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Parkes, Senior, the
Duchess of
Argyll, and
Ingham,—all sympathetic in his suffering, and urging visits as soon as his progress to health admitted.
He went some days to the galleries of the Louvre; but his best resource during the few hours not passed on his bed was in visits to the
National Library, where he turned over the engravings.
1
Mrs. Grote wrote to
Madame du Quaire in July, 1858:—
I was glad of an opportunity of informing myself respecting the sanitary condition and prospects of that illustrious martyr.
The imposing dignity of his stature, his fine classic head, his resignation under agonizing experiments, and heroic acquiescence in his stricken destiny, form an ensemble which, if I were not now cured of making enthusiastic sacrifices to sentiment, would move me to put myself forward as ministering consolatrice to this most interesting of sufferers.
The world is strewn with wrecks, else his case ought to attract active sympathy in all quarters.
Passive sympathy he has, however, in abundance, and perhaps it helps poor Sumner to carry his cross.
What a fine study would he not be for a Juarez or a Murillo!
Heaven bless the skilful art of his physician, and restore this splendid human structure to vital completeness!
Sumner was greatly concerned at this time by an apparent disposition of the
British government to relax its efforts for the suppression of the slave-trade, and wrote many letters to English friends,—to Brougham, the
Earl of
Carlisle, the
Duchess of
Argyll,
Cobden,
Parkes, Senior,
Reeve, and others,—urging a maintenance of the existing policy, and a fresh statement of the beneficial effects of emancipation in the
West Indies.
He wrote to the
Duchess of
Sutherland, July 11:—
I cannot think of the sorrow of your family from recent bereavement without breaking silence to assure you of my true sympathy.
I have grieved with you, whose sensitive nature is so easily touched, and I have thought much of the distressed parents, who, I trust, may be enabled to bear their great loss with resignation, and to find happiness in the future.
I have not written to you earlier, for in the torment of my life I had not heart to write.
My medical treatment has been severe.
It has been by a system of counterirritants, to expel the morbid condition which still lingers in my system, and which, according to my physician, can be reached only in this way. Of course, beyond the pain at the time, the fire has been followed by the natural consequences of burns, which have embittered my days and nights.
But this crisis is now passing, and I begin to be comfortable.
Whether any permanent good
