carry a divining rod about with him, and besides, your family is one of
the highest respectability.”
My young visitor sneered perceptibly and retorted:
“Of course, you are like the rest of humanity, looking for
respectability in high places and overlooking the pearls that lie
imbedded in the mud of poverty and social mediocrity. I really feel
inclined to lecture you, doctor, you seem so woefully stupid in some
directions. Here you are, with abundant opportunities for study and
observation of human nature, maundering of ‘respectability’ as a
factor in diagnosis! Not but that it is a factor sometimes, but you
don’t weigh the evidence just right. You are inclined to misconstrue
social prominence as a factor in your diagnoses. Your interpretation of
it is only too often precisely opposite to the truth.
“Look at the childlessness of the average high-toned family--look at
the character of the progeny of those who do have children, and then
babble of ‘respectability!’ Faugh! doctor, you make me sick. For a
scientific physician, you are the most innocent man I ever knew.”
“Oh, come now,” I said, “I don’t pretend to know it all, but I am not
quite so big a fool as you might suppose.”
“Well, perhaps not--quite. There may be bigger chumps, but I dare say
they are all practicing medicine.”
“By the way,” he continued, “speaking of honoring one’s father, I can’t
for the life of me see why a fellow should be expected to do that.
Fathers are mere accidents in the scheme of nature. You see, anybody
will answer for a father, but with your mother--well, that’s different.
No other could fill her place. Most people think the male human is
the important element in our social system, but that’s all rot. He
is a secondary consideration, a mere incident, and should be given to
understand it.”
“Um-m ah!” I answered slowly, “I believe the truth is gradually dawning
upon him. The new woman is--”
“Great guns, doctor! Do you mean those things with breeches on, that
ride bicycles, and play foot ball?”
“Well, in a measure, yes,” I replied.
“Come, come, doctor! I was talking about natural phenomena as involved
in the perpetuation of the species; I had no thought of what biologists
term sports in nature.”
“Ah, that’s different, my boy,” I said, “unless you use the term
‘sport’ as a _double entendre_.”
“I don’t think I quite understand you, doctor.”
“Oh well, I suppose my play upon words was a little too commonplace for
you,” I replied, meanwhile thinking that the Smith baby, was something
of a chump himself. Not wishing to hurt his feelings, however, I held
my peace, and he continued:
“Do you know, doctor, I think that if a child is expected to honor its
father, it should have some voice in his selection. Now, for example,”
and the poor little chap felt of his bumps and gazed mournfully at his
crippled limbs, “I should not have been as I am, had I been permitted
to select my father. Of course I might have made a mistake, anyway, but
you can be assured that I should never have selected Smith.”
“Well, Smith might not have been such a bad father if--”
“Oh, I know what you are going to say, doctor, but no amount of
preparatory treatment would ever have made Smith anything but a mean
old cuss, anyhow.”
“Perhaps you are right,” I answered, “and, come to think of it, as
your family is a comparatively new one to me, I believe I’ll insist on
monthly settlements of my bills.”
“Well, you know your own business better than I do, but I know Smith
pretty well, and I don’t think it will do any harm,--unless he gets
mad and changes doctors. I hope he won’t do that, for I am beginning
to like you pretty well, and I dread a change. There’s no telling what
these highly ‘respectable’ people will do, you know, and now that you
are beginning to understand my case a little, a change of doctors
might be disastrous. You see, I can’t talk to everybody as freely as I
feel that I can to you.”
“Then I guess I won’t send in any bill, it would be too bad to neglect
you, just because your father is--”
“A brute, eh, doctor?”
“N-no, I shouldn’t like to say that,” I replied.
“Because of his eminent respectability, I presume,” said my visitor,
grinning sarcastically.
I was discreetly silent.
“Well,” continued the young wiseacre, “I don’t suppose that you and
I alone could settle a certain phase of the social problem, even if
we were foolish enough to try, but there are some very interesting
points that might be discussed upon the question of that veneering of
‘respectability’ for which you seem to have such great reverence. I
should like to discuss them with you, did time permit. I assure you
that I have given the subject much conscientious study and deep thought.
“There is one point, doctor, in which you physicians are very remiss,
and which, for the sake of suffering childhood, I cannot allow to
pass unnoticed. I refer to the indiscriminate fashion in which people
are allowed to marry, and rear children. Why, when I look about me
and see the number of infantile wrecks, who, like myself, are victims
of your pernicious social system, I am disgusted. If the principals
in matrimonial mistakes were the only ones to suffer, it would be
different, but it’s the babies that get the worst of it. And you
medical blockheads look on and say nothing. You are too stupid to see
anything, perhaps, and therefore have nothing to say.”
“Well, my boy, you have the making of a social reformer in you. I don’t
know that I ever gave the subject much thought. I have been too busy
with--”
“Too busy trying to cure results to inquire into causes, eh, doctor?”
“Why, I--that is, not exactly,” I stammered, “you know, my boy, that--”
“Oh, yes, I understand, old fellow, you are not quite blind to
such things, but you don’t propose either to pose as a Hercules
cleaning out the Augean stables, or expose yourself to the same sort
of ridicule as did Don Quixote when he challenged the wind-mills.
Shame on you, doctor! Be a good Philistine and snap your fingers at
conventionalities!”
“See here, my young friend, I am practicing medicine for a livelihood,
and I can’t afford to be radical in my views. It’s all well enough to
scarify society, if you don’t depend upon it for bread and butter--but
in my case it’s different, and I must be careful.”
Young Smith shrugged his shoulders somewhat contemptuously, and replied:
“What a queer world! You fellows work like a dog in a treadmill all
your lives, trying to make enough hay while the sun is shining, to
enable you to take some comfort by and by. When the ‘by and by’ comes,
you have lost the capacity for enjoyment. You slave from morning till
night, to acquire a competency--and the brains--that will enable you to
be independent in thought and action. Then, when the wished-for time
does come, you--well, you roll over like a fish and die. Always going
to have a good time--some day; always going to be a Philistine--some
day; always looking ahead into that undiscovered country where
lies--the grave. Your ambition ends in six feet of earth. Pshaw! how
you people irritate me! Why not learn to labor and to loaf?”
My visitor’s words impressed me more than I would have been willing to
acknowledge.
“Heigho!” I exclaimed, “I don’t know but you are right, my boy, and
yet, I don’t exactly see how I can help matters much.”
“There’s one thing you can do, doctor, you can at least make the effort
to impress upon the public the necessity of treating human beings with
the same degree of intelligence and consideration that you bestow upon
animals. Get rid of that idiotic, sentimental moonshine about ‘joining
two souls in wedlock’ and come down to the common-sense basis of a
union for a specific, organic purpose between two bipeds, that are or
should be, subject to the same laws as other animals. Do this and there
will be fewer hideous heads and miserable legs like mine.”
My little friend wept silently.
“Come, come, my lad, cheer up,” I said, “You must remember that the
ranks of the immortal geniuses of the world have been largely recruited
from such material as yourself.”
“You doubtless mean to be consoling, my dear sir,” replied the child,
“but you forget the chief consolation contained in your argument.”
“Pray, what is that?” I asked.
“Why those degenerate geniuses die young, and leave no posterity to
perpetuate their misery.”
“You are right,” I said, musingly. “I did not think of that.”
“Do you know, doctor, that the most philosophic _bon mot_ ever
perpetrated, and the one which seems most appropriate to my case, is
that facetious description which somebody gave of the mule. He said, if
I remember correctly, that the mule was an animal which had no ‘pride
of paternity and no hope of posterity’.”
“And yet,” I replied, “the mule is not the happiest and most placid
animal in the world. The clam is his superior in many respects.”
“Yes, and there are many human clams. I fancy, however, that you do not
envy them, doctor.”
“Well, I am not so sure about that, my dear young friend. The higher
emotions and more refined sensibilities are the foundation of most of
the sorrows of life.”
“But what of the pleasures, doctor?”
“True, I had forgotten them,” I replied.
* * * * *
We sat for some time, young Smith and I, silently gazing into the
fireplace. My cigar having gone out, I relighted it and began puffing
vigorously, with the result of blowing some dense clouds of smoke in
the direction of my visitor. A sharp cough, followed by a decided
sputter, reminded me of my unintentional discourtesy.
“Pardon me, my boy, but I forgot that you are not used to tobacco.”
The wise child smiled, and with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes
replied:
“Well, doctor, you haven’t given me much opportunity to become inured
to it this evening--save by proxy, and there are some things that
cannot be done by proxy with any degree of satisfaction.”
“Good heavens, boy! You don’t mean to say that you smoke?”
“Don’t I, though? Just try me and see.”
Amazed though I was, I politely extended my cigar case. With the air of
a _connoisseur_, my visitor selected one, bit off the end, and, taking
my proffered match, lighted the weed and began smoking, with all the
_sang froid_ of an old timer.
“By Jove! doctor, you don’t smoke drugstore cigars, I see.”
“N--no,” I said, “I get the best there is in the market,” meanwhile
mentally apologizing to my friend K----, the pharmacist who had given
me the box from which that very cigar was taken.
“Do you know, doctor, I haven’t enjoyed a smoke for ages. I used to
‘hit the pipe,’ as you now express it, when I was on earth before. But
then,” he sighed, “opium was opium in those days.”
“And pray, what is it nowadays?” I asked.
“Soothing syrup, b’gosh! And I don’t like it a little bit, though I’ve
swallowed a barrel of it.
“Which reminds me that you doctors don’t know much about colicky
babies,” said my visitor.
“N--no--I don’t suppose we do know a great deal about infantile
colic--save by its works--drat it!”
“And its music,” said young Smith, chuckling audibly, as a prolonged,
painful, quavering wail was wafted in at the window from a house
across the street.
“Come, come, my boy, you mustn’t be too hard on us doctors. Besides,
that confounded young one over yonder isn’t under my care. If he was it
might be different. One of my brethren from Dearborn Avenue has charge
of him. He doesn’t seem to be succeeding very well, either, for the
little fiend is yelling night and day. He has kept me awake nights for
about three weeks. If I shut down the windows, I smother, and if I open
them that vicious little animal disturbs my rest--and there you are!”
“Well, why don’t you do something for the poor little chap?”
“Oh, as I told you, he’s not my patient. It wouldn’t be ethical for me
to chip in,” I replied. “And besides, I don’t think his mother would
give him the medicine, even if I should send it over.”
“Ah, then you think you could relieve him, eh? I am glad to know there
is one doctor who knows how to treat colic. Really, I’m almost sorry I
haven’t had it since I have been under your care. Tell me, pray, what
would you give the child?”
“Four ounces of chloroform,” I replied, vindictively.
“The trouble with you doctors nowadays,” said the Smith baby, “is
that you talk too much about microbes. Do you remember that attack of
cholera-infantum I had?”
“Yes--I should rather think I did.”
“Well, you talked about toxins, and microbes, until you made me sicker
than ever. There I was, drinking hog-wash baby-food out of a dirty old
bottle through a nasty rubber tube, and poisoning myself every time I
did it, and you talking about germs and such things! Germs be blowed!
I was suffering from an overdose of dirt--just plain ordinary dirt.
Mother was too busy with her receptions and parties, to attend to me,
and that fool nurse neglected me. You told her to scald my bottle, but
she never did it. Why, the day before I fell sick, the cat was playing
with that infernal tube for a straight two hours.”
My visitor was becoming excited. He fairly shrieked--“Microbes, germs,
toxins! Dirt, sir, just plain, common, everyday dirt!”
“Well,” I said, “some of us doctors are beginning to believe that while
there may be a distinction between dirt and microbes, there’s precious
little practical difference after all.”
* * * * *
“I wonder if the Lord ever intended man to smoke,” said the wise child.
“He would have made the tobacco plant the tree of knowledge, if he had
known as much about nicotine as we do.”
“Possibly,” I replied, “but there are different opinions on that
subject. A radical old minister once said that if the Lord had intended
man to smoke, he would have put a chimney in the back of his head.”
“Humph! that old fool didn’t know much. If he had ever smoked--a--cigar
like this--he--would--”
My young friend paused, and put his hand to the pit of his stomach.
“Why, my dear boy, you seem distressed. Really, you are quite pale.
Pray, let me get you some--”
“Oh, it’s nothing, doctor, I--well, you see, I am not used to--to late
hours,” said the poor little chap, with a painful effort to smile.
“Perhaps some fresh air might make you feel better,” I suggested, “I
will raise another window.”
“N--no, never mind. I believe I’ll just step to the door for a moment,
if you don’t object. I feel a little--”
I grasped the situation, and hastily escorted my visitor to the veranda.
Appreciating the delicacy of my guest’s position, I then discreetly
returned to my sanctum and resumed my cigar. Certain peculiar sounds
that came through the open door, confirmed my hasty diagnosis.
I waited until the tumultuous heavings of my young friend’s diaphragm
had ceased, and then went out to ask him to return to the library, but
he was nowhere to be seen. The “wise child” had gone!
As I stood there musing, and thinking that nicotine levels all
intellectual distinctions between children, a firm hand was laid on my
shoulder and a voice said in my ear:
“Doctor, you have been sleeping in your chair about long enough. Go to
bed, you silly fellow!”
I was about to follow my wife’s advice, when--
“Ting-aling-a-ling!” came a ring at the telephone.
I fear I was not very suave as I answered--
“Hello, hello! What’s wanted?”
“Why, the baby’s got the colic to beat the very devil, and I wish you’d
come down right away.”
“Get out!” I howled. “You’ll have to get some other doctor. I don’t
call on strangers at night,” adding, _sotto voce_, “nor anybody else,
if I can help it.”
“Why, doctor, don’t you know who this is?”
“No, I’ll be hanged if I do. Who the deuce are you, anyhow?”
“Who? Me? Why, doctor, I’m Smith!”
LEAVES FROM A SUICIDE’S DIARY
I was very young when the idea of suicide first suggested itself to
me;--my life had its troubles as far back as my memory extends. I have
a vivid recollection of taking a certain degree of interest in the
subject when I was a mere lad,--long before I first thought of keeping
a record of my impressions. My father had whipped me for some trivial
matter; so trivial was it, and so severe my punishment, that I was
overwhelmed with a sense of the cruel injustice of it all. Father was
a stern, cold man, and a man of moods. He could be affectionate at
times, and I presume that deep down in his heart he loved me, but, as
I have said, he was a man of moods--and they were not always pleasant
ones for those around him. It is a curious psychic fact that some men
are subject to storms of passion which, concealed through politic
motives from all but those most entitled to consideration, seemingly
must be vented upon those whom affection should protect. My father was
such a man, and I, his eldest child, was the member of the family who
most often suffered from his horrible nerve storms. As I grew older he
became more and more inconsiderate in his treatment of me, and more and
more severe in his punishments.
I believe that all boys of good breeding and average physical stamina,
are conscious at times that paternal punishment is frequently dictated
by love and sincere interest in the welfare of the victim. It is this
sort of punishment that is followed by a healthy moral and physical
reaction. But with punishment undeserved, and out of all proportion to
the offense which it is intended to reprove, it is quite different.
Once let a boy experience such punishment, and there arises in him a
sense of rebellion against parental authority, and his respect and
affection for the parent becomes tinctured with bitterness that even
Time cannot efface.
Once let the iron of vindictive resentment against oppression and
injustice enter his soul, and your loving and lovable boy becomes
transformed--he ages perceptibly, and his fair young life, his innocent
childhood is gone--to return no more. “When I am a man!” he cries,
and that part of the river of life which flows between childhood and
manhood,--his youth,--is spanned by a bridge of sighs over which he
who crosses can not return. “WHEN I AM A MAN!” Alas! the bitter words
are hardly spoken ere the boy is a man--and such a man! A man without
memory of happy and tranquil youth--is he not a flower that has bloomed
to a semblance of maturity, yet has never been pervaded by that subtle
fragrance which only the warm, tender affection of budding youth
imparts?
In my case the effect was very peculiar; I was made to feel not only
the injustice of my punishment, but a profound sense of humiliation.
My pride was wounded more than my physical body--and, God knows, that
was wounded severely enough. Ah, thou hadst a heavy hand, oh father
mine! Would that I had experienced more of resentment and less of
mortification. The former would have been bad enough, but the latter
made life a hell on earth for me. I was fragile, nervous, sensitive,
and of a physique that ill bore abuse. Sensitive though my physical
body was, I had a mental make-up that was even more so. How I brooded
over that terrible whipping--the last my father ever gave me, for he
died soon after. The world seemed so dark and gloomy to me. There was
no rift in those sombre clouds that gave forth the bitter rain which
tinctured my young life with gall and wormwood. There was no happiness
anywhere.
My mother, angel that she was, and is,--if there be aught of justice or
compassion in the hereafter,--tried to stem the torrent of grief that
was overwhelming my young life, tried to dispel the poisonous miasm
that had disseminated itself throughout every element of my moral and
intellectual being, by such love and consolation as only a tender,
sympathetic mother can give, but in vain. A constant, oppressive,
deeply rooted melancholy took possession of me. I lost my animation and
became as near a misanthrope as one of my years and limited experience
could possibly be. And the shadow of that storm cloud of emotion has
never been quite dissipated in the wearing of the passing years of
life’s battle. Woe to him the memory of whose youth is enwrapped in
a funereal pall and in whose mouth there remains the bitter taste of
humiliation, of outraged pride and self-respect.
It was during the period immediately following the castigation I have
mentioned, that the notion of self-destruction first crystallized in
my mind. I do not remember just how I reasoned upon the matter; I
recall clearly enough, however, that I was profoundly impressed with
the idea that my woes were bearing me down to the depths of misery
and despair. There rested upon me a dreadful incubus from which there
seemed to be but one means of escape.
I had seen persons lying dead, and I remember that in my despairing,
hopeless state of mind the thought of the peaceful, quiet expression
upon their faces was positively fascinating to me. I found myself
dwelling upon it with much interest, and a feeling akin to envy.
Well, as I have said, I do not remember precisely how I formulated
my conclusions, but I finally resolved to make away with myself.
Unfortunately, however, one of the traits with which I was endowed by
nature, was a fear of physical suffering, and when the resolution to
take my own life had been formed, I still had to deal with my physical
cowardice.
It has been said that only cowards and lunatics commit suicide. There
was never a greater lie than this. Lunatics may suicide--cowards,
never. It requires true heroism to face an unknown hereafter--to fly
from those ills we have to those we know not of. And the hapless one
to whom life is a burden must have courage _par excellence_, to enable
him to face that dread future which, if he be scripturally credulous,
must needs be more fearful than the terrestrial unhappiness that he
fain would escape. No, suicide requires bravery, and I was not brave--I
had hardly gotten beyond that dread of darkness and solitude which is
the bane of childish existence. What wonder that I dreaded to take so
radical a road out of my slough of despond?
The physical penalty of self-destruction was the most important
obstacle to be overcome if I would escape from my mental slavery. So
great was my dread of it, that--well, I lived, and, more’s the pity,
am still living, a miserable misanthrope, in whom the misery of the
present is exceeded only by his dread of the unknown country, and his
physical fears of the means necessary to take him hence.
* * * * *
I wonder if there are many who are entrusted with the care of youth,
who ever think of their influence in moulding its future destinies. I
have long since forgiven my father for his harshness--but the memory of
my youthful sorrows can never be effaced. Does science recognize such
a thing as a mental scar? It should. And mental scars, though unseen,
are not only permanent, but ever painful. Death finally claimed my
father through his one infirmity. He died of apoplexy, superinduced by
one of his attacks of blind, unreasoning passion. I know not where he
is, but I trust he is unconscious of the results of his mismanagement
of his unfortunate son. I say I know not where he is, advisedly. My
views of the hereafter--if I may call the chaotic ideas I have hitherto
entertained, views--have undergone considerable modification of late.
I am losing my egotism, and gradually coming to believe that death is
but another name for oblivion. How prosaic it is, to be sure. By no
means so satisfying to the ignorant, and those of the faith--which is
sometimes another way of putting the same proposition--as that halo of
glory for the good, or that blaze of everlasting fire for the wicked,
which theology from time immemorial has prescribed for the dying. And
if oblivion be the finality, what more could the All Father do for his
tired children?
* * * * *