The Argosy — page 289: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

268 Mrs. Henry Wood. Her delicate frame could never bear great heat, which affected her nervous system in a very peculiar manner. Depression of mind was unknown to her: but in the extreme heat of summer, she could only sit or recline, clad in thin gauze or muslin, and there was ever upon her a weight of some great impending evil or calamity. Had it been her fate to go out to such a climate as that of India, for instance, there is no doubt that she would soon have died. - Once, in the South of France, she was nearly overtaken by a great misfortune. She was much tormented by gnats, and these troublesome insects, one summer, so affected her left hand, that fears were entertained for the result. A consultation of surgeons ended in a divided opinion as to the necessity for taking the hand off, and for some time it seemed that she must lose it. One of the doctors, however, held out, and in the end it was saved, and she perfectly recovered. She had the most perfect hands and arms almost ever seen: the whitest, most delicate, most fragile, and most beautiful. In her married life, my mother, like everyone else in this world, had many troubles and trials. Some of them, indeed, were singularly great and overwhelming: and it may be said that her character was made perfect through suffering. My father, an intellectual and talented man, might have risen ¢o any distinction in the world, and ought to have died the possessor of great wealth. His income at the time of his mar- riage, numbered many thousands a year. Everyone fell under the charm of his manner and conversation. In every assembly he was the leading spirit. But he had one fault. He wanted the solidity of character and earnest steadfastness of purpose which so eminently distinguished his wife. Up to the time of his retirement he had been a man of the rarest activity and energy. He wag ever ready to do everything for every- one, but, alas, seldom thought of himself. One or two of the great railways in France owed their final consolidation to his wonder- ful financial and organising powers, and his singular conviction of success in all he undertook. He possessed a temperament sanguine to a fault, but it sometimes enabled him to triumph where others would have failed. Whilst my mother was a great reader of countenance, my father was absolutely devoid of the faculty. He _ believed in everyone. The simplest tale would impose upon him. He was eenerous to recklessness, and whether a friend came to him to borrow twenty pounds or two thousand, it is simply a fact that he had only ¢o ask and to have the larger sum just as readily as the smaller. The consequence was that no one was so popular, and no one’s goodness was so much abused. This is rather a fatal gift for going through life, and my father’s ; CORNICLIOOKS (E(@) m