Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/298

292 To know yourself less beloved than you love, is a dreadful feeling—alas, how often has the rememberance of that bitter hour come back again by some following hour too sadly like the one that went before—How often have I since exclaimed, "I am not beloved as I love."

The consequence of my being so long on the dewy grass, aided by the agitation that I had endured, brought on one of those violent colds to which I have always been subject. It was poor consolation, the undeniable fact that it had been brought on by my own fault. I never coughed without a sensation of shame. Of all shapes that illness can take, a cough is the worst. Pain can be endured in silence, but a cough is so noisy, it inevitably attracts attention; the echo of mine from the vaulted roof was a perpetual torment to myself, because I knew that others must hear it as well. My cough brought also what was the severest of punishments, it kept me within doors, it prevented my daily visit to the old laurel,