Something is the matter with him, and she knows it, and I think worries
herself about it.
I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a frame has kept the
fiery spirit that inhabits it so long its tenant. He accounts for it in
his own way.
The air of the Old World is good for nothing, he said, one day.--Used
up, Sir,--breathed over and over again. You must come to this side, Sir,
for an atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not worthy Mr. Higginson
say that a breath of New England's air is better than a sup of Old
England's ale? I ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I could
n't die in this Boston air,--and I think I shall have to go to New York
one of these days, when it's time for me to drop this bundle,--or to New
Orleans, where they have the yellow fever,--or to Philadelphia, where
they have so many doctors.
This was some time ago; but of late he has seemed, as I have before said,
to be ailing. An experienced eye, such as I think I may call mine, can
tell commonly whether a man is going to die, or not, long before he or
his friends are alarmed about him.
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