seal-brown taste in my mouth when I arose in the morning, but that has
entirely disappeared. I am more hopeful and happy, and my hair is getting
thicker on top. I would not try to keep house without life insurance. Last
September I was caught in one of the most destructive cyclones that ever
visited a republican form of government. A great deal of property was
destroyed and many lives were lost, but I was spared. People who had no
insurance were mowed down on every hand, but aside from a broken leg I was
entirely unharmed.

[Illustration: PROTECTED BY LIFE INSURANCE.]

I look upon life insurance as a great comfort, not only to the
beneficiary, but to the insured, who very rarely lives to realize anything
pecuniarily from his venture. Twice I have almost raised my wife to
affluence and cast a gloom over the community in which I lived, but
something happened to the physician for a few days so that he could not
attend to me, and I recovered. For nearly two years I was under the
doctor's care. He had his finger on my pulse or in my pocket all the time.
He was a young western physician, who attended me on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The rest of the week he devoted his medical skill to horses that were
mentally broken down. He said he attended me largely for my society. I
felt flattered to know that he enjoyed my society after he had been thrown
among horses all the week that had much greater advantages than I.

My wife at first objected seriously to an insurance on my life, and said
she would never, never touch a dollar of the money if I were to die, but
after I had been sick nearly two years, and my disposition had suffered a
good deal, she said that I need not delay the obsequies on that account.
But the life insurance slipped through my fingers somehow, and I
recovered.