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SKETCHES. 275
even be able to save her this time, it would, after all, per-
haps be of little benefit to her. To walk about with falter-
ing steps a few years longer, borne down by care, in order
to earn a miserable crust of dry bread, and then to die upon
a straw pallet, is surely not worth a rhubarb-powder. To
the old and destitute death is a solacing angel in whose
way we doctors ought not to stand. Our physic serves fre-
quently nothing else than to make the poor patient again
taste, what to him is more bitter than any medicine —
life.’ During this soliloquy, I stood still on the landing,
pulling down a spider’s web with my walking-stick, and lib-
erating two agonized flies that showed their gratitude by
buzzing round my nose for nearly half an hour.
“JY now observed that the lady had followed me. ‘My
dear doctor, she said with a quivering voice, clasping her
hands together, ‘excuse me — but — if you knew what a
life is in jeopardy — you would exert all your skill; you
would do every thing in your power to save it. ‘A human
life, madam,’ I answered, ‘is always valuable; my science
is not oninipotent, but my exertions are the same for all.’
She looked as if she did not quite believe me, and in truth
I felt soine small stings of conscience ; I muttered a few
words that it would interest me to hear something more
concerning the invalid. ‘The lady opened a door on the
opposite side, saying in a steadier voice: ‘ Please to walk
in a moment, you will not repent it; I will make you ac-
quainted with your patient’s character, and you will then,
perhaps, think of some other treatinent.’
“ She led me into a small, well-furnished room, and thence
into another one, where even a certain elegance was pre-
vailing. ‘Look around you, Doctor, she said, ‘these
rooms, every thing that is in them, every chair, every cush-
ion, yes, my own and my two children’s clothes, are presents
from the poor old woman, who you but now saw lying upon
straw.’ Tears glittered in the lady’s eyes. Roused out of
my plilegmatic trance, I asked her anxiously for some further
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