experience and the example of women, may soften and, possibly,
subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is originally
there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute
brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from among
them, as an enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer goes
apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into his den.
Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and
habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was
something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of
Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is
best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft
place in his heart. I knew it well, however, at that time, although
afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. Methought there could not
be two such men alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of
a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down-sinkings and
shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those
eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows.

Happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to die!
and unless a friend like Hollingsworth be at hand,--as most probably
there will not,--he had better make up his mind to die alone. How
many men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would
choose for his deathbed companions! At the crisis of my fever I
besought Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but
continually to make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the
hand, a word, a prayer, if he thought good to utter it; and that then
he should be the witness how courageously I would encounter the worst.
It still impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not
die then, when I had tolerably made up my mind to it; for
Hollingsworth would have gone with me to the hither verge of life,