Mr. Carlisle being in the chamber, I retired to bed for a few hours on
Wednesday night. Towards morning he came into my room with an account
that the patient was surprisingly better. I went instantly into the
chamber. But I now sought to suppress every idea of hope. The greatest
anguish I have any conception of, consists in that crushing of a
new-born hope which I had already two or three times experienced. If
Mary recovered, it was well, and I should see it time enough. But it was
too mighty a thought to bear being trifled with, and turned out and
admitted in this abrupt way.

I had reason to rejoice in the firmness of my gloomy thoughts, when,
about ten o'clock on Thursday evening, Mr. Carlisle told us to prepare
ourselves, for we had reason to expect the fatal event every moment. To
my thinking, she did not appear to be in that state of total exhaustion,
which I supposed to precede death; but it is probable that death does
not always take place by that gradual process I had pictured to myself;
a sudden pang may accelerate his arrival. She did not die on Thursday
night.

Till now it does not appear that she had any serious thoughts of dying;
but on Friday and Saturday, the two last days of her life, she
occasionally spoke as if she expected it. This was however only at
intervals; the thought did not seem to dwell upon her mind. Mr. Carlisle
rejoiced in this. He observed, and there is great force in the
suggestion, that there is no more pitiable object, than a sick man, that
knows he is dying. The thought must be expected to destroy his courage,
to co-operate with the disease, and to counteract every favourable
effort of nature.

On these two days her faculties were in too decayed a state, to be able