Let anybody who has seen a case of this
kind say whether the State ought not to provide for the relief of
such men as John, and whether he ought not to have been able to send
his wife away to some institution where she might have been tended
and restrained from destroying, not merely herself, but her husband
and her child. John hardly bore up under this sorrow. A man may
endure much, provided he knows that he will be well supported when
his day's toil is over; but if the help for which he looks fails, he
falls. Oh those weary days in that dark back dining-room, from which
not a square inch of sky was visible! weary days haunted by a fear
that while he was there unknown mischief was being done! weary days,
whose close nevertheless he dreaded! Beaten down, baffled,
disappointed, if we are in tolerable health we can contrive to live
on some almost impossible chance, some most distant flicker of hope.
It is astonishing how minute a crack in the heavy uniform cloud will
relieve us; but when with all our searching we can see nothing, then
at last we sink. Such was John's case when I first came to know him.
He attracted me rather, and bit by bit he confided his story to me.
He found out that I might be trusted, and that I could sympathise,
and he told me what he had never told to anybody before.
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