more gradual and slow. The recovery, however, was only temporary in her
case. She was throughout her life subject to frequent recurrences of the
same disease. At one time her brother Charles writes, "Poor Mary's
disorder so frequently recurring has made us a sort of marked people." At
another time he says, "I consider her as perpetually on the brink of
madness." And so, indeed, she continued during the remainder of her life;
and she lived to the age of eighty-two years.

Charles was now left alone in the world. His father was imbecile; his
sister insane; and his brother afforded no substantial assistance or
comfort. He was scarcely out of boyhood when he learned that the world has
its dangerous places and barren deserts; and that he had to struggle for
his living, without help. He found that he had to take upon himself all
the cares of a parent or protector (to his sister) even before he had
studied the duties of a man.

Sudden as death came down the necessary knowledge: how to live, and how to
live well. The terrible event that had fallen upon him and his, instead of
casting him down, and paralyzing his powers, braced and strung his sinews
into preternatural firmness. It is the character of a feeble mind to lie
prostrate before the first adversary. In his case it lifted him out of
that momentary despair which always follows a great calamity. It was like
extreme cold to the system, which often overthrows the weak and timid, but
gives additional strength and power of endurance to the brave and the
strong.

"My aunt was lying apparently dying" (writes Lamb), "my father with a
wound on his poor forehead, and my mother a murdered corpse, in the next
room. I felt that I had something else to do than to regret. _I had the
whole weight of the family upon me;_ for my brother--little disposed at