overwhelmed? I feel that life is a revolting subject of contemplation in
my circumstances, a poor thing to look forward to. Death itself looks
pleasanter.

Call up to your mind what I was, and what my circumstances were. I was
healthy and strong. I could run, and wrestle, and breast strong winds,
and cleave rough waters, and climb steep hills,--things I shall
henceforth be able only to remember,--yes, and to sigh to do again.

I was thoroughly educated for my profession. I was panting to fulfil its
duties and rise to its honors. I was beginning to make my way up. I
had gained one cause,--my first and last,--and my friends thought me
justified in entertaining the highest hopes.

It had always been an object of ambition with me to--well, I will
confess--to be popular in society; and I know I was not the
reverse.--So much, Mary, for what I was. Now see what I am.

I am, and shall forever be,--so the doctors tell me,--a miserable,
sickly, helpless being, without hope of health or independence. My
object in life can only be--to be comfortable, if possible, and not to
be an intolerable trial to those about me! Worth living for,--isn't it?

An athlete, eager and glowing in the race of life, transformed by a
thunder-bolt into a palsied and whining cripple for whom there is no
Pool of Bethesda,--that is what has befallen me!

I suppose you read the shocking details of the collision in the papers.
Catalina and I sat, of course, side by side in the cars. We had that day
met in New York, after a separation of years. She had just returned from