I tell you, for I can
speak to no one else; but do not suppose that I wilfully let my
mind dwell on sorrow.'
In the summer of the next year, the frenzy left her; it left her
stone deaf and almost entirely aphasic, but with some remains of
her old sense and courage. Stoutly she set to work with
dictionaries, to recover her lost tongues; and had already made
notable progress, when a third stroke scattered her acquisitions.
Thenceforth, for nearly ten years, stroke followed upon stroke,
each still further jumbling the threads of her intelligence, but by
degrees so gradual and with such partiality of loss and of
survival, that her precise state was always and to the end a matter
of dispute. She still remembered her friends; she still loved to
learn news of them upon the slate; she still read and marked the
list of the subscription library; she still took an interest in the
choice of a play for the theatricals, and could remember and find
parallel passages; but alongside of these surviving powers, were
lapses as remarkable, she misbehaved like a child, and a servant
had to sit with her at table.
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