Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/85

 "Indeed I cannot; but perhaps I may endeavour to crawl a small distance, if there is any place to receive me."

"Try, then, my child; for I have a comfortable cell, if 'tis possible for you to reach it."

Ferdinand, suddenly inspired with hope, and fresh desires for life, exerted himself with uncommon resolution, and though he felt agonies of pain, he bore it without a groan, so anxious was he to obtain rest and help.

Such is the natural fondness for life implanted in the mind of man, that when sickness and despair has annihilated hope, and taught the suffering wretch to look forward to the close of his existence, as his only refuge from misery, if some unlooked for crisis changes the nature of his disorder, or a dawn of better prospects is presented to his view—he no longer courts death as the end of his troubles, but with new desires, new hopes, he struggles to retain and preserve life, though sure of encountering future ills, and of going through the same sad scene again.