Title: The Forlorn Hope - A Tale of Old Chelsea
Author: Hall, Mrs S. C.
Language: English
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Transcribed from the 1844 edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org.
Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries,
Local Studies, for allowing their copy to be used for this transcription.

                     [Picture: Decorative title page]

                                   THE
                              FORLORN HOPE:
                                    A
                                  STORY
                                    OF
                               OLD CHELSEA.

                                    BY
                             Mrs. S. C. HALL.

                    [Picture: Chelsea from the Thames]

CHELSEA Hospital, or, as the old soldiers prefer to call it, “Chelsea
College,” appears much the same at all seasons of the year; its simple,
dignified, and, if the phrase may be permitted, healthful and useful,
style of architecture, suggests the same ideas, under the hot sun of June
and amid the snows of bleak December; bringing conviction that the
venerable structure is a safe, suitable, comfortable, and happy, as well
as honourable, retreat for the brave men who have so effectually “kept
the foreigner from fooling us.”  The simple story I have to tell,
commences with a morning in April, 1838.  It was a warm, soft morning, of
the first spring month; the sun shone along the colonnade of “the Royal
College.”  Some of the veterans—who, fearing rheumatism more than they
ever feared cold steel or leaden bullet, had kept close quarters all the
winter, in their comfortable nooks up stairs—were now slowly pacing
beside the stately pillars of their own palace, inhaling the refreshing
breeze that crossed the water-garden from the Thames, and talking
cheerfully of the coming summer.  Truly the “pensioners” seem, to the
full, aware of their privileges, and of their claims—far less upon our
sympathies than upon our gratitude and respect.  The college is THEIRS;
they look, walk, and talk, in perfect and indisputable consciousness that
it is their house, and that those who cross its courts, loiter in its
gardens, or view its halls, chapel, and dormitories, are but
visitors—graciously admitted, and generously instructed by them.  And who
will dare to question their right?

                       [Picture: The Summer House]

The veterans are, as they may well be, proud of their country and their
hospital; they are too natural to disguise the feeling that they love a
good listener; to such they will tell how Madam Gwyn asked the king—the
second Charles—to endow a last earthly home for his brave soldiers; and
how rejoiced she was to have it built at Chelsea, because she was born
there, for that all human souls love the places where they were born!
They point to the tattered flags in the noble hall and sacred chapel, as
if the trophies were actually won by their own hands; they will digress
from them to Sir Christopher Wren, not seeming to know very clearly
whether the great architect or Charles the Second planned the
structure—they are apt to confound Henry the Eighth with the second
James, who presented to their church such splendid communion plate; but
make no mistake at all about Queen Victoria, who came herself to see
them—“God bless her Majesty!”  I never met one who was not proud of his
quarters; they praise the freshness and sweetness of the air, the
liberality of the treatment, and point out, with gratitude, their little
gardens which occupy the site of the famous Ranelagh of fashionable
memory, where they can follow their own fancies, cultivating, in their
plots of ground, the flowers, or herbs, or shrubs that please them best;
THE SUMMER-HOUSE, which they say Lord John Russell built for them,
occupies a prominent position there; it was worthy a descendant of the
noble house of Bedford to care for brave soldiers in the evening of their
days.  If you have patience, and feel interested in the cheerful
garrulities of age, they will hint that they fear the new embankment of
“The Thames” will still more dry up the land-springs, and injure their
fine old trees.  Some can describe the ancient conduit which supplied
Winchester Palace and Beaufort House with water, and point out (if you
will extend your walk so far) the various sites of houses in the
immediate vicinity, where dwelt the great men of old times,—chiefest
among them all, the wise Sir Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of
England, who lived “hard by,” and had for his near neighbours the Earl of
Essex, the Princess Elizabeth; and, farther down, at Old Brompton, Oliver
Cromwell and Lord Burleigh.  But those who would know more than the
pensioners can tell them concerning Chelsea, and its neighbourhood—that
suburb of London most rich in honourable and interesting associations
with the past—may consult good Mr. Faulkner, the accurate and
pains-taking Historian of the district, who lives in a small book-shop
near at hand, flourishing, as he ought to, in the very centre of places
he has so effectually aided to commemorate.

                     [Picture: Nell Gwyn and Charles]

The story of “Mistress Nelly’s” prayer that an asylum might be provided
for aged veterans, “whose work was done,” rests mainly on tradition; but
there is nothing of improbability about it.  Her influence over the
voluptuous monarch,

    “Who never said a foolish thing
    And never did a wise one,”

was, at one period, unbounded.  It was in this instance, at least,
exerted in the cause of mercy and virtue, as well as gratitude; the
College remains a lasting contradiction to the memorable epigram I have
quoted; inasmuch as a “wiser thing” than its foundation, to say nothing
of its justice, is not recorded in the chronicles of the reign of any
British sovereign.  Many a victory has been won for these kingdoms by the
knowledge that the maimed soldier will not be a deserted beggar—by the
certainty that honourable “scars” will be healed by other ointment than
that of mere pity!  Chelsea and Greenwich are enduring monuments to prove
that a Nation knows how to be grateful.  The brave men who pace along
these corridors may “talk o’er their wounds,” and while shouldering their
crutches, to “show how fields were won,” point to the recompense as a
stimulus to younger candidates for glory.  Who can sufficiently estimate
the value of this reward?  Let us ask what it has done for our country;
but let us ask it on the battle fields, where French eagles were taken:
eagles, a score of which are now the trophies of our triumphs, in the
very halls which the veterans, who won them, tread up and down.

The pensioners—though, as human beings, each may have a distinctive
character—are, to a certain degree, alike; clean and orderly, erect in
their carriage for a much longer period than civilians of equal ages, and
disputing all the encroachments of time, inch by inch—fighting with as
much determination for life as formerly they did for glory.  When they
die, they die of old age.

                           [Picture: Pensioner]

The month I have said was April—the April of 1838: old James Hardy and
John Coyne were walking beneath the colonnade that faces the
water-garden.  They were both old, yet John considered James a mere boy.
John’s face had been “broken up” by a gun-shot wound at Seringapatam,
which anticipated time; and James “stumped” very vigorously along on a
brace of wooden legs, his eyes bright and twinkling, his laugh ringing
out, at the conclusion of each of his brief, pithy stories, which he told
as earnestly as if John could hear them; John, however, _had_ heard them
all before he became deaf, and as James only re-drew upon his ancient
store, John had no great loss.  He looked up in his comrade’s face,
caught the cheerful infection of his comrade’s laugh, by sight though not
by sound, and laughed also—not as James laughed, but in a little quiet
way, something like the rattle of a baby’s drum—and then James would wind
it up by saying—“There! did you ever hear the like of that before!” and
bestow a sounding slap on his friend’s shoulder.  They were comrades in
every sense of the word, for they inhabited the same dormitory, nest by
nest; John cherishing a canary, whose song he had never heard, though he
used to declare it sang like a nightingale, with a woodlark’s note—while
James had ranged all manner of curious crockery on the shelf over his
bed, filling up the intermediate spaces with caricatures of the French,
the iron head of a halbert, the buckle of a French cuirass, a fragment of
an ensign’s gorget, and a few other reliques of a “foughten field,”—

    “The treasures of a soldier, bought with blood,
    And kept at life’s expense.”

As they strutted lovingly together, delighting, as children do, in
sunshine, while James talked and laughed incessantly, a tall, thin,
military-looking man, as hard and erect as a ramrod, marched up to them,
with as measured a tread as if he were in the ranks; then, wheeling
about, presented James with a leaf of laurel, one of many he held in his
hand; there was a wild sparkle in his eyes, and a bright flush upon his
cheek.

“What for, serjeant-major?” inquired James, taking the leaf, and giving a
military salute.

“Toulouse!” answered the veteran, in a voice of triumph; yet the tone was
full of music, and rendered ample justice to the musical word.
“Toulouse! my old fellow,” he repeated.

“So it is!” answered James Hardy; “it is the anniversary, sure enough.
And yet, master, if we are to mount a fresh laurel for every day we
gained a victory, we shall have to get as many as there are days in the
year.”

“Right, Hardy, right,” replied the sergeant-major.  “Right; three hundred
and sixty-five laurel-leaves per annum.  Right, that was well said.  Lucy
walked out this morning and gathered me a basketful; she knew I’d want
them for my old comrades, as soon as I could get down to the college.
She’s worthy to be a soldier’s daughter.”

“Ah, ah! and a soldier’s wife,” responded James; “isn’t she, John?”  And
John, thinking James had been telling a story, laughed his little laugh
as usual.

“Worthy to be anything, thank God,” said the sergeant-major; but the
expression of his face changed; it lost its flush and its proud glance of
triumph; anxiety for his only child obliterated even the memory of
“Toulouse:”—the soldier was absorbed in the father,—and he continued,
“No: I should not like her to be a soldier’s wife, Jem, I should not; she
hasn’t strength for campaigning.  It killed her poor mother; they said it
was consumption; but it was no such thing.  It was the wet and dry, heat
and cold, ups and downs of campaigning; she would not leave me—not she:
it is a wonderful thing, the abiding love that links a frail, delicate
woman to the rough soldier and his life of hardships; and such a loving
mother as she had, and such a home; she never heard anything louder than
the ripple of the mountain rill, and the coo of the ringdove, until, a
girl of seventeen, she plunged with me into the hot war.  You remember
her, Jem?”  The sergeant-major’s seventeen years of widowhood had not
dried up the sources of his grief; he drew his hand across his eyes, and
then began, hastily and with a tremulous hand, to fit the laurel leaves,
which he still held, one within the other.

“That I do—remember her—and well;” answered James Hardy.

“What is it?” inquired old John.  James made him understand they were
speaking of poor Mrs. Joyce.

“Ah!” said John, “she was an angel,—Miss Lucy is very like her
mother—very like her—even to the way she has in church of laying her hand
on her heart—so,—as if it beat too fast.”

“She does not do _that_, does she, James?” inquired the sergeant-major,
eagerly; “I never saw her do _that_.”

“Likely not,” replied James; “John sees a deal more than those who hear;
he is obliged to amuse himself with something; and, as he cannot hear, he
sees.”

The sergeant-major paused, and his companions with him; he became
abstracted—the leaves dropped from his fingers—and, at last, turning
abruptly away, he retraced his steps homewards.

     [Picture: Chelsea physic garden with statue of Sir Hans Sloane]

Old John touched his brow with his forefinger significantly, and James
muttered to himself—“The wound in his head may have damaged the
sergeant-major, to be sure,—but, it is his daughter, poor thing, for all
the roses on her cheek, and her sweet voice—!”  John did not hear a word
his comrade spoke, but his thoughts were in the same channel.  “He loves
to see us all the same,” he said, “as when he was with the old
‘half-hundred,’ and takes a march through the college every morning,
keeping wonderful count of our victories; and then mounts guard over his
daughter, as regularly as beat of drum;—he’s constant with her; if the
sun’s too hot, under the shade of the avenue trees; or, if it is too
cold, in the warmth of Cheyne-walk, or with old Mr. Anderson in the
botanic garden, gathering the virtues of the herbs, and telling each
other tales of the cedars and plane trees of foreign parts; may be,
looking through the old water gate, or at the statue of Sir Hans Sloane.
{6}  I hear tell that Miss Lucy has great knowledge of such things; but
she’ll not live—not she—no more than her mother; I’m sure of that.”

“Who knows?” said James Hardy, “if she had a milder climate, or proper
care.”

“Ah! the poor sergeant-major!  He’s always leading some forlorn hope!”

The sergeant-major was one of EIGHTY-THREE THOUSAND MEN who are pensioned
by a grateful country; an honourable boon—honourable alike to “those who
give, and those who take.”  A wound in the head had rendered him, at an
early period of life, unfit for future service, and he had taken up his
quarters in his native village, only to watch by the dying bed of a
beloved wife, who, after a few years of gradual decline, left him the
fatal legacy of a child as delicate as herself.

Of all the evils that wait on poor humanity, the most sad and the most
hopeless, in its progress and its result, is that disease which may be
described as peculiar to our climate; acting as a dreadful counterpoise
to numerous blessed privileges; the one terrible “set-off” against the
plague, the pestilence, the famine, the storm, the earthquake, the wars,
which so continually devastate other countries, but from which a merciful
Providence has, in a great degree, exempted ours.  The raging fever of
the blood or the brain, brings the suspense of but a week or two, and
busies the mournful watcher; all the ills that “flesh is heir to” have
inseparably linked with them some sources of consolation, some motives
for hope; they may be borne by the sufferer, and by those who often
suffer more intensely than the patient, because of the knowledge that
skill and care are mighty to save.  But CONSUMPTION—lingering, wasting,
“slow but sure”—when the victim has been marked out, the work is, as it
were, done!  The hectic cheek is as a registered death-doom from which
there is no appeal!

Should I not, rather, say that, HITHERTO, it has been so considered:—the
Despair engendered by a belief that “all hope” was to be “abandoned,”
having—no one can doubt it—largely aided in preventing cure.

The poor sergeant-major! strong and brave as a lion though he was,—a
single word had made him feeble as a child.  He had defied death, when
death assumed appalling shapes; but the memory of his wife’s sufferings
was ever a sudden chill upon his heart; he shrank, as at an adders’s
touch, from the thought that his child might be the inheritor of the
mother’s fatal dowry.  Thus, the sound of a hollow cough would shake his
rugged nature like an ague fit; his very life was bound up in that of his
dear daughter; and, for a moment, the thought that there might be truth
in what his aged comrade said, seemed as awful in its consequences as an
actual death-knell.

Sergeant-major Joyce was a veteran soldier, who had gained the respect
and esteem of his whole regiment officers and men.  There was a bond
between him and them which his withdrawal from active service could not
cancel.  So, after his wife’s death, finding that a few of his old
companions in arms were inmates of Chelsea College, he removed to its
vicinity; passing his time between the lofty corridors of the
palace-hospital and the small sitting-room of his child; ever walking
with and talking to “the pensioners,” or that dear and delicate “copy” of
the wife he had so truly loved.  And Lucy was a girl of whom any parent
might have been proud.  Delicacy of constitution had given refinement to
her mind as well as to her appearance: she read, perhaps, more than was
good for her, if she had been destined to live the usual term of life, in
her proper sphere.  She thought, also, but she thought well; and this,
happily for herself, made her humble.  Faith is the foundation of that
righteous affection, without which nought is pure; her faith was clear
and firm—in nothing wavering; SHE BELIEVED, and belief had given her,
without an effort, tenfold the strength which those who rely for strength
upon the broken and bending reed of HUMAN REASON, seek for in vain.  You
inquire, who taught her this?  Was it her kindly but half-crazed father?
No: he was full of a rough soldier’s honour, mingled, at times, with the
more than woman’s softness, which often tempers dispositions fierce as
his; but in all this faith, in the trust and purity, the meek, cheerful,
warm spirit of love and tenderness, Lucy—I say it with deep
reverence—Lucy, in all these things—the fruits of a regenerate nature—was
taught of GOD.  She made no show of piety; but her father knew that every
night her Bible was placed beneath her pillow; for he had often seen it
there, when stealing into her little room to be assured she slept.  She
read much besides, and had that youthful leaning towards poetry which is
often the sure evidence of a good and highly tempered mind; but many a
time she shut her “poesy book” with something like distaste, to fill out
her heart with the inspired numbers of Isaiah, or the glories of the holy
Psalms.  Well might she be her father’s darling; she was more than that,
though he did not know it; she was his ministering angel.  At times her
heart would throb wildly at tales of the wars in which he had borne a
part.  And even on the sabbath day she seldom knelt beneath the shadow of
the trophies of our country’s prowess—trophies which glorify the old
Hospital-Chapel of Chelsea—without feeling proudly thankful they were
there; but her care was ever to soothe and tranquillize, to watch for and
avert her father’s stormy moods, and be ready with a word in season, to
recall him to himself.

Mr. Joyce soon reached his home after he left his comrades.  “Mary,” he
inquired of an Irishwoman, the widow of a soldier, who had nursed his
daughter from her birth, and never left them—one of those
devotees—half-friend, half-servant—which are found only among the Irish:
“Mary, did you ever perceive that Lucy pressed her hand upon her
heart—as—as—her mother used to do?”

“Is it her heart?  Ah, then, did ye ever know any girl, let alone such a
purty one as Miss Lucy, count all out twenty years without feeling she
had a heart, sometimes?”

The sergeant-major turned upon the faithful woman with a scrutinizing
look; but the half-smile, the total absence of anxiety from her features,
re-assured him; long as Mary had lived in his service, he was
unaccustomed to her national evasions.

“Who was it tould you about her heart bating, masther?” she inquired.

“It was old John Coyne, who said she pressed her hand thus—”

“Is it ould John?” repeated the woman; “ould John that would sware the
crosses off a donkey’s back?  Ah, sure! you’re not going to b’lieve what
ould John says.”

“You think she is quite well, then?”

“She was singing like the first lark in spring after you went out, sir,
and I never see her trip more lightly than she did down to the botany
garden, not two minutes agone; unless you quick march, you’ll not
overtake her.”  Mr. Joyce wheeled round in his usually abrupt manner, and
Mary stood at the door, shading the sun from her eyes with her hand,
until he was out of sight.  “I hate to have him look at me that way,” she
said, “seeing right through and through a body, more than what’s in them!
The bird of his bosom, poor man, may wear it out awhile, but not for
long—and it’s himself that will be lost then!  But where’s the good of
looking out for sorrow; its heavy and hard enough when it comes: may the
Lord keep it off as long as it’s good for us; and it _is_ hard to fancy
so bright a crathure marked for death.”

Mary returned to her work—and the old sergeant-major overtook his
daughter, just as she had lifted her hand to pull the great bell of the
botanic garden.  He said it would be pleasanter to stroll along
Cheyne-walk, over THE OLD BRIDGE OF BATTERSEA.

                  [Picture: The old bridge of Battersea]

So over the old bridge they went; resting now and then upon the worn
ballustrades of the rough structure, to gaze over the bosom of the
richest and most glorious—to my thinking, I may add, the most calmly
beautiful—of all the rivers of the world.  Standing upon this bridge, a
forest of masts is seen in the distance;—indications of the traffic which
brings the wealth of a thousand seaports to our city quays.  “The mighty
heart” of a great Nation is sending thence its life-streams over earth.
Glorious and mighty, and—spite of its few drawbacks—good and happy
England!  Turning westward, the tranquil and gentle waters of

                  “The most loved of all the ocean’s sons,”

are washing the banks of many a lordly villa and cottage, where the hands
of industry are busied every day.  And within sight, too, are places
memorable in the annals of “holiday folk.”  How closely linked with
remembrances of hosts of “honest citizens,” is “the Red House, at
Battersea,”—relic of those ancient “tea-gardens,” which even now are
beginning to belong to the history of the past.  “Pleasant village of
Chelsea,” how abundant is its treasure of associations with the olden
time!  Not a house is there, or within view of it, to which some worthy
memory may not be traced.  Alas! they grow less and less in number every
day!

                       [Picture: Chelsea windmill?]

But I have made a long digression from my story.  During their walk the
old soldier narrowly watched his child, to ascertain if she placed her
hand on her heart, or her side; but she did not.  She spoke kindly to the
little children who crossed their path; and the dogs wagged their tails
when they looked into her face.  She walked, he thought, stoutly for a
woman; and seemed so well, that he began talking to her about sieges, and
marches, and of his early adventures; and then they sat down and rested;
Lucy getting in a word, now and then, about the freshness and beauty of
the country, and the goodness of God, and looking so happy and so
animated that her father forgot all his fears on her account.  Many
persons, attracted by the fineness of the day, were strolling up and down
Cheyne-walk as the father and daughter returned; and a group at the
entrance to the famous Don Saltero Coffee-house, regarded her, as she
passed, with such evident respect and admiration, that the sergeant-major
felt more proud and happy than he had done for a very long time.  In the
evening, he smoked his long inlaid foreign pipe (which the little
children, as well as the “big people” of Chelsea, regarded with peculiar
admiration,) out of the parlour window.

                      [Picture: Lucy and her father]

Lucy always brought him his pipe, but he never smoked it in the room,
thinking it made her cough.  And then, after he had finished, he shut
down the window, and she drew the white muslin curtain; those who passed
and repassed saw their shadows: the girl bending over a large book, and
her father seated opposite to her; listening while she read, his elbow
placed on the table, and his head resting on his hand.  The drapery was
so transparent that they could see his sword and sash hanging on the wall
above his hat; and the branch of laurel with which Lucy had adorned the
looking-glass that morning in commemoration of the battle of Toulouse.
Before the sergeant-major went to bed that night he called old Mary, and
whispered, “You were quite right about old John Coyne.  Lucy never
marched better than she did to-day; and her voice, both in reading, and
the little hymn she sung, was as strong as a trumpet.  I’ll give it well
to old John, to-morrow;”—but he never did.  The sergeant-major was
usually up the first in the house; yet, the next morning, when Mary took
hot water to his room she stepped back, seeing he was kneeling, dressed,
by his bed side; half an hour passed; she went again.  Mr. Joyce had
never undressed, never laid upon the bed since it had been turned down;
he was dead and cold; his hands clasped in prayer.  Some of the vessels
of the heart, or head, had given way; the wonderful machine was
disturbed; its power destroyed in an instant.

Lucy Joyce was now utterly alone in the world; of her father’s relatives
she knew little or nothing; her mother was an only child, and her
grandmother and grandfather were both dead.  A generous and benevolent
lady, aware of the circumstance under which she was placed, offered to
provide Lucy with a situation;—but what situation?  She looked too
delicate, too refined for service; and she was not sufficiently
accomplished to undertake the duties of even a nursery governess, “Have
none of their slavery, dear,” exclaimed poor Mary, while weeping
bitterly; “take your pick of the things to furnish two little rooms, Miss
Lucy, and sell the rest.  I’ve a power of friends, and can get constant
work; turn my hand to any thing, from charing to clear-starching, or if
the noise wouldn’t bother you, sure I could have a mangle; it would
exercise me of on evening when I’d be done work: don’t lave me, Miss,
don’t darling, any way, till you gather a little strength after all
you’ve gone through; the voice of the stranger is harsh, and the look of
the stranger is cold, to those who have lived all their days in the light
of a father’s love.  I took you from your mother’s breast a wee-some,
woe-some, babby, and sure, my jewel own, I have some right to you.  I’ll
never gainsay you.  And to please you, dear, I’ll listen to any chapter
you’ll read out of the Book; nor never let the echo even of a white, let
alone a black, oath cross my lips.”  But Lucy Joyce was too right-minded
to live on the labour of an old servant.  She retained barely enough to
furnish for Mary a comfortable room, and accepted, much to the faithful
creature’s mortification, a “place” in a family—one of the hardest
“places” to endure, and yet as good, perhaps, as, from her father’s
position, she could have expected—as half-teacher, half-servant; a
mingling of opposite duties; against the mingling of which, reason
utterly revolts; inasmuch as the one must inevitably destroy the
influence of the other.

                        [Picture: Fulham church?]

It was not in the thick atmosphere of the crowded city—where the most
healthful find it difficult to breathe, and where the panting sufferer’s
agony is increased fourfold—that Lucy undertook the duties and labours of
her new occupation; her way lay through the venerable and picturesque OLD
VILLAGE OF FULHAM, and so, beneath the arch and over the “wooden way,” to
Putney.  Pleasant and happy the sister villages looked; divided by the
noble Thames, and joined by the bridge—the most primitive of all the
bridges which cross the broad river.  Mary walked respectfully behind;
but, now and then, spoke words of encouragement, while the tears ran down
her cheeks.  They paused to look down upon the water, so broad and
glassy, athwart whose bosom the long light boats were sporting; the clock
of Putney church struck the hour, and Lucy remembered that, for the first
time in her life, she was bound to note its chime as the voice of an
employer.  The VILLAGE OF PUTNEY was soon passed; yet not without some
difficulty to the poor girl; her chest heaved and panted as she
endeavoured to walk lightly up the rising ground towards the Heath, where
her future home was situated; poor Mary whispering, “Take it asy, dear;
don’t hurry yourself, avourneen.”  They parted at the gate.

                 [Picture: Putney with bridge and church]

Time would pass almost unregistered by us, but for the abruptness of some
of its movements.  Every country has its great national _datas_, which
fix a period.  Of late, in France, “the revolution,” and “three glorious
days;” in Ireland, “the ninety-eight;” in Scotland “the forty-five;” in
England, “the restoration,” “the riots.”  These stormy doings are
History’s high places.  Yet events which effect changes as entire and as
wonderful, continue untalked about or unthought of, because they have not
been heralded by beat of drum, and written in fields of slaughter.  So,
in private life, time would pass for ever unregistered by us, but for the
abruptness of some of its movements—things that seem either to stop its
course or send it dashing forward.  The most humble have their “great
events”—their mental land marks.  “It was just before I was married,” or
“immediately after our eldest boy was born,” is the frequent observation
of the wife and mother.  The widow says, “before my husband died.”  Poor
Lucy, when the sufferings of pain were increased by the anxieties of
duty, and retrospection was forced upon her, could only say, or think,
“when my dear father was alive,”—that was her land mark!  The duties
incident to her new position; the exertion which children require, and
which is _perpetual_, though parents are the only persons who do not feel
it to be so; the exercise, the necessity for amusing and instructing the
young, the high-spirited, and the active; these added to the change of
repose for inquietude, of being the one cared for, to the having to care
for others; the entire loneliness of spirit, all combined to make her
worse, to crush utterly the already bruised reed.

Lucy was fully sensible of the consoling power—the great PLEASURE of
being useful; and her mind was both practically and theoretically
Christian; so, she never yielded to fretfulness or impatience; she knew
that, through all her trials—through her waking hours of pain, through
the weary time of total incapacity for the fulfilment of her duties—God
was with her, was her stay, was her support; was trying her, as pure gold
is tried in the fire; would sustain her in spirit unto the end: she knew
all this, she never doubted, but she suffered; her heart fluttered like
an imprisoned bird, as she toiled and panted up the high stairs, while
the children laughed and sported, with the spirit and energy of health,
and called to her to ‘come faster.’  Night brought rest without
refreshment; she could not sleep; and, stifling her cough, lest she
should disturb others, she would look up to the starry sky, often
repeating—

                     “Oh! that I had wings like a dove;”

but hardly had she so prayed, when a sense of her own unworthiness, of
the duty of watching and waiting for God’s appointed time, would come
upon her, and she would add, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  No one
was cruel, no one even unkind to her; the cross cook (all good cooks are
cross), would often make her lemonade, or reserve something she thought
the young girl might eat; the lady’s-maid, who had regarded her, at
first, as a rival beauty, won by her cheerful patience, said, that even
when her eyes were full of tears, there was a smile upon her lip; all the
servants felt for her; and, at length, her mistress requested her own
physician to see what was the matter with “poor Joyce.”

There are exceptions, no doubt; but, taken as a body, medical men—God
bless them for so being!—are the very souls of kindness and generous
humanity; how many have I known whose voices were as music in a sick
chamber; who, instead of taking, gave; ever ready to alleviate and to
sustain.

“Have you no friends?” he inquired.

“None, sir,” she replied; “at least none to support me; and,” she added,
“I know I am unable to remain here.”  While she said this, she looked
with her blue, truthful, earnest eyes, into his face; then paused,
hoping, without knowing what manner of hope was in her, that he would
say—“she _was_ able;” but he did not; and she continued, “there is no one
to whom I can go, except an old servant of my poor father’s; so, if—”
there came, perhaps, a flush of pride to her cheek, or it might be she
was ashamed to ask a favour—“if, sir, you could get me into AN HOSPITAL,
I should be most grateful.”

“I wish I could,” he answered, “with all my heart.  We have hospitals
enough; yet, I fear—indeed, I know—there is not one that would receive
you, when aware of the exact nature of your complaint.  You must have a
warm, mild atmosphere; perfect quiet, and a particular diet; and that for
some considerable time.”

“My mother, sir,” said Lucy, “died of consumption.”

“Well, but you are not going to die,” he replied, smiling; “only you must
let your father’s old servant take care of you, and you may soon get
better.”

Lucy shook her head, and her eyes overflowed with tears; the physician
cheered her, after the usual fashion.  “I am not afraid of death, sir,”
said the young woman; “indeed, I am not; but I fear, more than I ought,
the passage which leads to it; the burden I must be to the poor faithful
creature who nursed me from my birth.  I thought there was an hospital
for the cure of every disease; and this consumption is so general, so
helpless, so tedious.”

“The very thing,”—said the doctor, who, with all his kindness, was one of
those who think “so and so,” because “all the faculty” thought “so and
so,” for such a number of years;—“its being tedious is the very thing; it
is quite a FORLORN HOPE.”

“But, sir,” answered the soldier’s daughter, “FORLORN HOPES _have
sometimes led to_ GREAT VICTORIES, _when they have been_ FORLORN, _but
not_ FORSAKEN.”

The doctor pressed into her hand the latest fee he had received, and
descended the stairs.  “That is a very extraordinary girl, madam, in the
nursery,” he said to the lady, “something very superior about her; but
she will get worse and worse; nothing for her but a more genial climate,
constant care, perfect rest, careful diet: if she lives through the
winter she must go in the spring.  Lungs! chest! blisters will relieve
her; and if we could produce the climate of Madeira here for a winter or
so, she might revive; but, poor thing, in her situation—”

The lady shook her head, and repeated, “Ay; in her situation.”

“It is really frightful,” he continued, “the hundreds—thousands, I may
say—who drop off in this dreadful disease; the flower of our maidens; the
finest of our youths; no age, no sex, exempt from it.  We have only
casual practice to instruct us in it; we have no opportunity of watching
and analyzing it, _en masse_, as we have with other complaints; it is
turned out of our hospitals before we do what we even fancy might be
done; it is indeed, as she said just now, ‘_forlorn_’ and ‘_forsaken_.’
Why, I know not; I really wish some one would establish an hospital for
the cure, or, at least, the investigation of this disease; many, if taken
in time, would be saved.  Suffering, the most intense, but, perhaps, the
best endured, from the very nature of the complaint, would be materially
lessened, and a fresh and noble field opened for an almost new branch of
our profession.”

The physician prescribed for Lucy.  He saw her again, and would have seen
her repeatedly, but the family left town suddenly, in consequence of the
death of a near relative, and the very belief that nothing could be done
for her, circumstanced as she was, contributed to her being forgotten.
The human mind has a natural desire to blot out from memory objects that
are hopeless.  Lucy went to Mary’s humble lodging, and fancied, for a day
or two, she was much better.  She had the repose which such illness so
naturally seeks.  Mary’s room was on the ground floor of a small house,
in a little street leading off “Paradise-row.”  The old pensioners
frequently passed the window; she could hear the beat of the Asylum
drums; sometimes they awoke her out of her sleep in the morning; but she
liked them none the less for that.  Mary put away her poor master’s hat
(which she brushed every morning), his sword and sash, and his gloves, in
her own box, when Lucy came, least the sight of them should make her
melancholy; but Lucy saw their marks upon the wall, and begged she would
replace them there.  She gave her little store, amounting to a few
pounds, into the nurse’s hands, who spent it scrupulously for her—and yet
not prudently; for she ran after every nostrum, and insisted upon Lucy’s
swallowing them all.  Sometimes the fading girl would creep along in the
sunshine, and so changed was she, in little more than a year, that no one
recognised her, though some would look after her, and endeavour to call
to mind who it was she so strongly resembled.

The only living thing that rejoiced with Mary over her return, was a
lean, hungry dog, the favourite of an out-pensioner who died about six
months before the sergeant-major.  It was ill-favoured, but faithful,
remaining many nights upon its master’s grave.  Lucy coaxed it home and
fed it; and though the creature’s erratic disposition prevented its
accepting the refuge she then offered, he would come in occasionally for
a night’s lodging, or a breakfast, and depart without a single wag of his
stunted tail.  When Lucy left Chelsea, Mary almost lost sight of the dog,
though she met him sometimes, and then he would look to her—a sort of
recognition—and walk on.  The morning after Lucy’s return, while she lay
upon her nurse’s bed, the door was poked open by a thick, grizzled nose,
and in another instant the pensioner’s dog rushed to her, expressing his
joy by the most uncouth sounds and motions, screaming while licking her
hands, and, when his excitement subsided, lying down inside the door,
with his eyes fixed upon her, baffling all Mary’s efforts to turn him
out.  Beauty, after all, has very little to do with the affections; after
its first sun stroke, it loses most of its power.  Lucy had the keen
appreciation of the beautiful which belongs to a refined mind in every
situation of life; yet the gratitude of that poor ugly dog attached her
to him; through all her sufferings, when her nurse was out at work, he
was a companion, something to speak to.  The little store was soon
expended, though Mary would not confess it; Lucy, skilled in the womanly
craft of needlework, laboured unceasingly; and, as long as she was able
to apply to it, Mary found a market for her industry.  But as the disease
gained ground, her efforts became more feeble, and then the faithful
nurse put forth all her strength, all her ingenuity, to disguise the
nature of their situation; the expense of the necessary medicine,
inefficient as it was, would have procured her every alleviating
Comfort—IF THERE HAD BEEN AN INSTITUTION TO SUPPLY IT.

I have often borne testimony to that which I have more often
witnessed—the deep, earnest, and steadfast fidelity of the humbler Irish!
yet I have never been able to render half justice to the theme.  If they
be found wanting in all other good or great qualities, they are still
true in this—ever faithful, enduring, unwearied, unmoved; past all
telling is their fidelity!  The woman whose character I am now
describing, was but one example of a most numerous class.  Well she would
have known, if she had given the matter a thought, that no chance or
change could ever enable Lucy to repay her services, or recompence her
for her sacrifices and cares; yet her devotion was a thousand times more
fervent than if it had been purchased by all the bribes that a kingdom’s
wealth could yield.  By the mere power of her zeal—her earnest and
utterly unselfish love—she obtained a hearing from many governors of
hospitals; stated the case of “her young lady,” as she called her, the
child of a brave man, who had served his country, who died before his
time, from the effects of that service; and she, his child, was dying
now, from want of proper treatment.  In all her statements, Mary set
forth everything to create sympathy for Lucy, but, nothing that tended to
show her own exertions; how she toiled for her, night and day; how she
was pledging, piece by piece, everything she had, to support her; how her
wedding-ring was gone from off her finger, and the cherished Waterloo
medal of her dead husband (which, by some peculiarly Irish effort of the
imagination, she said “was his very picture”) had disappeared from her
box.  She whispered nothing of all this, though she prayed and petitioned
at almost every hospital for medicine and advice.  Dismissed from one,
Mary would go to another, urging that “sure if they could cure one thing
they could cure another, anyhow they might try;” and if she, the beloved
of her heart, was raised up from a bed of sickness, “God’s fresh
blessing” would be about them, day and night.  “They got up hospitals,”
she would add, “for the suddenly struck for death; for the lame, and the
maimed, and the halt, and the blind; for the vicious! but there were none
to comfort those who deserved and needed more than any!  She did not want
them to take her darling from her.  She only asked advice and medicine.”
She implored for nothing more.  The Irish never seem to feel ashamed of
obtaining assistance from any source, except that which the English fly
to, as their legitimate refuge—the Parish; and Mary would have imagined
she heaped the bitterest wrong upon Lucy, if she had consulted “the
parish doctor;” thus, her national prejudice shut her out from the only
relief, trifling as it might have been, which she could obtain for the
poor girl she so tenderly cherished.

          [Picture: Chelsea workhouse with blind woman and girl]

Mary had such an aversion to the “Poor-house” that she would go round the
public road rather than pass the rambling building close to the
burying-ground, where the Chelsea poor find shelter; and was never
beguiled but once to look through the gate at the Workhouse in the Fulham
Road.  It was formerly the residence of the second Lord Shaftesbury;
where Locke, and other great men of his time, congregated.  “I stopped to
look in at it, Miss Lucy, dear,” she said, “through a fine ould ancient
gate—and the flower-pots, up the steps, were filled with beautiful
flowers—and an old residenter—a blind woman, that a slip of a girl held
by the hand, was standing on the top; and there came out a fine-dressed
lady, for all the world like a full-blown trumpet; and the dark woman
courtesied, and asked lave to ‘come out’—think of one craythur asking
another for lave to breathe the air of heaven outside an ould gate!—and,
I suppose she got it, for the lady in red threw some words at her, and
she gave another courtesy, and came down the steps—her and the girleen.
I had seen enough, and turned away, for my heart was full.  I have never
lived in slavery, and, plase God, I won’t die in it, Miss Lucy—and none I
love shall ever be _behoulden_ to a parish.”  This was reasoning—more of
the heart than of the head.  And yet, who can say that poor Mary was very
wrong?  True, that a roof shelters, and food keeps in existence the
English pauper; but all the feelings that are cherished and honoured
without the workhouse walls, are insulted and uprooted within; the holy
law of wedded life—the command, what God hath joined let not man
separate—is there outraged; fifty years have that aged man and woman paid
the tithe and the tax; half a century have they laboured honestly; the
grave has closed over their children and their early friends, and they
are forced to durance in the poor man’s prison; but they must no longer
quench their thirst from the same cup, or pray beside the same couch; the
law of man divides what can be re-united only in the presence of the
Creator!  No wonder then, if, like poor Mary, many turn away from unjust
judgment, and resolve not to “die in slavery,” having been guilty of no
sin but that of being poor.  Oh! but it is a grievous augmentation of
evil when sympathy is diverted from its natural channel, and the sufferer
is taught daily the sad knowledge that to want is to be criminal.

And so the fell disease, pale and ghastly, stalked on, grasping its
panting and unresisting victim, closer and more close; wasting her
form—infusing the thirsty fever into her veins—parching her quivering
lips into whiteness—drawing her breath—steeping her in unwholesome
dews—and, at times, with a most cruel mockery, painting her cheek and
lighting an _ignis fatuus_ in her eyes, to bewilder with false hopes of
life, while life was failing!  Sometimes she would talk of this life as
if it were everlasting, and—looking over a worn memorandum-book of her
father’s, in which all the battles _he_ was engaged in were chronicled
after a soldier’s fashion; the day of the month noted, the name of the
place, which added another to our wreath of glories, illuminated by the
colours of his regiment rudely indicated by a star or an “_hurra_,” in a
peculiarly cramped hand—she would become excited, and weave imaginary
trophies, calling to her broken-hearted nurse to bring her the green
laurel which her father loved to distribute among his comrades; these
fever fits, however, were at long intervals, and brief; gradually as “the
spring,” the physician had spoken of, advanced, the mingled hopes of this
world, which are but as the faint shadowings of the great HEREAFTER,
strengthened and spiritualized; and her thoughts were prayer, prayer to
Him the Saviour and Redeemer; prayerful and patient she was, gentle and
grateful; her perceptions which had been, for a time, clouded, quickened
as her end drew near; she saw the furniture departing, piece by piece; at
last she missed her father’s sash and sword; and when poor Mary would
have framed excuses, she placed her quivering fingers on her lips, and
spoke more than she had done for many days.  “God will reward you for
your steadfast love of a poor parentless girl; you spared _my treasure_
as long as you could, caring nothing for yourself, working and starving,
and all for me.  Oh, that the world could know, and have belief in the
fervent enduring virtues that sanctify such rooms as this, that decorate
bare walls, and make a bright and warming light when the coal is burnt to
ashes, and the thin candle, despite our watching, flickers before the
night is done.  I have not thought it night, when I felt your hand or
heard you breathe.”  Oh! what liberal charities are there of which the
world knows nothing!  How generous, and how mighty in extent and value,
are the gifts given by the poor to the poor!

It is useless as well as painful to note what followed; she faded and
faded; yet the weaker her body grew, the clearer grew her mind, the more
deep became her faith; she would lie for hours, sleepless, with her eyes
fixed on what we should call vacancy—but which, to her, seemed a bright
world of angels, with the Redeemer in the midst—murmuring prayers, and
broken fragments of hymns, and listening to words of peace which no ear
but her own could hear—her mind only returning to this world to bless
Mary, when she came from her daily toil, or with the fruits of that
solicitation, which she employed for her sake, to the last.  The dog,
too, the poor old dog, that had partaken of her bounty, shared in her
poverty, and would stand with his paws on the bed, looking with his dim
eyes into her face, and licking her hand whenever she moved or moaned.

                [Picture: Lucy in bed with dog and angels]

It was again the anniversary of the battle of Toulouse, and Lucy
remembered it; she begged the old woman not to leave her; _it would be
her last day_; her mind wandered a little; and then she asked for a bough
of laurel—and to sit up—and Mary went out to seek for a few green leaves.
As she past hastily along, she met James Hardy stumping joyously onwards,
and talking to himself, as if poor old John Coyne, who had been dead a
year, was by his side; she saw he had something green in his hand, and
she asked him to share it with her, for a poor girl, her “young lady,”
the sergeant-major’s daughter, who was dying!

The veteran did as she desired; but the bow was _yew_, not laurel.  Well
versed in omens, she returned it to him, burst into tears, and ran on.
He had heard that Miss Lucy was ill; but age is often forgetful; he had
not thought of it; yet now, the memory of the past rushed into his heart,
and he discovered so quickly where “Irish Mary” lived, that when she was
home again, with a fresh green sprig of laurel, James Hardy was weeping
bitterly by Lucy’s side, while Lucy was in an ecstacy of joy.  “Her
father,” she said, “had come for her; there should be no more sorrow, no
more pain; no more want for Mary or for her; her dear father had come for
her.”  By a strong effort, she laid her head on James Hardy’s shoulder,
and grasped her nurse’s hard, honest hand.  “I come, my FATHER!” she
exclaimed, and all was over.

“To die so, in her prime, her youth, her beauty; to be left to die,
because they say there’s no cure for it; THEY NEVER TRIED TO CURE HER!”
exclaimed the nurse, between her bursts of grief—“no place to shelter
her—no one to see to her—no proper food, or air, or care—my heart’s
jewel—who cared for all, when she had it!  Still, the Lord is merciful;
another week, and I should have had nothing but a drop of cold water to
moisten her lips, and no bed for her to lie on.  I kept _that_ to the
last, anyhow; and now it may go; it must go; small loss; what matter what
comes of the likes of me, when such as her could have no help!  I’ll beg
from door to door, ’till I raise enough to lay her by her father’s side,
in the churchyard of ould Chelsea.”  But that effort, at all events, was
not needed; the hospital was astir; the sergeant-major was remembered;
and the church-bell tolled when Lucy was laid in her father’s grave, in
the CHURCHYARD OF OLD CHELSEA.

                    [Picture: The Old Church, Chelsea]



L’ENVOY.


                       [Picture: Woman with child]

THE reader of this little book must not close it with a sad aspect.
Thank God, there are few griefs without some counterbalancing comforts;
and this afflicting subject, so long _without hope_, is now FULL OF HOPE.
The contrasts of life, the lights and shadows of existence, are sometimes
so strong as to be absolutely painful; yet their strength and rapidity of
change are, in many cases, blessings.  Our church bell the other morning
had been tolling, at intervals, for a funeral; the morning was dull and
clouded, and the sound, instead of rising through the atmosphere, boomed
heavily and gloomily along it.  A cesssation followed: I was so occupied
that I hardly noted how long it was, when, suddenly, the joy bells struck
up, ringing out such merry music that I remembered, at once, there was a
wedding going forward that day; a right gay bridal; rank, fashion, and
wealth; love also, I had been told, was, of a surety, there; all that
young hearts desire bring gathered together; and the bells again and
again rang forth, until the air vibrated.  At first the change was very
painful; so sudden, and startling, and jarring, that I longed to shut it
out; but when I opened my window and looked forth, the contrast of sight
was as great as was that of sound; the clouds were floating away in the
distance, and around us all was light!  I was almost angry with myself
for feeling so immediately happy; but, after the lapse of a few minutes,
the heaviness of the past was superseded by the joyfulness of the
present.  The evening came in due time, with its sober hues and tones,
and I had leisure to think over the doleful knell and the marriage
ringings; and then, indeed, I saw, with gratitude to Him who orders all
things for the best, how wise it is that the tear should be followed by
the smile, and that cause for sorrow should be succeeded by motive for
joy!

How many and how marvellous are the changes that ten years have wrought.
New sympathies have been awakened; a new spirit has been hovering above
us and around us, with “healing on its wings.”  Ten years ago—women and
children slaved in our coal mines, degraded far below the level of
“brutes that perish;” women, harnessed to their loads, crawling like
reptiles along damps and slimes, underneath the earth: children, whose
weak and “winking” eyes had never seen the light, with minds as dark as
the strata wherein they toiled!  Ten years ago—the loom, too, hid its
victims far away out of Humanity’s sight, in the sole keeping of those
who, in their thirst for “gold, more gold,” made their alchemy of infant
sinews, and sweats from the brow of age.  Ten years ago—the shopman—in
the hot summer time, centred in the crowded thoroughfare, where dust and
air so closely mingle that they are inhaled together from sunrise to
midnight—laboured for eighteen hours; an item of God’s creation for whom
there was no care; never, during the six days of his master’s week,
seeing the faces of his children, save in sleep, and too worn, too weary,
when the sabbath came, to find it a day of rest.  How long was the prayer
unanswered,—

    “Give me one hour of rest from toil,
       From daily toil for daily bread;
    Untwisting Labour’s heavy coil
       From round the heart and head!”

Ten years ago—no voice was raised for mercy to the lone sempstress; sure
“slave of the lamp;” working from “weary chime to chime;” bearing her
cross in solitude—toiling, while starving, for the few soiled pence, the
very touch of which would be contamination to the kidded hands of tawdry
footmen; these poor women sunk into their graves, they and their famished
children, unmissed of any, for there were none to ask where they were
gone.  Ten years ago—and the governess, in age, in poverty, in sickness,
had no refuge—no shelter, even from a storm that might have been a
passing one.  Her life of labour—labour of head, eyes, hands, and tongue;
toil without rest—uncheered, unappreciated, unrecompensed, which left

                       “No leisure to be gay or glad,”

followed by a deserted sick bed; a death, unmarked by any kindly eye, and
a coffin grudged for its cost.  Such was her too common lot!  Ten years
ago, the poor dressmaker fagged out her life; fainting during her brief
minutes of “rest;” standing when sleepy, while one, of more robust
strength than her companions, stalked about the thronged and
ill-ventilated work-room, till past midnight, touching those whose
fingers relax, and whispering the warning sound—“Wake up—wake up!”

Need we prolong this list—this contrast, appalling yet glorious, of the
present time with ten years ago?  One more must be added to it presently.

Ten years have, indeed, wrought many and marvellous changes, A cry has
been raised throughout the Empire, NOT BY THE POOR BUT FOR THE POOR; not
by the oppressed, but for them!  It was a righteous cry, and holy are the
sympathies it has awakened; sympathies which convey our superfluous
riches to that storehouse where neither moth nor rust can corrupt;
convincing us that, while a closed heart is never happy, a hand open as
day to melting charity, secures a mightier reward than the wealth of
Crœsus can purchase!

There is, then, one newly-awakened sympathy to be yet added to the LIST,
of which, in preceding remarks, I have given only an abridgement.  Ten
years ago—nay, THREE years ago—the poor woman or man, who had been
stricken with CONSUMPTION was left to perish.  For her or for him there
was literally “no hope.”  Every other ailment was cared for—_might_ be
“taken in time.”  But this terrible disease was, like the leprosy of old,
or the plague in modern times—a signal for the sufferer to be deserted,
abandoned in despair.  Blessed be the God of mercy, such is not the case
now; a “new sympathy,” has been awakened, and, by the aid of a merciful
Providence, it has spread widely!  An establishment, hitherto conducted
on a small scale, but hereafter to be in a degree commensurate with the
WANT, exists in this Metropolis, where the patient will not apply for
help in vain.  It is sufficiently notorious that nearly all the great
projects which have given pre-eminence to this country, and have made
it—as it has been, is, and, by God’s help, ever will be—the envy and
admiration of surrounding states, have been the births of private
enterprise.  It is so in science, in literature, in the arts, and, above
all, in charity.  Some one man, more thoughtful, more energetic, and more
indefatigable than the great mass of his fellow men, stirs the hearts of
others, sets himself and them to the great work of improvement, or
mercy—and the thing is done.  If we recur to the several leading public
charities, we shall find that all, or nearly all, of them, have thus
originated; the names of their founders have been handed down to
posterity, and individuals, comparatively insignificant and obscure, are
classed as benefactors to mankind, entitled to, and receiving, the
gratitude of a whole people.

Thus the name of a poor player, whose monument is at Dulwich, has been
made famous for ages; that of a humble sea-captain is identified with the
preservation of the lives of tens of thousands of foundlings; while that
of a simple miniature painter is for ever linked with the history of
practical “Benevolence.”  The list might include nearly the whole of the
charities of London, which, from similar small sources, have become
mighty waters—spreading, healing, fertilizing, and blessing!

The absence of a hospital for the relief and cure of consumptive
patients, was a national reproach; when, happily, exertions which
followed the efforts of a single individual removed it.  He was without
rank or fortune to give weight and strength to the cause he had
undertaken; he was a member of a profession which necessarily occupied
much time and thought—entailed daily labour from morn till night—and is,
indeed, supposed, however falsely, to check and chill the sympathies of
the natural heart, engendering indifference to human suffering.  Most
happily, his mind and heart were both rightly directed: in him the
conviction of what ought to be was followed by a resolution that it
should be; his generous and merciful feelings were not limited to good
intentions: he added energy to zeal, and industry to stern resolve; and,
in a word, the mighty object has been accomplished. {26a}  The
Institution, which originated at a small meeting, in a comparatively
humble house in “Hans-place, Chelsea,” is now the patronized of the
Queen, and the aided of the people; and its power to do good has been
marvellously augmented.  Even with the very limited means hitherto at the
command of its Directors, prodigious service has been rendered; in
numerous instances, vast relief has been afforded; in some cases
restorations to health have been effected, and, in others, the passage to
the grave has been made easy, tranquil, and happy. {26b}

And surely this latter consideration is one of very vital importance.
Not only is the chaplain of the Institution aided earnestly by the matron
and other excellent ladies, who read and pray, and soothe and comfort the
fainting and struggling spirit; but no distinction of creeds is here
made—where death is so often busied in levelling all distinctions; a
clergyman of the Roman Catholic faith, and ministers of all Christian
societies and sects, are gladly admitted whenever members of their
congregations require spiritual comfort and aid. {27a}  Who is there,
then, with mind and heart influenced by religion, who will not rejoice at
opportunities of soothing a dying-bed—removing misery, alleviating pain,
and averting want, while preparing for a change of time for eternity?
The yet limited chronicles of this infant Institution record many
touching instances of courage, encouragement, hope, and salvation,
obtained there, while passing through the valley of the shadow of death.
The fatal disease gives abundant time for such consolations and such
results; the tyrant advances slowly; the issue has been long foreseen;
there is no need to hurry or confuse; divine grace may be infused
surely—the mists of unbelief being gradually dispelled; bright and
cheering gospel truths may be learned, one by one, until the last sigh
wafts the soul into the haven “prepared by the blood of the Lamb.”

But temporal, as well as eternal good, has been already achieved by this
Institution.  Several of its inmates have been discharged, fitted to
become useful members of society; strengthened in constitution as well as
spiritually enlightened; beneficially changed, in all respects, by a
temporary residence in this blessed Asylum.  I have seen, not one or two,
but several, pale faces return, after a sojourn in the Hospital, to thank
me for “my letter,” with the hues of health upon their cheeks, and able
to bless the Institution, without pausing to breathe between the breaks
in every sentence.

There is, however, a consideration connected with the subject which
presses sorely on the mind of every inhabitant of these islands—rich as
well as poor—for no station in exempt from the influence of the subtle
disease; no blood, however ancient and pure, can repel it; exemption from
its attacks cannot be purchased by any excess of wealth; caution can do
little to avert it; its advances are perceived afar off without a
prospect of escape; it seems, indeed, the terrible vanquisher against
whom it is idle to fight. {27b}

Surely, then, ALL are interested—deeply interested—in helping the only
plan by which the disease may be so studied as to secure a remedy.  It is
foolish to speak of it as INCURABLE; the term signifies only that the
cure has not been yet discovered; there are scores of other diseases
which, half a century ago, were regarded as consumption now is—sure steps
to death, for which the physician could do nothing.  How many seeming
miracles has simple science worked in our day!  Why have other diseases
been completely conquered, while this maintains its power unchecked?
Merely because, in reference to the one, ample opportunities for studying
them have been of late years afforded, while, with regard to the other, a
single case at a time was all the physician could take for his guidance.
Now, in this Institution, a school is forming, to which it is not too
much to say, even the most healthy and beautiful children of our highest
nobles may be indebted for life; for who can say how soon a slight cold
may sow the seeds of consumption, which skill may fail to baffle and
subdue until greater knowledge has been supplied by means more enlarged
and more effectual than as yet exist in the kingdoms swayed by a royal
lady, who is at once the pride and the model of British wives and
mothers?

To all our interests, then—of time and of eternity—this CHARITY makes
earnest and eloquent appeal.  Surely these considerations will have their
weight in obtaining all-sufficient aid to create and sustain the
Institution it is my happy privilege to advocate—in humble but earnest
hope that my weak advocacy may not be altogether vain.

THE ROSERY, OLD BROMPTON.

            [Picture: Decorative graphic of woman with child]

                                * * * * *

             COOK AND CO., PRINTERS, 76 FLEET STREET, LONDON

                                * * * * *



Footnotes.


{6}  This was the third botanic garden, established about the year 1673,
in England.  In a very old manuscript the spot is thus quaintly
described:—“Chelsea physic garden has great variety of plants, both in
and out of green-houses; their perennial green hedges, and rows of
different coloured herbs, are very pretty, and so are the banks set with
shades of herbs in the Irish style.”  The drawing Mr. Fairholt was so
good as to make for this little book, gives a faithful representation of
the statue of Sir Hans Sloane, by Rysbach, the two famous cedars, and the
water-gate; and as this time-honoured garden is about to be converted
into “a square of houses,” I am glad of the opportunity to preserve a
memorial of it.  It is not only sacred to science, but full of pleasant
memories: Evelyn has sate beneath those cedars; Sir Joseph Banks used to
delight in measuring them, and proving to his friends that the girth of
the larger “exceeded twelve feet eleven inches;” and it is said that,
when Dean Swift lodged at Chelsea, he was often to be found in this
“physic garden.”  When we call to mind the number of persons of note who
selected the “sweet village of Chelsea” as a residence, there can he no
lack of associations for this spot.  Between the garden and the college
is the place (according to Maitland) where Cæsar crossed the Thames.

{26a}  PHILIP ROSE, ESQ., the Hon. Sec. and Founder of the Institution.

{26b}  Independent of advantages afforded within the present Hospital,
application for orders to obtain “out of door” advice and medicine have
been very numerous; and they have not unfrequently been made by persons
far superior to those who are supposed (but most erroneously) to be the
only recipients of charitable aid.  I entreat the reader’s indulgence
while I briefly relate one circumstance within my own knowledge.  A few
months ago, a lady (for poverty is no destroyer of birth-rights)
requested from me a ticket for an out-door patient; and, in answer to my
inquiries, at length, with trembling lips and streaming eyes, confessed
it was for her husband she needed it.  She had made what is called a
_love-match_; her family refused to do anything to alleviate the poverty
which followed his misfortunes, unless she forsook her husband; her
knowledge of the most sacred duty of woman’s life, and, indeed, I
believe, poor thing, her enduring love, prevented her having the great
sin to answer for, of abandoning him in his distress; and her skill in
drawing and embroidery enabled her to support her sick husband and
herself.  “I can do _that_,” she said, “and procure him even little
luxuries, if I have not a doctor’s bill to pay; but the medicines are so
expensive, that he will be comfortless unless we can receive aid from
this Institution; I have paid, during the last two weeks, twelve
shillings for medicine.”  His case was utterly and entirely without hope,
but, as she told me afterwards, no words could express the alleviation to
his sufferings, mental and physical, which followed the assistance he
obtained at the Hospital.

{27a}  “To provide him with an Asylum, to surround him with the comforts
of which he stands so much in need, to ensure him relief from the
sufferings entailed by his disease, to afford him spiritual consolation,
at a period when the mind is, perhaps, best adapted to receive, with
benefit, the divine truths of religion, and to enable those who depend
upon him to earn their own subsistence, are the great objects of this new
Hospital.”—_Appeal of the Committee_.

{27b}  “To all who have either felt the power of the destroyer, or who
have reason to fear his attack—and what family throughout the country has
not had sad experience of his presence?—an earnest appeal is now made, in
the full assurance that those who give their support to this Institution
will aid in materially lessening the amount of misery.”—_Appeal of the
Committee_.





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