samuel Warren]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    103/462 (page 93)
    “ Have you any objection to my calling at your house this evening, and reading the service appointed by our church for the visitation of the sick? It will not be difficult to introduce the most solemn and affecting strains of music, or to let it pre¬ cede or foUow.” Still I hesitated—and yet I scarce knew why. “ Come, doctor, you know I am no enthusiast—I am not gen¬ erally considered a fanatic. Surely when man has done his best, and fails, he should not hesitate to turn to God!” The good old man’s words sunk into my soul, and diffused in it a cheerful and humble hope that the blessing of Providence would attend the means suggested. I acquiesced in the dean’s pro¬ posal with delight, and even eagerness; and it was arranged that he should be at my house between seven and eight o’clock that evening. I think I have already observed, that I had an organ, a very fine and powerful one, in my back drawing-room; and this instrument had been the eminent delight of poor Miss P-. She would sit down at it for hours together, and her performance would not have disgraced a professor. I hoped that on the eventful occasion that was approaching, the tones of her favourite instrument, with the blessing of Heaven, might rouse a slumbering responsive chord in her bosom, and aid in dispelling the cruel “ charm that deadened her.” She certainly could not last long in the condition in which she now lay. Every thing that medicine could do, had been tried—in vain ; and if the evening’s experiment—our forlorn hope, failed—we must, though with a bleeding heart, submit to the will of Pro¬ vidence, and resign her to the grave. I looked forward with intense anxiety—with alternate hope and fear—to the engage¬ ment of the evening. On returning home, late in the afternoon,'! found poor Mrs P-had arrived in town, in obedience to my summons ; and heart-breaking, I learnt, was her first interview, if such it may be called, with her daughter. Her groans and cries alarmed the whole house, and even arrested the attention of the neighbours. I had left instructions, that in case of her arrival during my absence, she should be shown at once, without any precautions, into the presence of Miss P-; with the hope, faint though it was, that the abruptness of her appearance, and the violence