"Ah!" exclaimed he, with agitation, "Give me
back my wife; at least console me for her loss; fill up, dear boy, the
void she has left in my soul. Could I love thee thus wert thou only my
son?" Forty years after this loss he expired in the arms of a second
wife, but the name of the first still vibrated on his lips, still
was her image engraved on his heart.
Such were the authors of my being: of all the gifts it had pleased
Heaven to bestow on them, a feeling heart was the only one that
descended to me; this had been the source of their felicity, it was
the foundation of all my misfortunes.
I came into the world with so few signs of life, that they
entertained but little hope of preserving me, with the seeds of a
disorder that has gathered strength with years, and from which I am
now relieved at intervals, only to suffer a different, though more
intolerable evil. I owed my preservation to one of my father's
sisters, an amiable and virtuous girl, who took the most tender care
of me; she is yet living, nursing, at the age of fourscore, a
husband younger than herself, but worn out with excessive drinking.
Dear aunt! I freely forgive your having preserved my life, and only
lament that it is not in my power to bestow on the decline of your
days the tender solicitude and care you lavished on the first dawn
of mine. My nurse, Jaqueline, is likewise living, and in good
health- the hands that opened my eyes to the light of this world may
close them at my death.
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