Explore "John Brent" by Theodore Winthrop on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Brent's stupor lasted many days. Life had been strained to its utmost. Body, brain, heart, all had had exhausting taxes to pay. The realm must rest.
While his mind slept, Nature was gently renewing him. Quiet is cure to an untainted life. There was no old fever of discontent in his brain. He had regrets, but no remorses. Others had harmed him; his life had been a sad one; he had never harmed himself. The thoughts and images tangled in his brain, the "stuff that dreams are made of," were of happy omen. No Stygian fancies made his trance unrest. Life did not struggle for recovery that it might plunge again into base or foul pursuits, or the scuffles of selfishness. A man whose life is for others is safe from selfish disappointment when he is commanded to stand aside and be naught for a time.