  I HAVE been sick; safe under the coverlet for seven or eight days at least. I mention what may be to you but a very ordinary experience, because I am really quite humiliated: first, that such an unusual thing should have occurred to me; and secondly, that it should have been the undeserved penalty of great amiability on my part. It happened lately that, on a certain public occasion, a seat was politely assigned me near the orator of the hour, and, unfortunately, also near an open window, through which came directly upon my throat a blast of chill air. I felt it clutch me, but I said to myself, I wont make a disturbance leaving. Hence the necessity of a doctor, and a total cessation of speech, and a big bunch, the size of an egg, on a throat which were better without it. The next time I am polite, you may tell me of it! I am out now, to be sure, under the trees again, but I can't walk with any spring or unction. I can't eat with any appetite. I can't ride without being sensible of every inequality in the road. I hate a bed so that I can scarce bring my mind to get into one at night, and yet I am, as the expression goes, "dead tired" all the time. I tell you all this, particularly This is what ails Stockbridge. It is occupied, mainly, by rich people, who come here only for their summer sojourn. Most of the houses here are quite closed in winter; therefore, you see that they are all consumers: producers are the exceptions. If you have fruit or squashes in your own garden, thank the sun and the Lord for the same. If you don't own a garden, and don't want to tire out the generosity of your friends; in short, if you are a sick pilgrim at a hotel, then more's the pity. Then you'll lie on your pillow and dream of big peaches, and luscious pears, and plums, in your native hunting-ground, the New York markets. You'll think of the stores in Broadway, where huge bunches of grapes, in purple bloom, lie clustering. Maybe at the butcher's, near your very door in New York, is the "sweet-bread," which, if cooked at the right moment, and in the right way, might tempt your flagging appetite. Heaven's blessings on the good Samaritans who brought me nice tit-bits; but one While I lay sick, I must say a peach-tree seemed more desirable than the grandest elm; and a pear-tree preferable to ever so magnificent a maple or chestnut. Grape-vines, also, I thought finer than woodbine, ivy, or clematis; in short—were my state of invalidism to continue, I am confident I should become a confirmed utilitarian. If this bit of experience of mine is any comfort to the forced sojourner in the hot city, let him hug it to heart. I have had sunsets here like the glory of "the New Jerusalem." I've wandered under these trees and been driven over these lovely roads, till my eyes were moist with happiness I could not voice. I have heard such kindly tones, and seen such loving faces, and been so hospitably entreated here, that it would take more physic than was involved in those bed-ridden days of pain and unrest to give me a grudge against lovely, mountain-girdled Stockbridge. |
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