THE DOCTOR IS INTRODUCED, BY THE SMALL POX, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE.
Long-waiting love doth entrance find
Into the slow-believing mind.
SYDNEY GODOLPHIN.
When Deborah was about nineteen, the small pox broke out in Doncaster,
and soon spread over the surrounding country, occasioning every where
a great mortality. At that time inoculation had very rarely been
practised in the provinces; and the prejudice against it was so strong
that Mr. Bacon though convinced in his own mind that the practice was
not only lawful, but advisable, refrained from having his daughter
inoculated till the disease appeared in his own parish. He had been
induced to defer it during her childhood, partly because he was
unwilling to offend the prejudices of his parishioners, which he hoped
to overcome by persuasion and reasoning when time and opportunity
might favour; still more because he thought it unjustifiable to
introduce such a disease into his own house, with imminent risk of
communicating it to others, which were otherwise in no danger, in
which the same preparations would not be made, and where consequently
the danger would be greater. But when the malady had shown itself in
the parish, then he felt that his duty as a parent required him to
take the best apparent means for the preservation of his child; and
that as a pastor also it became him now in his own family to set an
example to his parishioners.
Deborah, who had the most perfect reliance upon her father's
judgement, and lived in entire accordance with his will in all things,
readily consented; and seemed to regard the beneficial consequences of
the experiment to others with hope, rather than to look with
apprehension to it for herself. Mr. Bacon therefore went to Doncaster
and called upon Dr. Dove. “I do not,” said he, “ask whether you would
advise me to have my daughter inoculated; where so great a risk is to
be incurred, in the case of an only child, you might hesitate to
advise it. But if you see nothing in her present state of health, or
in her constitutional tendencies, which would render it more than
ordinarily dangerous, it is her own wish and mine, after due
consideration on my part, that she should be committed to your
care,—putting our trust in Providence.”
Hitherto there had been no acquaintance between Mr. Bacon and the
Doctor, farther than that they knew each other by sight and by good
report. This circumstance led to a growing intimacy. During the course
of his attendance the Doctor fell in friendship with the father, and
the father with him.
“Did he fall in love with his patient?”
“No, ladies.”
You have already heard that he once fell in love, and how it happened.
And you have also been informed that he caught love once, though I
have not told you how, because it would have led me into too
melancholy a tale. In this case he neither fell in love, nor caught
it, nor ran into it, nor walked into it; nor was he overtaken in it,
as a boon companion is in liquor, or a runaway in his flight. Yet
there was love between the parties at last, and it was love for love,
to the heart's content of both. How this came to pass will be related
at the proper time and in the proper place.
For here let me set before the judicious Reader certain pertinent
remarks by the pious and well known author of a popular treatise upon
the Right Use of Reason,—a treatise which has been much read to little
purpose. That author observes that “those writers and speakers, whose
chief business is to amuse or delight, to allure, terrify or persuade
mankind, do not confine themselves to any natural order, but in a
cryptical or hidden method, adapt every thing to their designed ends.
Sometimes they omit those things which might injure their design, or
grow tedious to their hearers, though they seem to have a necessary
relation to the point in hand: sometimes they add those things which
have no great reference to the subject, but are suited to allure or
refresh the mind and the ear. They dilate sometimes, and flourish long
upon little incidents; and they skip over, and but lightly touch the
drier part of the theme.—They omit things essential which are not
beautiful; they insert little needless circumstances and beautiful
digressions; they invert times and actions, in order to place every
thing in the most affecting light;—they place the first things last,
and the last things first with wonderous art; and yet so manage it as
to conceal their artifice, and lead the senses and passions of their
hearers into a pleasing and powerful captivity.”