EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE.
A BELIEVER SEES HIS GRANDMOTHER.
At six P. M., I again visited the Old State House, and at dusk still again, to behold the crowd straining to get a last look at the rent before darkness shut out the view. On the following day, the scene was repeated, with no mitigation. The fact of the papers denying that there was any rent went for nothing. The crowd came and went, from morning till evening.
The Gates of Moscow.
Some readers may remember the story of the great Wizard of the North, who performed such marvellous feats before the czar, receiving from his highness a splendid present in money, and finally wound up by announcing that he would leave the city of Moscow on the following day, at twelve M.,by all the gates of the city at the same time!
The watchmen were doubled at all the gates, to whom a description of the man was sent, and a sharp lookout was commanded, when, lo! just at noon the wizard was seen leaving the city at each separate outlet at the same moment. Of course he could not have left by but one gate, but which of the twelve no one could tell, for he was seen at all, or the watchmen were made to believe that they saw him, as he passed out. To this the watchmen of the several gates testified, and that he uncovered his head to them, as he went past.
At which gate did he really make his exit? The beautiful gate Spass Voratu, or Gate of the Redeemer, has over the archway a picture of the Saviour. All who pass out here are compelled to uncover. Hence it is my belief, as he was seen uncovered, that this was the gate at which he really went out, and at all the rest the watchmen imagined they saw the wizard make his marvellous exit from Moscow.
The Doctor of Antwerp.
Townsend, on Mesmerism, tells an instructing and amusing anecdote of a test, by a learned doctor of Antwerp, upon a clairvoyant girl. The doctor was allowed, at a seance, to select his own test, when he said,—
“If the somnambulist”—that was what he termed her—“tells me what is in my pocket, I will believe.” Then to her he put the question,—
“What is in my pocket?”
“A case of lancets,” was the reply.
“True,” said the doctor, somewhat startled. “But the young lady may know that I am a medical man; hence her guess that I carry a case of instruments in my pocket. But if she will tell me the number of lancets in the case, I will believe.”
“Ten,” was the correct answer.
Still the doctor was sceptical, and said,—
“I cannot yet believe but if the form of the case is described I must yield to conviction.” And the form of the case was given.
“This certainly is very singular,” said the doctor, “but still I cannot believe. Now, if the young lady will give the color of the velvet lining of the case, I reallymustbelieve.”
“The color is dark blue,” was her prompt reply.
“True, true!” said the puzzled doctor, and he went away, saying, “It is very curious, very, but still I cannot believe.”
Now, if the doctor had not known that the case was in his pocket, or no one present had known beforehand, no clairvoyant could have described it. What does this prove? That her mind was led by his inquiry to his mind, thence to the article on his mind at the moment. “This is a book” I say. The fact of my saying it, or thinking it, leads my mind to the book.
As a person may look towards an object, as out of thewindow towards a tree, and not see it till his mind is directed to it, so, on the other hand, he may have his mind (thoughts) directed to a thing that his eyes cannot see, and in a person whose superior brain is susceptible, it maybe reflected so vividly as to permit a description of the object.
One may walk over a stream, upon stones, or ground, and not realize the fact till the mind is directed to it; and the thing may be reversed, and a susceptible person may be led to think that he or she is walking over or through water when none is present. The mind must be directed to an object in order to see it mentally.
A gentleman recently told me that a “medium brought up his old grandmother.”
“How did she describe the old lady as appearing?” I asked.
“In woollen dress and poke bonnet, with specs on, just as she used to appear when I was a boy, forty years ago.”
“I should have thought the fashions would have changed in the unseen world, even if the clothes had not worn out in forty years’ service,” I suggested.
This slightly staggered him, but he replied, “Perhaps fashions do not change in the spirit-world.”
“Then ladies can never be happy there. Besides, what a jolly, comical set they must be down there; the newer fashions appearing hourly in beautiful contrast with the ancient styles; especially the janty, little, precious morsels called hats of to-day, all covered with magnificent ribbons, and flowers, and laces, in contrast with the great ark-like, sombre poke bonnets of forty and a hundred years ago!”
“Sir,” I said, when he did not reply to this last poser,—“Sir, bring your stock of common sense to bear upon the matter, and see that the mind of the medium controlled yours, and led you to believe you saw, as the medium did, through your thoughts, your ancient grandmother; for how else would you imagine her, but as you remembered her, in woollen gown, poke bonnet, and spectacles.”
Visits to a Clairvoyant.
Twenty-five years ago, I visited Madam Young, in Ellsworth, Me.
“You are going a journey,” she soon said, after I was seated, and she had examined my “bumps” to learn that I was a rolling stone. “You are going south-west from here.” “Marvellous!” one might say, who had little reflective qualities of brain, for that was the very thing I was about to do. But from Ellsworth, Maine, which way else could one go, without going “south-west,” unless he really went to the “jumping-off place, away down east?”
Again I visited her in Charleston, S. C.
“You are going a journey soon,” she informed me.
“Which way?” I amusingly inquired.
“Towards the north,” was the necessary reply.
Charleston is at the extremity of a neck of land. I was not expected to jump off into the bay, by going southward, and her answer was the only rational one. She would minutely describe any person, “good, bad, or indifferent,” whom I would fix my mind upon. I was suffering at the time with bronchitis, which she correctly stated. She was the best clairvoyant I have ever tested. She died at Hartford, in 1862.
The following item of the press does not refer to Madam Young:—
A clairvoyant doctor of Hartford proclaims his superiority over other seers on the ground that he “foretells the past and present as well as the future.” We should say he would probably “foretell” them much better. As the Irishman said, one gets on better when one goes backward or stands still.
I noticed his advertisement in a Providence paper, recently, where “Dr. —— foretold the past, present, and future.”
A Night in the Penobscot Mountains.
At Castine I heard of an old lady residing high up in the Penobscot mountains, who could magnetize a sore or a painful limb at sight. Such marvellous stories were told of her “charming,” that I decided to go over the mountain and see her. She was not a “professional,” however, and objected to being made too public. Therefore I made an excuse for calling at the house “on my way afoot across the country,” and was cordially received by the family, of whom there were four generations residing under one roof. The house was a story and half brown cottage, large on the ground, and surrounded by numerous out-houses and barns. The view from the western slope of the mountain where she lived was most magnificent. I reached the farm before sunset. Here I lingered to overlook the beautiful Penobscot as it flowed at my feet, and the far-off islands of the sea. Here one could “gaze and never tire,” out over the grand old forests, down to the sea-side, and upon countless little white specks, the whitened sails of the fishermen and coasting vessels, with an occasional ship or steamboat flitting up and down the noble Penobscot river and bay. Still above me the eagle built her nest in the rocking pines, on the mountain top, and still far below sung the nightingale and wheeled the hungry osprey in his belated piscatorial occupations.
The sun sank behind the western hills, tinging the soft, fleecy clouds with its golden glory. Slowly changing from purple and gold to faint yellow, to dark blue, the clouds gradually assumed the night hue, and sombre shadows crept adown the western mountains’ sides, flinging their dark mantle over the waters, from shore to shore. The sturdy farmer has shouldered his scythe, and reluctantly he leaves the half-mown lot to seek his evening repast at the family table. Then he discovers me, leaning over the gate-bar, rapt in dreamy forgetfulness, and with a hearty salutation extendsto me the hospitality, so proverbially cordial, of the old New England farmer. He shows me his pigs in the pen, and his “stock” in the barn-yard, and reaching the house, he calls “mother,” who, appearing in calico and homespun, though with a cheerful and smiling face, is introduced to me as his wife. “A stranger, belated, and I guess pretty tired-like, climbing up here; and I won’t take no excuses from him; so he stays with us to-night.”
THE CHARMER DIVULGES HER SECRET.
I talk with the lady, I play with the babies, I even toy with Towser and Tabby, till tea is set. Now I am introduced to the old lady. I thought I would get to it at last. She was seventy odd years of age, a deaf, but devout old lady, who was easily wheedled into divulging to me her secret of “charming.” She told me she had the “rheumatiz,” and by my tender sympathies and a roll of plaster for her lame back,I got into her own room before bed-time. O, but I came out soon after! She was very deaf.
“You see,” said she, “a woman can’t learn it to another woman—only to a male. He must be agoodman.” I nodded assent. “Yes; well, you must have faith.” Again I nodded—she was very deaf. “You must touch the painful part and say—” Here she bent down her lips to my ear and whispered something in seven words which she said I must never tell, and she compelled me to promise never to divulge the secret while I lived, under pain of God’s great displeasure.
Perhaps I had better keep my promise, though the good old lady has long since “gone to her reward.”
Cui Bono?
The question is repeated every time there is a great robbery or a murder committed,—
“Why do not the clairvoyants tell who has committed this crime?”
Simply because those who consult them do not know. If a person knew where the stolen property was secreted, and he consulted a true clairvoyant, he or shemightdescribe the property and the place where it is secreted. Not otherwise. The same with the murderer. Therefore, of what good is it?
In order to do justice to this subject, to present and explain it in all its various phases, we would require a volume, instead of the space allotted in this chapter. But whatever name one may apply to it,—animal magnetism, Mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiritual or trance mediumship,—its success depends mostly upon the credulity of the person.
During the five days preceding May 15, 1869, a reporter of the Boston Post visited seventeen of these clairvoyants, mediums, etc., and some curious facts and startling contradictions were revealed therein.
“Putting it together,” he says, “and carefully epitomizingthe amount of fortune that we have in this way been able to purchase, we present our readers with the following balance sheet:” and this, he says, is from the “most experienced and trustworthy fortune-tellers in the good city of Boston, where everything likehumbugis most scrupulously avoided.
“Four times we have been told that we were engaged in no business at all, and as many more that our affairs and prospects were never more flourishing. Repeatedly we have been told that we should speedily change our business and abode. On the other hand, we were destined to be a fixture in Boston, and were so well satisfied with our present calling that we should never change. We are not married, but a great many pretty maidens stood ready to help us out of that difficulty.” Again, “we were married, and the father of several roguish boys and bright-eyed girls. Thus far in life we had enjoyed good health, were free from all infirmities, and stood a good chance to reach fourscore and ten.”
“In less than twenty-four hours this sweet hope was buried, and we were advised that death would overtake us suddenly and soon.”
There are various grades of clairvoyants, as of everything else. Here is one class.
“After ascending a rickety, dirty, greasy stairway, you find the madam quartered in a small, square bedroom, poorly and miserably furnished. The room is dirty, dark, and dingy. Portions of the walls are covered with a cheap and quaint paper, patched, here and there, with some of another figure and quality. Pictures of a cheap class are hanging on two sides of the room,—of Columbus, Webster, and three or four love and courtship scenes in France and Germany. The furniture consists of a cheap bed, a dilapidated parlor cooking-stove, a small pine table, three common chairs, and a rocking-chair, cane-bottomed, a big box, covered with a remnant of the national flag, and a few cheap mantel ornaments.
“The madam is a woman under thirty, very stoutly built, weighs one hundred and sixty pounds, has quite fair complexion, with pretty blue eyes, light hair, and withal not bad-looking. She was attired in a loose and rather soiled calico dress, wore no ornaments, and looked rather uninviting.”
A Bon Ton Clairvoyant.
The writer visited a special seance at one of the most aristocratic andrecherchéabodes of the marvellous in this city, not long since. I was ushered into the brilliantly lighted hall by a janty-looking little biddy in white and embroidered apron. That was all I saw of her, as she disappeared and was substituted by the lady of the house, the medium. She was a pretty, pleasant little lady, with brilliant, dancing, light eyes, hair golden brown, and was dressed in a black silk dress, with blue overskirt, a rich lace collar, and flowing sleeves of the same material.
Depositing hat, coat, and cane on the hall rack, I was introduced to the assembled guests in the great parlors. These rooms were united by a wide, open archway, were high, and brilliantly lighted by rich chandeliers in each room. An elegant piano occupied the west side of the front parlor, upon which was a pile of the latest music. The furniture was of black walnut, and richly upholstered in green and gold rep. The mantel was adorned with vases of porcelain, images of marble and terra-cotta, and little knickknacks of foreign production. The walls were hung with a few of Prang’s chromos, oil paintings, and two “spirit” photographs. The most beautiful, as well as the most remarkable, feature of the rooms was the magnificent bouquets of native hot-house flowers, which covered the two marble-topped centre-tables and sideboard. These were presents to the spirits! They did not take them away; the only one I saw removed was knocked over by a carelesselbow. I regret to add, that there was no “manifestation,” nor anything revealed, worth recording.
A Bouncer.
A scene that occurred at another place where I previously visited may be considered worthy of notice. I clambered two flights of stairs, and found myself face to face with a very large woman, answering to the alias of Madam ——. She was very fleshy, weighing probably two hundred and thirty-five pounds avoirdupois. Her face was pleasant, and conversation easy. I handing over the required “picture paper,” she tumbled into a great easy-chair, and, without any pretence to a trance, began,—
“I PERCEIVE YOU ARE IN LOVE.”
“I perceive that you are in love.” This was startling news to a bachelor. “There are two pretty females, one dark-complexioned, the other light.” (This is the usual “dodge,” for, if there is a woman in the question, one of thetwo is bound to answer this general description.) “Which shall we follow?” she very teasingly inquired.
“Either that comes handiest,” was my indifferent reply.
“Well, the dark one, then. She is tall, fair, and is looking anxiously for you to propose. Do you know a lady of this description whom you like?” I regretted that I did not. My “notion” ran to small ladies, of the opposite complexion. “Well,” she said, not the least flurried, “here is one of that kind.” I instantly placed my mind on one of this class,—my sister,—and she ran on. “She is soon to meet you. She is very rich.” (Nellie will be glad to learn this.) “And I perceive a short-like man looking after her fortune. But have no concern; she loves you fondly, and you will marry her very soon. You are going a voyage, or across some water.” (How far can one travel, in this country, without crossing water?) “You will meet an enemy, who will try to injure you in business.”
“What business?” I inquired.
“You are a—yes—mechanic, though your hand is soft. I reckon you’ve been sick. Yes—machinist; make coffee-mills. Yes” (looking sharply into my face). (I wasleading her!) “Corn poppers are in your line.” (I nodded, and smiled, for how could I refrain from smiling?) “You trade in tin and earthen ware—chamber ware—spoons—and old boots.” (True.) “You own a splendid house in the city—a large block”-(head).
“Where was I born? Can you see?”
“Yes; you were reared in the country; where there were deep, dark woods—all woods; in a log house, with thatched roof, and clay and stick chimney. A pig—am I right?—yes, a pig and a dog are kept in the same house. The windows are wooden, and—”
“Where was it?” I suggested.
“I should say in Ireland,” she replied.
“Enough, I believe. Now about the other lady,” I said.
“The dark one? Yes. She loves you, but is poor. Since you are rich, and a—” Here I tried to impress her that I was married. “You are married, but your wife will not survive you. No, she will soon go to heaven, and you will marry the dark-complexioned lady.”
“Good,” I exclaimed.
“Yes; and will have five boys and three girls.”
“Who?”
“Why, the lady, of course.”
“O!”
“Yes, and they will be happy and healthy.”
Here she informed me I had got my money’s worth.
I think I had.
ECCENTRICITIES.
A ONE-EYED DOCTOR AND HIS HORSE.—A NEW EDIBLE.—“HAVE THEM BOILED.”—“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.”—A LOVELY STAMPEDE.—AN ECCENTRIC PHILADELPHIAN.—THE POODLES, DRS. HUNTER AND SCIPIO.—SILENT ELOQUENCE.—CONSISTENT TO THE END.—WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.—FOUR BLIND MEN.—DIET AND SLEEP.—SAXE AND SANCHO PANZA.—MOTHER GOOSE AS A DOCTOR’S BOOK.—THE TABLES TURNED ON THE DOCTORS.
A ONE-EYED DOCTOR AND HIS HORSE.—A NEW EDIBLE.—“HAVE THEM BOILED.”—“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.”—A LOVELY STAMPEDE.—AN ECCENTRIC PHILADELPHIAN.—THE POODLES, DRS. HUNTER AND SCIPIO.—SILENT ELOQUENCE.—CONSISTENT TO THE END.—WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.—FOUR BLIND MEN.—DIET AND SLEEP.—SAXE AND SANCHO PANZA.—MOTHER GOOSE AS A DOCTOR’S BOOK.—THE TABLES TURNED ON THE DOCTORS.
We love to see an eccentric individual—something out of the common routine of every-day, humdrum life. But what is often taken for an eccentricity is sometimes put on for an advertisement.
Nearly all great men have their oddities or peculiarities. I might give many little interesting sketches of some physicians’ oddities right among us, but for too great personality. I may, however, work in a few.
The eccentricities of some doctors lie in their dress. Of this, I shall speak under the head of “Dress and Address.” Others lie in personal acts, in their walk, manners, and conversation.
I know of one physician who delights in the worst looking old horse he can obtain. The doctor himself has but one eye. His old donkey-like beast corresponded. Report said that he cut out the left eye of the horse to gain that desired end,which, however, is discredited. The beast was also lame, which defect the doctor would never admit.
“Whatyouignorantly term ‘limping’ is only an expression of good breeding—which I cannot attach to all whom I meet on the road. It’s bowing,—merely bowing. You never see him do it unless somebody is in sight. Gid-dap!” And so delivering himself, the old doctor would drive on, chuckling softly to himself. When his old horse died, he was presented with a fine young beast, which he declined to accept, but scoured the country till he found a high-boned, rib-bared, foundered, and half-blind old roadster.
A new Dish.
Dr. James Wood was an oddity. He was a bachelor, between thirty and forty, large and attractive. He was remarkably neat in dress and person, but delighted in “an old rip of a horse.”
Once he was on a tour through New Brunswick, and, in company with a friend, drove up to a tavern at evening, and called for the landlord.
“He ain’t t’ home, but I’m the horse-slayer,” replied a voice, followed by the person of a tall, lean Yankee, who issued from the smoke of the bar-room, and approached our friends, still sitting in the open buggy.
“Here, put up my horse; take good care of him, and feed him well.”
“Hoss?” said the impudent fellow. “O, yes, I see him now; he’s inside that ere frame, I s’pose. Climb down, gentlemen, and go inter the house. Landlord and the Santipede (Xantippe?) has gone to St. Johns; but I guess Dolly in the kitchin, and me in the bar-room, can eat and drink yer, though you’re two putty big fellows, well’s myself.” So saying, the gentlemen having alighted, he drove the animal to the stable.
A “HORSE-SLAYER” INDULGING HIS OPINION.
At supper, the doctor and his friend and two ladies were the only guests. Just what part the “horse-slayer” had had in its preparation was not obvious, since he had, after caring for the horse, only sat with a pipe in his mouth and his heels elevated on the bar-room stove, or following to the sitting-room, and continually plied the doctor with questions. However, the supper was ample, thanks to “Dolly.”
“Is there anything more wanted?” inquired the table girl,—a round-faced, round-headed country specimen in neat calico.
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “we would like some napkins, seeing there are none on the table.”
Away hastened the girl, who, quickly returning, asked in very primitive simplicity,—
“How will you have them cooked?”
“O, boiled, if you please,” replied the doctor, without changing a muscle about his sober-looking face.
The girl disappeared at full trot, followed by jeers of laughter from the gentlemen present, and suppressed titters from the ladies.
In a few moments “Dolly” made her appearance, and after searching in vain through the side-table drawer and a cupboard in the dining-room, she said they had none in the house, and intimated that the table girl could not be induced to return, after being laughed at for her ignorance of what a napkin was, and that “herself would wait upon the guests.”
When the doctor returned, the “horse-slayer” called out that the napkin doctor was coming, upon which the terrified table-girl ran away and hid.
My informant says, “You’re only to say, any time, ‘Here comes that napkin doctor,’ and the table girl nearly goes wild, dropping everything, and hiding away in her chamber till assured it is only a false alarm.”
The writer is well acquainted with W., who assured him this was true.
Beauty and the Beast.
I heard, while in the South, of a doctor, a little, short man, who rode a Canadian horse, a scraggy little specimen, and who, in yellow fever time, used to ride right straight into a drug store, and order his prescription, catch it up, wheel his pony round on his hind legs, stick in the spurs into the flanks of the animal, and go out in a clean gallop.
NO TIME TO LOSE.
Though the writer never saw this remarkable feat, there is one more ludicrous, to which he was an eye-witness.
One fine day, while in Charleston, sitting musing in the window of the Victoria Hotel, I saw an African, with bare feet and legs, his whole attire consisting of a coarse shirt and brief trousers, drive a mule attached to a dray, on which was a box, up towards a milliner’s store, opposite. The negro jumped from the dray, and, with whip in hand, ran into the store to ascertain if that was the place to leave the box.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
The faithful donkey followed his master directly into the store, nor stopped till the wheels of the cart brought up against the door-jambs. The ladies, with whom the front store was crowded, screamed with terror, and fled towards the back room, where the pretty milliner girls were sewing. They caught the panic and sight of the donkey’s head and ears in the front shop, and screeched in chorus. A more lively and lovely stampede I never witnessed. It was “Beauty and the Beast,” and the beast stood pulling his best to get the cart through; but since a six-foot cart never could go through a four foot doorway, he backed out with the negro’s assistance, and Beauty was rescued from the perilous situation.
“Golly!” exclaimed the Buckee, when himself, mule and cart were back into the street. “I fought de ladies were scared ob dis chile, first sight; but I never knowed de ladies to be scared ob a hansum darky like me; and when I looked round an’ see dat ar’ mules coming into der mill’ner’s store—O, yah, yah, yah! I shall die—O, yah, yah, yah!—de Lor’—to only fink ob it, a mule in a mill’ner’s shop—he wants muslin—O, yah, yah! I shall die, sure.” Then, after a few more outbursts, he stopped short—for the milliner was looking after the box—he rolled up his eyes very solemnly, and said to the donkey,—
“Yer ought to be ’shamed ob yerself to go into dat yer store—dar, take dat!” levelling a blow at the donkey’s head with the whip. Then taking the box into the store, he returned, gave the donkey another solemn lecture on his impropriety, and mounted the dray and drove away.
The consulting Poodles.
A gentleman well known to the writer assured me that he once had occasion to repeatedly consult a physician in Philadelphia, a most excellent practitioner, who owned two pet poodle dogs. They were pure white, and occupied a portionof his office. When I first entered the doctor’s presence, I was quite astonished to see, sitting on a corner of his desk, at his left, a beautiful poodle. I thought, at first sight, it was a stuffed specimen; but after inquiring the nature of my visit, the doctor said, “You can retire, sir.”
“What!” said I, in surprise at this summary dismissal, when I was startled to see the manikin jump from the desk and run away to a crib beside a book-case.
DR. HUNTER IN CONSULTATION.
“I was speaking to Dr. Scipio,” the doctor quietly remarked. Then adding, “Dr. Hunter, you can come instead,” when another like poodle came and leaped upon the desk, and sat looking very wisely at his master.
While examining my case, he occasionally cast a glance at “Dr. Hunter,” sitting as quiet as a marble dog might, but seeming to understand the look which his master gave him, acknowledging it by a pricking up of the ears.
I received my prescription, and what proved to be most excellent advice, and retired. The next time I visited the eccentric doctor, both Drs. Scipio and Hunter were in full consultation, sitting side by side on the desk.
“Now, sirs,” said the doctor, after motioning me to a seat near him, “sirs Scipio and Hunter, keep very still, and give attention.”
A yawning noise and expression was their simultaneous reply.
“What is the object of the two canine specimens being always present when I have consulted you?” I ventured to inquire, on my last visit to the doctor.
“Some physicians consult two-legged pups, in complicated cases. I prefer quadrupeds. Have we not been very successful—myself, Drs. Hunter and Scipio—in your case, sir?”
This he said with a pleasant, half-serious countenance.
“Indeed, you have, sir,” I replied, to which the dogs gave a gap! (a smile?)
“You’ll find every successful man with some seeming useless habit or appendage, which, nevertheless, is essential to his success, in absorbing or distracting the superfluities of his nature. A sing-song, every-day man, whom you can see right through, and understand all his moves, seldom amounts to anything. I ape nobody, however, but I feel almost lost, in my examinations, without my dogs.”
Well, there may be much to this, after all. A good singer will seldom go forward to master a difficult piece of music without something in his hand. Eccentricities in some persons take the place of a vile, injurious habit, as the eccentric man is usually free from debasing habits.
I am particularly reminded of Suwaroff, the great Russian general, who was so remarkable for his energy, valor, and headlong fighting propensities. This wonderful man was very small in stature, being only five feet and a half inch in height, miserably thin in flesh, with an aquiline nose, a wide mouth, wrinkled brow, and bald head—an eagle look and character. “His contempt of dress could only be equalled by his disregard of every form of politeness, and some idea may be formed of both from the fact that he was washed mornings by several buckets of water thrown over him, and that he drilled his men in his shirt sleeves, with his stockings hanging down about his heels, and proudly dispensing with the use of a pocket handkerchief.”
THE RUSSIAN GENERAL’S DRILL.
His favorite signal of attack was a shrill “cock-a-doodle-doo!” “To-morrow”—this was his harangue to his men before a great battle—“to-morrow morning I mean to be up one hour before daybreak. I shall wash and dress myself, then say my prayers, give one goodcock-crow, andcapture Ismail!” Which he did to the letter. After Catharine’s death, Paul, her son and successor, could not brook the eccentric habits of “Old Forward and Strike,” whose personal appearance was ill suited to court, and when compelled to “change or retire,” Suwaroff chose the latter. Again in 1799 he was given a command, but would not change his principles, and was dismissed; and died in 1800, neglected by the imperial Paul, who was assassinated the same year.
Silent Eloquence.
There is a physician doing an office practice in Boston, who, when you enter his office, by one gesture and movement of his head, with the accompanying expression of his countenance, says to you, as plainly as words, “Take a seat; how do you do? State your case.” He is a man of few words, professionally. Through with his business, he becomes one of the most sociable men with whom one need wish to meet.
John Abernethy was remarkable for his eccentricity, and brevity in his dealings with patients. Sometimes he met his match. The following has been told about him often enough to be true. On one occasion a lady, who doubtless had heard of hisbrusquecharacteristic, entered his consulting-room, at Bedford Row, and silently presented a sore finger. As silently the doctor examined and dressed the wound. In the same manner the lady deposited the accustomed fee upon the table, and withdrew.
Again she presented the finger for inspection.
“Better?” grunted the great surgeon.
“Better,” quietly answered the lady, deposited the fee, and left, without saying another word. Several visits were thus made, when, on presenting it for the last time, Abernethy said,—
“Well?”
“Well,” was the lady’s only answer, and deposited her last fee.
“Well, madam, upon my soul, you are the most sensible lady with whom I ever met,” he exclaimed, and very politely bowed her out.
Consistent to the End.
The most eccentric physician who ever lived, and the only one I have read of who carried his odd notions beyond this life, was Messenger Monsey, of whom I have before written in this book. He died at the age of ninety-five. He wrote his own will,—having eighty thousand dollars to dispose of,—and his epitaph. The will was remarkable, and is still preserved. “To a beautiful young lady, named ——,” he gave an old battered snuff-box, not containing a shilling, lavishing upon her, at the same time, the most extravagant encomiums on her wit, taste, and elegance; and to another, whom he says he intends to enrich with a handsome legacy, he leaves the gratifying assurance that he changed his mind on finding her “a pert, conceited minx.” After railing at bishops, deans, and clergymen, he left an annuity to two of the latter, who did not preach.
“My body shall not be insulted with any funeral ceremonies, but after being dissected in the theatre of Guy’s Hospital, by the surgeons, for the benefit of themselves and students, the remainder of my carcass may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames.”
The main part of his property went to his only daughter.
WHAT THE ELEPHANT IS LIKE.
A DOCTOR’S SOLACE.
This is a true copy of his epitaph:—
“Here lie my old bones; my vexation now ends;I have lived much too long for myself and my friends.As to churches and churchyards, which men may call holy,’Tis a rank piece of priestcraft, and founded on folly.What the next world may be never troubled my pate;And, be what it may, I beseech you, O Fate,When the bodies of millions rise up in a riot,To let the old carcase of Monsey lie quiet.”
The above reminds me of another epitaph in Greenwood:
“Underneath this turf do lie,Back to back, my wife and I.Generous stranger, spare the tear,For could she speak, I cannot hear.Happier far than when in life,Free from noise and free from strife,When the last trump the air shall fill,If she gets up, I’ll just lie still!”
“When Doctors disagree.”
The eccentricities of some doctors lie in their abuse of their brothers; especially those of a different school, of which they necessarily know little or nothing.
There is a Hindoo story illustrative of the folly of thisex partedecision.
Four blind men went to examine an elephant, to ascertain what it was like. One felt of its foot, the second its trunk, the third its ear, and the last felt of its tail. Then they held a consultation, and began to talk it up.
“The elephant is very much like a mortar,” said the one who had felt of the foot.
“It is like a pestle,” said the one who had felt of its trunk.
“No; you are both wrong. It’s like a fan,” said he who had felt of the ears.
“You are all mistaken; it is like a broom,” vehemently exclaimed the man who had felt of the tail. The dispute grew warm. Each was sure he was right, because he had personally examined for himself. Then they waxed angry, and a lasting quarrel grew out of it; so, in the end, they were all as ignorant of the truth as when they began the investigation.
The diversity of medical opinion on diet is equally as great as on prescription, and often partakes largely of the notion or eccentricity of the individual physician, rather than the requirements of the patient.
One is an advocate of animal diet; another is a strict Grahamite, or vegetarian, and a third is an animo-vegetarian, which, according to the two kinds of teeth given to man,—the tearing, or canine, and the grinding teeth,—seems to be the most rational decision. Then there is the slop-doctor. I know of one in Connecticut. He weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds. He breakfasts on the richest steak, dines on roast beef, and sups on a fowl. Every patient he has is a victim to “typhoid fever: the result is inflammation of the glands of the stomach, and induced by too hearty food;” hence the patient is starved a month on slop or gruel.
This doctor was formerly a Methodist preacher, and—
“Exhausting allpersuasivemeans to lightOur fallen race to Virtue’s glorious height,To Medicine gives his comprehensive mind,And fills his pockets while he cures mankind.He scorns M. D.’s, at all hard study sneers,And soon the science of its mystery clears.Hisknowledge springs intuitive and plain,As Pallas issued from the Thunderer’s brain.He takes a patent for some potent pillWhose cure is certain—for it cures to kill.Such mighty powers in its materials lurk,It grows, like Gibbon’s Rome, a standardwork!Pill-militant, he storms the forts of pain,Where grim Disease has long entrenchéd lain,Routs fevers, agues, colics, colds, and gouts,Nor ends the war till life itself he routs.If of his skill you wish some pregnant hints,Peruse the gravestones, not the public prints!To aid his work, and fame immortal win,Brings steam from physics into medicine;From speeding packets o’er th’ Atlantic waste,O’er Styx’s stream old Charon’s boat to haste,Proving that steam for double use is fit—To whirl menthroughthe world, andoutof it!”
The difference in the item of sleep is amusing. I know a poor, worn-out doctor who finds all health in early rising. Let us refer him to the following, by John G. Saxe:—
EARLY RISING.“God bless the man who first invented sleep!”So Sancho Panza said, and so say I:And bless him also that he didn’t keepHis great discovery to himself, nor tryTo make it—as the lucky fellow might—A close monopoly by patent right.Yes, bless the man who first invented sleep(I really can’t avoid the iteration);But blast the man, with curses loud and deep,Whate’er the rascal’s name, or age, or station,Who first invented, and went round advising,That artificial cut-off—early rising.“Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,”Observes some solemn, sentimental owl:Maxims like these are very cheaply said;But ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,Pray, just inquire about his rise and fall,And whether larks have any beds at all.The time for honest folks to be abedIs in the morning, if I reason right;And he who cannot keep his precious headUpon his pillow till it’s fairly light,And so enjoy his forty morning winks,Is up to knavery; or else—he drinks.Thomson, who sung about the “Seasons,” saidIt was a glorious thing torisein season;But then he said it—lying—in his bed,At ten o’clock A. M.,—the very reasonHe wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is,His preaching wasn’t sanctioned by his practice.’Tis doubtless well to be sometimes awake,—Awake to duty and awake to truth,—But when, alas! a nice review we takeOf our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth,The hours that leave the slightest cause to weepAre those we passed in childhood, or asleep!’Tis beautiful to leave the world a whileFor the soft visions of the gentle night;And free at last from mortal care or guile,To live as only in the angels’ sight,In sleep’s sweet realm so cosily shut in,Where, at the worst, we onlydreamof sin.So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.I like the lad who, when his father thoughtTo clip his morning nap by hackneyed phraseOf vagrant worm by early songster caught,Cried, “Served him right!—it’s not at all surprising;The worm was punished, sir, for early rising.”
Mother Goose.
“Gabriel Betteredge,” in “Moonstone,” was doubtless a true character from life, picked up by the author, Wilkie Collins, somewhere in his travels. I think the best authors seldom have made up so good a character “out of whole cloth,” but have gone to the highways and byways for them. Betteredge’s forte lay in Robinson Crusoe. That book was his guidance and solace in all his trials and perplexities. But what would you think of a doctor, a respectable graduate of a medical college, who sought, if not advice, recreation and solace in Mother Goose?
This M. D. resided a few years ago in A., New York State. He owned a large library, enjoyed the confidence of a large list of friends and patrons, and was a man of education and refinement. His eccentricity lay in his love of Mother Goose’s Melodies. He kept a copy of these nursery rhymes at his very elbow, and often turned from a perplexing case, and sought solace in the jingling rhymes of old Mother Goose!
Well, that was certainly better than relieving his brain by the use of narcotic stimulants, as opium, tobacco, or ardentspirits, which use can only be followed at the expense of nerve, tissue, and membrane.
I have here before me an account of another physician, whose solace and relief from business cares were in his cats, of which he had several, all of which answered to their names. His attachment to these creatures was only equalled by theirs for him. Sometimes one or two perched on his shoulders and sang to him while he rested in his easy-chair. He seemed to drink in Lethean comforts, as thus he would remain for a half hour or more at a time, or till business broke the spell. When a patient came, or a servant announced a call, he would arise and say, “Pets, vamose!” and the cats would all scamper away to their nests, and the doctor, seemingly refreshed in body and mind, would return to the reality of life and its labors.
One’s solace is in his children, another’s in his wife, a third in his flower-garden; and others’ in opium, rum, or tobacco.
The Tables turned.
Sometimes the doctor’s oddity seemed to be in his silence, again in asking “outlandish” questions. Often they get a good return; for instance,—
Dr. G., of Sycamore, Ill., riding in the country one day, saw a sign upon a gate-post, reading thus: “This farm for sail.” Stopping his horse, he hailed a little old woman, who stood on tiptoe, hanging out clothes.
“I say, madam, when is this farm going tosail?”
“Just as soon, sir,” replied the old lady, placing her thumb to her nose, “as anybody comes along who can raise the wind.”
The doctor drove thoughtfully on.
The Difference.
“A priest who was jogging along on an ass was overtaken by a loquacious doctor, and, after some preliminaryconversation as to the destination, etc., the doctor proposed that they each should ask a question, and the one who proposed the best should receive hospitality at the other’s expense at the next town. The priest agreed, for he was a fat, jolly little fellow, who could enjoy a laugh and “some bottles,” even at a doctor’s expense. So the doctor proposed the following:—
“What is the difference between a priest and a jackass?”
“That’s old,” replied the priest. “One wears his cross on his breast, the other on his back.—Now for my turn. What is the difference between the doctor and the ass?”
“I cannot tell,” replied the doctor; “what is the difference?”
“I see none,” quietly replied the priest.
“Not by Bread alone.”
A physician in P., who had the reputation of being a high liver, was quite publicly reprimanded for his gluttony by an advent preacher of some note, not a thousand miles from Boston. The doctor bore his abuse without flinching, though he believed the man a hypocrite. A long time afterwards, he met the Adventist in his town, and, after some conversation, invited him to dine at his own house. The hungry Grahamite accepted, and at an early moment found himself at the doctor’s board.
“Will you ask a blessing?” said the doctor; which request being complied with, he uncovered one of the only two dishes on the table, which contained nothing but bread. The preacher saw the point, and said, with a disappointed grin, “You shall not live by bread alone.”
“Yes; I know that much Scripture,” replied the doctor; “so I have provided some butter,” uncovering the other dish!
PRESCRIPTIONS REMARKABLE AND RIDICULOUS.