Nothing, indeed, more perplexes me than a review of my own conduct.

Not, indeed, that death is an object always to be dreaded, or that my motive did not justify my actions; but of all dangers, those allied to pestilence, by being mysterious and unseen, are the most formidable.

To disarm them of their terrors requires the longest familiarity.

Nurses and physicians soonest become intrepid or indifferent; but the rest of mankind recoil from the scene with unconquerable loathing.
I was sustained, not by confidence of safety, and a belief of exemption from this malady, or by the influence of habit, which inures us to all that is detestable or perilous, but by a belief that this was as eligible an avenue to death as any other; and that life is a trivial sacrifice in the cause of duty.
I passed from one room to the other.

A portmanteau, marked with the initials of Wallace's name, at length attracted my notice.