Publisher's Synopsis
26th February, 1827.-The doctor has just called for the third time to examine my husband'seyes. Thank God, there is no fear at present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can beprevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for preserving it. These instructions, whichforbid him to exercise his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our case, very hard tofollow. They will but too probably sentence us to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must beborne resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband's forced cessation from work willsave him from the dreadful affliction of loss of sight. I think I can answer for my own cheerfulnessand endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our children also? Surely I can, whenthere are only two of them. It is a sad confession to make, but now, for the first time since mymarriage, I feel thankful that we have no more.17th.-A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted William as well as I could aboutthe future, and had heard him fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst. Medicalmen do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has always seemed to me to be misdirectedkindness of heart. The mere suspicion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my husband'sillness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an excuse to get out, and went in secret to thedoctor. Fortunately, I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the object of myvisit.He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the worst."And that worst," I said, to make certain, "is, that for the next six months my husband must allowhis eyes to have the most perfect repose?""Exactly," the doctor answered. "Mind, I don't say that he may not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most positivelyrepeat that he must not employ his eyes. He must not touch a brush or pencil; he must not think oftaking another likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months. His persisting infinishing those two portraits, at the time when his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all thebad symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if you remember, Mrs. Kerby?)when he first came to practice in our neighborhood.""I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor traveling portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses first in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended onhis using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to let them have a rest.""Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby can get by portraitpainting?" asked the docto