This feeling of universal misery assumed concentration and shape, when I looked on my wife and children; and the thought of danger to them possessed my whole being with fear. How could I save them? I revolved a thousand and a thousand plans. They should not die⁠—first I would be gathered to nothingness, ere infection should come anear these idols of my soul. I would walk barefoot through the world, to find an uninfected spot; I would build my home on some wave-tossed plank, drifted about on the barren, shoreless ocean. I would betake me with them to some wild beast’s den, where a tiger’s cubs, which I would slay, had been reared in health. I would seek the mountain eagle’s eyrie, and live years suspended in some inaccessible recess of a sea-bounding cliff⁠—no labour too great, no scheme too wild, if it promised life to them. O! ye heartstrings of mine, could ye be torn asunder, and my soul not spend itself in tears of blood for sorrow!