Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/212

A young woman, wan and pale with distress, was stretched out by illness and want on a litter of dirty straw, while three helpless children, provoked by famine, surrounded her piercing her ears with the cry of "bread!" The craving looks of this miserable family plainly spoke, that they had been without this necessary article for some time, nor was there the least crumb of it to be found in their desolate shed. A large pitcher of water, besides the straw, was all that was left of moveable property; an unfeeling landlord having a few days before seized the very bed of the wretched mother, to pay the arrears of the rent which had been owing ever since her ill-fated husband's confinement. His unhappy fate had not only overwhelmed her with grief and disease, but both the world and the world's law had ceased to befriend her. Sharing the unmerited infamy of her husband, she had found, wherever she applied for relief, the gates of pity and charity shut against her, and, her guiltless offspring; such are the effects of barbarous prejudice in Oy country not sufficiently enlightened