Do you think that such a thing as chance exists? Rather an explosive
sentence to start a letter with; but pray cast your mind back over your
own life, and tell me if you think that we really are the sports of
chance. You know how often the turning down this street or that, the
accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current
of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered
hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction
that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and
pre-determined end? I confess that as I advance through life, I become
more and more confirmed in that fatalism to which I have always had an
inclination.
Look at it in this way. We know that many of the permanent facts of the
universe are NOT chance. It is not chance that the heavenly bodies swing
clear of each other, that the seed is furnished with the apparatus which
will drift it to a congenial soil, that the creature is adapted to its
environment. Show me a whale with its great-coat of fat, and I want no
further proof of design. But logically, as it seems to me, ALL must be
design, or all must be chance. I do not see how one can slash a line
right across the universe, and say that all to the right of that is
chance, and all to the left is pre-ordained. You would then have to
contend that things which on the face of them are of the same class, are
really divided by an impassable gulf, and that the lower are regulated,
while the higher are not. You would, for example, be forced to contend
that the number of articulations in a flea’s hind leg has engaged the
direct superintendence of the Creator, while the mischance which killed
a thousand people in a theatre depended upon the dropping of a wax vesta
upon the floor, and was an unforeseen flaw in the chain of life. This
seems to me to be unthinkable.
It is a very superficial argument to say that if a man holds the
views of a fatalist he will therefore cease to strive, and will wait
resignedly for what fate may send him. The objector forgets that among
the other things fated is that we of northern blood SHOULD strive and
should NOT sit down with folded hands. But when a man has striven, when
he has done all he knows, and when, in spite of it, a thing comes to
pass, let him wait ten years before he says that it is a misfortune. It
is part of the main line of his destiny then, and is working to an end.
A man loses his fortune; he gains earnestness. His eyesight goes; it
leads him to a spirituality. The girl loses her beauty; she becomes more
sympathetic. We think we are pushing our own way bravely, but there is a
great Hand in ours all the time.
You’ll wonder what has taken me off on this line. Only that I seem
to see it all in action in my own life. But, as usual, I have started
merrily off with an appendix, so I shall go back and begin my report
as nearly as possible where I ended the last. First of all, I may
say generally that the clouds were thinning then, and that they broke
shortly afterwards. During the last few months we have never once quite
lost sight of the sun.
You remember that we (Paul and I) had just engaged a certain
Miss Williams to come and keep house for us. I felt that on the
basement-lodger principle I had not control enough; so we now entered
upon a more business-like arrangement, by which a sum (though, alas! an
absurdly small one) was to be paid her for her services. I would it had
been ten times as much, for a better and a more loyal servant man never
had. Our fortunes seemed to turn from the hour that she re-entered the
house.
Slowly, week by week, and month by month, the practice began to spread
and to strengthen. There were spells when never a ring came to the bell,
and it seemed as though all our labour had gone for nothing--but then
would come other days when eight and ten names would appear in my
ledger. Where did it come from you will ask. Some from old Whitehall and
his circle of Bohemians. Some from accident cases. Some from new comers
to the town who drifted to me. Some from people whom I met first in
other capacities. An insurance superintendent gave me a few cases to
examine, and that was a very great help. Above all, I learned a fact
which I would whisper in the ear of every other man who starts, as I
have done, a stranger among strangers. Do not think that practice will
come to you. You must go to it. You may sit upon your consulting room
chair until it breaks under you, but without purchase or partnership you
will make little or no progress. The way to do it is to go out, to mix
everywhere with men, to let them know you. You will come back many a
time and be told by a reproachful housekeeper that some one has been for
you in your absence. Never mind! Go out again. A noisy smoking concert
where you will meet eighty men is better for you than the patient or two
whom you might have seen at home. It took me some time to realise, but I
speak now as one who knows.
But--there is a great big “but” in the case. You must ride yourself on
the curb the whole time. Unless you are sure--absolutely sure--that you
can do this, you are far best at home. You must never for one instant
forget yourself. You must remember what your object is in being there.
You must inspire respect. Be friendly, genial, convivial--what you
will--but preserve the tone and bearing of a gentleman. If you can make
yourself respected and liked you will find every club and society that
you join a fresh introduction to practice. But beware of drink! Above
everything, beware of drink! The company that you are in may condone
it in each other, but never in the man who wishes them to commit their
lives to his safe keeping. A slip is fatal--a half slip perilous. Make
your rule of life and go by it, in spite of challenge or coaxers. It
will be remembered in your favour next morning.
And of course I do not mean merely festive societies. Literary,
debating, political, social, athletic, every one of them is a tool to
your hands. But you must show them what a good man you are. You must
throw yourself into each with energy and conviction. You will soon
find yourself on the committee--possibly the secretary, or even in the
presidential chair. Do not grudge labour where the return may be remote
and indirect. Those are the rungs up which one climbs.
That was how, when I had gained some sort of opening, I set to work to
enlarge it. I joined this. I joined that. I pushed in every direction.
I took up athletics again much to the advantage of my health, and found
that the practice benefited as well as I. My cricket form for the season
has been fair, with an average of about 20 with the bat and 9 with the
ball.
It must be allowed, however, that this system of sallying out for my
patients and leaving my consulting room empty might be less successful
if it were not for my treasure of a housekeeper. She is a marvel of
discretion, and the way in which she perjures her soul for the sake of
the practice is a constant weight upon my conscience. She is a tall,
thin woman, with a grave face and an impressive manner. Her standard
fiction, implied rather than said (with an air as if it were so
universally known that it would be absurd to put it into words) is,
that I am so pressed by the needs of my enormous practice, that any one
wishing to consult me must make their appointment very exactly and a
long time in advance.
“Dear me, now!” she says to some applicant. “He’s been hurried off again.
If you’d been here half-an-hour ago he might have given you a minute.
I never saw such a thing” (confidentially). “Between you and me I don’t
think he can last at it long. He’s bound to break down. But come in, and
I’ll do all I can for you.”
Then, having carefully fastened the patient up in the consulting room,
she goes to little Paul.
“Run round to the bowling green, Master Paul,” says she. “You’ll find
the doctor there, I think. Just tell him that a patient is waiting for
him.”
She seems in these interviews to inspire them with a kind of hushed
feeling of awe, as if they had found their way into some holy of holies.
My own actual appearance is quite an anti-climax after the introduction
by Miss Williams.
Another of her devices is to make appointments with an extreme precision
as to time, I being at the moment worked to death (at a cricket match).
“Let us see!” says she, looking at the slate. “He will be clear at seven
minutes past eight this evening. Yes, he could just manage it then. He
has no one at all from seven past to the quarter past”--and so at the
appointed hour I have my patient precipitating himself into my room with
the demeanour of the man who charges in for his bowl of hot soup at a
railway station. If he knew that he is probably the only patient who has
opened my door that evening he would not be in such a hurry--or think so
much of my advice.
One curious patient has come my way who has been of great service to me.
She is a stately looking widow, Turner by name, the most depressingly
respectable figure, as of Mrs. Grundy’s older and less frivolous sister.
She lives in a tiny house, with one small servant to scale. Well, every
two months or so she quite suddenly goes on a mad drink, which lasts for
about a week. It ends as abruptly as it begins, but while it is on the
neighbours know it. She shrieks, yells, sings, chivies the servant,
and skims plates out of the window at the passers-by. Of course, it is
really not funny, but pathetic and deplorable--all the same, it is hard
to keep from laughing at the absurd contrast between her actions and
her appearance. I was called in by accident in the first instance; but I
speedily acquired some control over her, so that now the neighbours send
for me the moment the crockery begins to come through the window. She
has a fair competence, so that her little vagaries are a help to me with
my rent. She has, too, a number of curious jugs, statues, and pictures,
a selection of which she presents to me in the course of each of her
attacks, insisting upon my carrying them away then and there; so that I
stagger out of the house like one of Napoleon’s generals coming out of
Italy. There is a good deal of method in the old lady, however, and on
her recovery she invariably sends round a porter, with a polite note to
say that she would be very glad to have her pictures back again.
And now I have worked my way to the point where I can show you what I
mean when I talk about fate. The medical practitioner who lives next
me--Porter is his name--is a kindly sort of man, and knowing that I have
had a long uphill fight, he has several times put things in my way.
One day about three weeks ago he came into my consulting room after
breakfast.
“Could you come with me to a consultation?” he asked.
“With pleasure.”
“I have my carriage outside.”
He told me something of the case as we went. It was a young fellow, an
only son, who had been suffering from nervous symptoms for some time,
and lately from considerable pain in his head. “His people are living
with a patient of mine, General Wainwright,” said Porter. “He didn’t
like the symptoms, and thought he would have a second opinion.”
We came to the house, a great big one, in its own grounds, and had a
preliminary talk with the dark-faced, white-haired Indian soldier who
owns it. He was explaining the responsibility that he felt, the patient
being his nephew, when a lady entered the room. “This is my sister, Mrs.
La Force,” said he, “the mother of the gentleman whom you are going to
see.”
I recognised her instantly. I had met her before and under curious
circumstances. (Dr. Stark Munro here proceeds to narrate again how he
had met the La Forces, having evidently forgotten that he had already
done so in Letter VI.) When she was introduced I could see that she had
not associated me with the young doctor in the train. I don’t wonder,
for I have started a beard, in the hope of making myself look a little
older. She was naturally all anxiety about her son, and we went up with
her (Porter and I) to have a look at him. Poor fellow! he seemed peakier
and more sallow than when I had seen him last. We held our consultation,
came to an agreement about the chronic nature of his complaint, and
finally departed without my reminding Mrs. La Force of our previous
meeting.
Well, there the matter might have ended; but about three days afterwards
who should be shown into my consulting room but Mrs. La Force and her
daughter. I thought the latter looked twice at me, when her mother
introduced her, as if she had some recollection of my face; but she
evidently could not recall where she had seen it, and I said nothing to
help her. They both seemed to be much distressed in mind--indeed,
the tears were brimming over from the girl’s eyes, and her lip was
quivering.
“We have come to you, Doctor Munro, in the greatest distress,” said Mrs.
La Force; “we should be very glad of your advice.”
“You place me in rather a difficult position, Mrs. La Force,” said I.
“The fact is, that I look upon you as Dr. Porter’s patients, and it is
a breach of etiquette upon my part to hold any communication with you
except through him.”
“It was he who sent us here,” said she.
“Oh, that alters the matter entirely.”
“He said he could do nothing to help us, and that perhaps you could.”
“Pray let me know what you wish done.”
She set out valorously to explain; but the effort of putting her
troubles into words seemed to bring them more home to her, and she
suddenly blurred over and became inarticulate. Her daughter bent towards
her, and kissed her with the prettiest little spasm of love and pity.
“I will tell you about it, doctor,” said she. “Poor mother is almost
worn out. Fred--my brother, that is to say, is worse. He has become
noisy, and will not be quiet.”
“And my brother, the general,” continued Mrs. La Force, “naturally did
not expect this when he kindly offered us a home, and, being a nervous
man, it is very trying to him. In fact, it cannot go on. He says so
himself.”
“But what is mother to do?” cried the girl, taking up the tale again.
“No hotel or lodging-house would take us in while poor Fred is like
that. And we have not the heart to send him to an asylum. Uncle will not
have us any longer, and we have nowhere to go to.” Her grey eyes tried
to look brave, but her mouth would go down at the corners.