"It seems you care for it, at all events; and certainly, in hearing that poem, one discovers that Cowper was under an impulse strong as that of the wind which drove the ship--an impulse which, while it would not suffer him to stop to add ornament to a single stanza, filled him with force to achieve the whole with consummate perfection. You managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline. I wonder thereat."
"Cowper's hand did not tremble in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of 'The Castaway.' I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart, that he wept abundantly, and was comforted."
Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere long, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of having the privilege of comforting him."

"It seems you care for it; yet you managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline."
"Cowper's hand did not tremble in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? I believe that in writing 'The Castaway' the deadly spasm passed from his heart, he wept abundantly, and was comforted."
Shirley remarked, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of comforting him."
