Dicken's works . f some public hospital, and pictureto ourselves the gloomy and mournful scenes thatare passing within. The sudden moving of a taperas its feeble ray shoots from window to window,until its light gradually disappears, as if it werecarried farther back into the room to the bedside ofsome suffering patient, is enough to awaken a wholecrowd of reflections: the mere glimmering of thelow-burning lamps, which, when all other habitationsare wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote thechamber where so many forms are writhing withpain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to checkthe mo
Dicken's works . f some public hospital, and pictureto ourselves the gloomy and mournful scenes thatare passing within. The sudden moving of a taperas its feeble ray shoots from window to window,until its light gradually disappears, as if it werecarried farther back into the room to the bedside ofsome suffering patient, is enough to awaken a wholecrowd of reflections: the mere glimmering of thelow-burning lamps, which, when all other habitationsare wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote thechamber where so many forms are writhing withpain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to checkthe most boisterous merriment. Who can tell the anguish of these weary hours,when the only sound the sick man hears is the dis-jointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer nearhim, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered,long-forgotten prayer of a dying man ? Who, butthey who have felt it, can imagine the sense ofloneliness and desolation which must be the portionof those who in the hour of dangerous illness are. SKETCHES BY BOZ. 345 left to be tended by strangers; for what hands, bethey ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy brow, orsmooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife,or child ? Impressed with these thoughts, we have turnedaway, through the nearly deserted streets ; and thesight of the few miserable creatures still hoveringabout them, has not tended to lessen the pain whichsuch meditations awaken. The hospital is a refugeand resting-place for hundreds, who but for suchinstitutions must die in the streets and doorways;but what can be the feelings of some outcasts whenthey are stretched on the bed of sickness withscarcely a hope of recovery ? The wretched womanwho lingers about the pavement, hours after mid-night, and the miserable shadow of a man — theghastly remnant that want and drunkenness haveleft — which crouches beneath a window-ledge, tosleep where there is some shelter from the rain,have little to bind them to life, but what have theyto look back upon
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherbosto, bookyear1890
