"Do not go out to-night, Amanda. The pavements are damp, and the air is
loaded with vapour."
"Indeed, ma, I must go."
"Amanda, there is no necessity for your attending this party; and very
urgent reasons why you should stay at home. Your cough is still
troublesome, and a little exposure might give it permanency. You know
that from your father you inherit a predisposition to disease of the
lungs."
"You only say that to alarm me."
"Not so, my child; I know your constitution, and know how fatally the
exposure of a night like this may affect you."
"But I'll wrap up warmly, and put on my India rubbers."
"A necessary precaution, if you will go out, Amanda. But I wish I could
persuade you to be guided by me. You know that the Bible says, the way
of transgressors is hard."
"I don't know how you will apply that to me, ma. I am transgressing no
law of divine appointment."
"Be not sure of that, Amanda."
"I do not understand you, ma."
"I will try and make my meaning clear. In our creation, as organized
beings, we were so constituted as to bear a certain relation to every
thing around us, and our bodily health was made dependent upon this
relation. Here then, we have a law of health, which may be called a
divine law--for there is nothing good that does not flow from the
Divine Creator. If we violate this law, we become transgressors, and
shall certainly prove the way we have chosen, in so doing, to be a hard
one."
"Oh, is that all?" said the daughter, looking up with a smile, and
breathing more freely. "I'll risk the consequences of breaking the law
you have announced."
"Amanda!"
"Don't be so serious, ma. I will wrap up close and have my feet well
protected. There is not the least danger of my taking cold."
"Well, you must do as you please. Still I cannot approve of your going,
for I see that there is danger. But you are fully of age, and I will
not seek to control you."
So strong was Amanda's desire to attend a large but select party, that
she went, in company with a young man who called for her,
notwithstanding the atmosphere was so humid and dense with fog, that
breathing became oppressive.
The rooms were crowded, and the air in them so warm as to cause the
perspiration to start from the fair brows of the merry dancers, among
whom none was more fair or more lively than Amanda Beaufort. At eleven,
after having passed an evening of much pleasure, she started for home
with her companion. She was so well wrapped up, that she did not feel
the cold, and her feet were protected from the damp pavement by the
impervious India rubber.
"I'm safe home, ma, after all!" she exclaimed with her merry ringing
laugh, as she bounded into the chamber where her ever-watchful and
interested mother sat awaiting her daughter's return.
"I am glad to see you back, Amanda," said Mrs. Beaufort kindly, "and
hope that no ill consequences will follow what I must still call a very
imprudent act."
"Oh I'm just as well as ever, and have not taken the least cold. How
could I, wrapped up so warm?"
Still, on the next morning, unaccountable as it was to Amanda, she was
quite hoarse, and was much troubled by a cough occasioned by a slight
but constant tickling in her throat. Accompanying these symptoms was a
pale anxious face and a general feeling of lassitude.
"I feared all this, Amanda," said her mother, with manifest concern.
"It's only a slight cold, ma. And, anyhow, I don't believe it was
occasioned by going out last night, I was wrapped up so warm. I must
have got the bed-clothes off of me in the night."
"What to one is a slight cold, my daughter, is a very serious affair to
another; and you are one of those who can never take a slight cold
without shocking the whole system. Your pale face and your evident
debility this morning show how much even this slight cold, as you call
it, has affected you. That you have this cold is to me no subject of
wonder. You were well wrapped up, it is true, and your feet protected.
Still, your face was exposed, and every particle of air you inhaled was
teeming with moisture. From dancing in a warm room, the pores of your
skin were all opened, and the striking of moist chilly air upon your
face could hardly fail of producing some degree of cold. The most
susceptible parts of your body are your throat and lungs, and to these
any shock which is received by the system is directly conveyed. You
cannot take cold in your hand or foot or face, or any other part of
your body, without your breast sympathizing;--that you are hoarse, and
have a slight cough, then, is to me in no way surprising."
Amanda tried to make light of this, but every hour she felt worse and
worse. Her hoarseness, instead of diminishing, increased, and her cough
grew more and more troublesome. Finally, she was compelled to go to
bed, and have the physician called in.--"Is there any danger?" asked
Mrs. Beaufort, with an anxious and troubled countenance, as the
physician, after prescribing among other things a stimulating
application to the throat externally, was about leaving the house.
"Is your daughter subject to these fits of hoarseness, ma'am?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, whenever she takes cold."
"And does that frequent irritating cough always attend the recurrence
of hoarseness?"
"Always."
"Then, madam, it is but right that you should know, that such results,
following a slight cold, indicate a very great tendency to pulmonary or
bronchial affections. The predisposition existing, very great care
should be taken to prevent all exciting causes. With care, your
daughter may retain her health until she passes over the most critical
portion in the life of every one with such a constitution as hers--that
is, from twenty years of age until thirty or thirty-five. Without great
care and prudence during that time, her constitution may be shattered
so as to set all remedial efforts at defiance."
"But, doctor, how is she now?" was Mrs. Beaufort's anxious inquiry.
"Not dangerous, madam, but still in a condition requiring care and
skill to prevent unfavourable consequences."
"Then do your best for her, doctor."
"You can rely on me for that, Mrs. Beaufort. Good morning."
With a heavy heart the mother returned to the sick chamber of her
daughter, and sat down by the bedside, thoughtfully, for a few moments,
while she held Amanda's hand, that was hot with fever. Then
recollecting herself, she left the room to prepare the stimulating
application which had been ordered.
It is remarkable how the whole system will sympathize with one diseased
part. The cold which Amanda had taken concentrated its active effects
upon her respiratory organs; but it was felt also in every member,
prostrating the whole body, and giving a sensation of general
suffering. Her head ached violently, and a burning fever diffused
itself over the entire surface of her body.
How sadly was she proving the truth of her mother's warning, when she
said to her, in the language of divine authority, "The way of
transgressors is hard."
She had violated a law of health, and in that violation, as in the
violation of every physical or moral law, the penalty of transgression
followed too surely.
It was a week before Amanda was able to go about again, and then her
pale cheeks, and debilitated frame indicated but too plainly the sad
consequences of a single imprudent act.
A few weeks after she had become restored apparently to her usual
health, as Amanda was dressing one morning to go out, her mother said--
"Your clothes are a great deal too tight, Amanda."
"Oh no, I am not tight at all, ma. Julia Mason laces as tight again.
She gets her sister to draw her lacings for her, and she has to pull
with all her strength."
"That is wrong in Julia Mason, and yet half the pressure that she can
bear would seriously injure you."
"How can that be, ma? I am as healthy as she is."
"I will tell you, Amanda. She has a full round chest, giving free play
to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat. Without any
compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as
hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces. But when to your
natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of your
lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action induced
tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the predisposition to
which you inherit."
"That is only an idea of yours, ma. I am sure I have quite a full
bust," said Amanda, glancing down at her chest, and embracing it with
her hands.
"There you are mistaken. I have noticed this defect, with much anxiety,
ever since you were a child; and having had my attention called to it,
have frequently made comparisons, and have found that you are
remarkably narrow and flat, and what is more, have a tendency to stoop,
which still lessens the size of the cavity in which the lungs play."
"Well, ma, my clothes are not tight. Just see here."
Mrs. Beaufort tried her clothes, and found them to be much tighter than
in her judgment was good for health.
"You are still unwilling, Amanda, to be governed by your mother, where
her wishes come in opposition to your pride or inclinations. I know
that you are compressing your chest too much, but you are not willing
to yield to my judgment. And yet I prescribe no arbitrary rules, but
endeavor to guide you by a rational consideration of true principles.
These you will not see; and the consequences that must follow their
violation will be the transgressor's reward."
"Indeed, indeed, ma, you are too serious. You are frightened at a
shadow. No one of my friends enjoys better general health than I do."
"And so might the graceful maple say of the sturdy oak in the first
years of their existence. But long after the first had been humbled
beneath the hand of decay, the other would stand with its roots more
firmly imbedded in the earth, and its limbs battling the storms as
vigorously as ever."
Amanda made no reply to this, for she was suddenly struck with its
force. Still she only pretended to loosen her stays to satisfy her
mother, while the lacings remained as tense as ever.
It is unnecessary to trace, step by step, the folly of Amanda Beaufort
through a series of years--years that caused her mother much and
painful anxiety--up to her twenty-sixth summer, when, as a wife and
mother, she was suffering the penalty of her indiscretion, proving too
clearly the truth, that the way of transgressors is hard. In spite of
all her mother's warnings and remonstrances, she had continued to
expose herself to the night air in damp weather--to attend balls thinly
clad, and remain at them to a very late hour, and to lace herself so
tightly as to seriously retard the healthy action of the vital organs.
At the age of twenty-three she married. A year after, the birth of a
child gave her whole system, which had indicated long before its
feebleness, a powerful shock, from which the reaction was slow and
unsteady. The colour never came back to her cheek, nor the elasticity
to her frame. She had so long subjected herself to the pressure of an
artificial external support, that she could not leave off her stays
without experiencing such a sinking, sickening sensation, as she called
it, that she was compelled to continue, however reluctantly, the
compression and support of tightly-laced corsets. And from frequently
taking cold, through imprudence, the susceptibility had become so
great, that the slightest dampness of the feet or the exposure to a
light draught of air was sure to bring on a cough of hoarseness. Her
nervous system, too, was sadly shattered. Indeed, every indication
presented, foreshadowed a rapid and premature decline--consequent,
solely, upon her thoughtless imprudence in earlier years.
"Shall I never feel any better, ma?" asked Amanda, one day, as a faint
sickness came over her, compelling her to resign her dear little babe
into the arms of its nurse, looking up at the same time so earnestly
and appealingly into her mother's face, that Mrs. Beaufort's heart was
touched with unwonted sorrow and tenderness.
"I hope so, Amanda," was replied, but in a tone that, though meant to
encourage, conveyed little hope to the bosom of her child.
"Every time little Anna nurses, I feel so sick and faint, that,
sometimes, it seems that I must give up. And yet the thought of letting
the dear little angel draw her food from another bosom than mine, makes
me fainter and sicker still. Can nothing be done to help me, ma?"
"We must see the doctor and consult with him. Perhaps he can do
something," Mrs. Beaufort replied, in an abstracted tone.
That day the family physician was called in, and a long consultation
held. The result was, a decision that Amanda must get a nurse for her
child, and then try the effect upon her system of a change of air and
the use of medicinal waters. In a word, she must put away her child and
go to the Springs.
"Indeed, doctor, I cannot give up little Anna," said the invalid
mother, while the tears started to her eyes. "I will be very careful of
myself, and teach her to take a little food early, so as to relieve me
as much as possible. It seems as if it would kill me, were I forced to
resign to a stranger a mother's dearest privilege and holiest duty."
"I can but honour your devotion to your child, Amanda," the old family
physician said, with a tenderness unusual to one whose daily
intercourse was with suffering in its varied forms. "Still, I am
satisfied, that for every month you nurse that babe, a year is taken
from your life."
There was in the tone and manner of the doctor a solemn emphasis, that
instantly aroused the young husband's liveliest fears, and sent a chill
to the heart of Mrs. Beaufort.
For a moment or two, Amanda's thoughts were turned inward, and then
looking up with a smile of strange meaning, while her eyes grew
brighter, and something like a glow kindled upon her thin, pale cheek,
she said, drawing her babe at the same time closer to her bosom--
"I will risk all, doctor. I cannot forego a mother's duty."
"A mother's duty, my dear young friend," the physician replied, with
increased tenderness, for his heart was touched, "is to prolong, by
every possible means, her own life, for the sake of her offspring.
There are duties which none but a mother can perform. Reserve yourself
for these, Amanda, and let others do for your babe all that can be done
as well as you can perform it. Take my advice. Leave little Anna at
home with your mother and a careful nurse; and then, with your husband
and some female friend, upon whose judicious care you can rely, go to
the Springs and spend a few weeks."
The advice of the physician was taken, and the young mother, with
clinging, though lacerated affections, resigned to the care of a hired
nurse the babe over which her heart yearned with unutterable tenderness.
Three weeks were spent at one of the Virginia springs, but little
apparent benefit was the result. The young mother grieved for the loss
of her babe so deeply and constantly, often giving way to tears, that
the renovating effects of changed air and medicinal waters were
counteracted, and she returned home, drooping in body and depressed in
spirits. Her infant seemed but half restored to her, as she clasped it
to a bosom in which the current of its young life had been dried up.
Sad, sad indeed was her realization of the immutable truth, that the
way of transgressors is hard!
Two years more of a painful and anxious existence were eked out, and
Amanda again became a mother.
From this additional shock she partially recovered; but it soon became
evident to all, that her shattered and enfeebled constitution was
rapidly giving way. Her last babe was but four months old, when the
pale messenger passed by, and gave his fearful summons.
It was toward the close of one of those calm days in September, when
nature seems pausing to note the first few traces of decay which autumn
has thrown upon garden, field, and forest, that Mrs. Beaufort, and the
husband of her daughter, with a few friends, were gathered in the
chamber of their beloved one, to see her die. How sad, how very sad is
the death-bed of the young, sinking beneath premature decay! In the
passing away of one who has met the storms of life, and battled with
them through vigorous maturity, and sinks at last in the course of
nature, there is little to pain the feelings. But when the young and
beautiful die, with all their tenderest and earliest ties clinging to
them--an event so unlooked for, so out of the true order of nature--we
can only turn away and weep. We can extract from such an affliction but
few thoughts of comfort. All is dreary, and blank, and desolate.
"Bring me my children," the dying mother said, rousing up from a state
of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought both her
mother and her husband to her bedside.
"What did you want, dear Amanda?" asked the husband, laying his hand
gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of coming
dissolution.
"My dear babes," she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an
effort. "My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am laid
at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!"
Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her
head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud. The
infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when she had
a little recovered herself.
"Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!" she said, with tender animation. "My
sweet, sweet baby! I cannot give you up!" And she clasped it to her
breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled over
her pale cheek. "And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?" she
asked.
Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was
brought in and lifted upon the bed.
"Don't cry, ma," said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her
mother's cheeks, "don't cry; I'll always be good."
"Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!" the mother sobbed, eagerly
kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers; and then clasped
the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.
The children were, after a time, removed, but the thoughts of the dying
mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were
self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.
"I now see and feel," said she, looking up into the face of her mother,
after having lain with closed eyes for about ten minutes, "that all my
sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be upon me, would
have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to be guided by you.
I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way. How could it have
been otherwise, and I so strangely regardless of all the laws of
health? But, my dear mother, the past is beyond recall; and now I leave
to you the dear little ones from whom I must soon part for ever. I feel
calmer than I have felt for some time. The bitterness of the last agony
seems over. But I do not see you, nor you, dear husband! Give me your
hands. Here, let my head rest on your bosom. It is sweet to lie
thus--Anna--dear child! Mary--sweet, sweet babe!"--
The lips of the young wife and mother moved feebly, and inarticulate
whispers fell faintly from her tongue for some moments, and then she
sank to sleep--and it was a sleep from which none wake in the body.
Thus, at the age of twenty-six, abused and exhausted nature gave up the
struggle; and the mother, who had violated the laws of health, sank to
the earth just at the moment when her tenderest and holiest duties
called loudest for performance.
Who, in this brief and imperfect sketch, does not recognise familiar
features? Amanda Beaufort is but one of a class which has far too many
representatives. These are in every town and village, in every street
and neighbourhood. Why do we see so many pale-faced mothers? Why are
our young and lovely females so soon broken down under their maternal
duties? The answer, in far too many cases, may be found in their early
and persevering transgression of the most palpable physiological laws.
The violation of these is ever followed, sooner or later, in a greater
or less degree, by painful consequences. Sometimes life is spared to
the young mother, and she is allowed to linger on through years of
suffering that the heart aches to think of. Often death terminates
early her pains, and her babes are left a legacy to the cold charities
of an unfeeling world. How sad, how painful the picture! Alas! that it
is a true one.