318 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



to write, " with her to the end," but it struck me that that would 

 not be a true expression ; for the end here is but the "beginning 



of hereafter, and dear M is now too near the borders of the 



happy land to see the barrier that lies between in the same 

 light as it appears to us who remain. I begin to feel very 

 lonesome in this world, so few of those I have loved best are 

 remaining, and every year takes one or more of these, so that I 

 often look forward with a sort of dread to a prolonged old age. 

 But I trust such is not in store for me. Whether it be allow- 

 able or not, I cannot help saying to myself, " We are a short- 

 lived family ; the probabilities, therefore, are against my 

 attaining to old age." One feels old, however, when one has 

 outlived, as I have done, almost the whole of my immediate 

 family. You know George Herbert's lines : — 



" Oh that I once past changing were." 



They are great favourites of mine, and if you can conquer the 

 quaintness of the style, you will find many of his poems beau- 

 tifully true to our inmost thoughts and longings. 



To Miss H . 



Plassey, Limerick, July 25th, 1858. 



I am sorry to find by your not being allowed to read that 

 your eyes ;>re no better. Have you no holy wells in America? 

 If you were in Ireland you could go to a well and set them all 

 to rights. A new holy well has just been established close to 

 Summerville, where the monks have set up a " Kedemptorist " 

 house. It seems they sunk a pump for the use of the house, 

 and finding the water good, let some of it run into a trough. 

 One day a lame man came and left his crutches there, and 

 walked aw r ay on his own proper legs. This got wind, and now 

 hundreds of people come to the punip every Saturday, so as 

 sometimes to block up the road, and carry off the holy water as 

 a remedy for all diseases, but especially for sore eyes. They 

 have put up a little chapel with an image of the Virgin, &c, 

 and a nice stone trough for the water to run in, and a con- 

 siderable revenue thus comes in to the house. Limerick is 

 getting completely surrounded with monastic houses, and in 

 another generation or so, if all goes on well, it may become 



