What if I were plucked? What should I do? Go to the American war,
embark for the gold-diggings, enlist in a regiment of Sepoys, or throw
myself from the top of Saint Paul's? This, and such like, were my
thoughts, as I bargained with cabby, for a consideration, to drive me
and my traps to a quiet second-rate hotel--for my purse by no means
partook of the ponderosity of my heart. Cabby did so. The hotel at
which I alighted was kept by a gentleman who, with his two daughters,
had but lately migrated from the flowery lands of sunny Devon; so lately
that he himself could still welcome his guests with an honest smile and
hearty shake of hand, while the peach-like bloom had not as yet faded
from the cheeks of his pretty buxom daughters. So well pleased was I
with my entertainment in every way at this hotel, that I really believed
I had arrived in a city where both cabmen and innkeepers were honest and
virtuous; but I have many a time and often since then had reason to
alter my opinion.
Now, there being only four days clear left me ere I should have to
present myself before the august body of examiners at Somerset House, I
thought it behoved me to make the best of my time. Fain--oh, how
fain!--would I have dashed care and my books, the one to the winds and
the other to the wall, and floated away over the great ocean of London,
with all its novelties, all its pleasures and its curiosities; but I was
afraid--I dared not. I felt like a butterfly just newly burst from the
chrysalis, with a world of flowers and sunshine all around it, but with
one leg unfortunately immersed in birdlime. I felt like that gentleman,
in Hades you know, with all sorts of good things at his lips, which he
could neither touch nor taste of. Nor could I of the joys of London
life. No, like Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah, I could but behold
the promised land afar off; _he_ had the dark gates of death to pass
before he might set foot therein, and I had to pass the gloomy portals
of Somerset House, and its board of dread examiners.
The landlord--honest man! little did he know the torture he was giving
me--spread before me on the table more than a dozen orders for places of
amusement,--to me, uninitiated, places of exceeding great joy--red
orders, green orders, orange and blue orders, orders for concerts,
orders for gardens, orders for theatres royal, and orders for the opera.
Oh, reader, fancy at that moment my state of mind; fancy having the
wonderful lamp of Aladdin offered you, and your hands tied behind your
back I myself turned red, and green, and orange, and blue, even as the
orders were, gasped a little, called for a glass of water,--not beer,
mark me,--and rushed forth. I looked not at the flaming placards on the
walls, nor at the rows of seedy advertisement-board men. I looked
neither to the right hand nor to the left, but made my way straight to
the British Museum, with the hopes of engaging in a little calm
reflection. I cannot say I found it however; for all the strange things
I saw made me think of all the strange countries these strange things
came from, and this set me a-thinking of all the beautiful countries I
might see if I passed.
"_If_, gracious heavens!" thought I. "Are you mad, knocking about here
like a magnetised mummy, and Tuesday the passing day? Home, you devil
you, and study!"
Half an hour later, in imagination behold me seated before a table in my
little room, with the sun's parting beams shemmering dustily in through
my window, surrounded with books--books--books medical, books surgical,
books botanical, books nautical, books what-not-ical; behold, too, the
wet towel that begirts my thoughtful brow, my malar bones leaning on my
hands, my forearms resting on the mahogany, while I am thinking, or
trying to think, of, on, or about everything known, unknown, or guessed
at.
Mahogany, did I say? "Mahogany," methinks I hear the examiner say,
"hem! hem! upon what island, tell us, doctor, does the mahogany tree
grow, exist, and flourish? Give the botanical name of this tree, the
natural family to which it belongs, the form of its leaves and flower,
its uses in medicine and in art, the probable number of years it lives,
the articles made from its bark, the parasites that inhabit it, the
birds that build their nests therein, and the class of savage who finds
shelter beneath its wide-spreading, _if_ wide-spreading, branches;
entering minutely into the formation of animal structure in general, and
describing the whole theory of cellular development, tracing the gradual
rise of man from the sponge through the various forms of snail, oyster,
salmon, lobster, lizard, rabbit, kangaroo, monkey, gorilla, nigger, and
Irish Yahoo, up to the perfect Englishman; and state your ideas of the
most probable form and amount of perfection at which you think the
animal structure will arrive in the course of the next ten thousand
years. Is mahogany much superior to oak? If so, why is it not used in
building ships? Give a short account of the history of shipbuilding,
with diagrams illustrative of the internal economy of Noah's ark, the
Great Eastern, and the Rob Roy canoe. Describe the construction of the
Armstrong gun, King Theodore's mortar, and Mons Meg. Describe the
different kinds of mortars used in building walls, and those used in
throwing them down; insert here the composition of gunpowder tea, Fenian
fire, and the last New Yankee drink? In the mahogany country state the
diseases most prevalent among the natives, and those which you would
think yourself justified in telling the senior assistant-surgeon to
request the surgeon to beg the first lieutenant to report to the
commander, that he may call the attention of your captain to the
necessity of ordering the crew to guard against."
Then, most indulgent reader, behold me, with these and a thousand other
such questions floating confusedly through my bewildered brain--behold
me, I say, rise from the table slowly, and as one who doubteth whether
he be not standing on his head; behold me kick aside the cane-bottomed
chair, then clear the table with one wild sweep, state "Bosh!" with the
air and emphasis of a pasha of three tails, throw myself on the sofa,
and with a "Waitah, glass of gwog and cigaw, please," commence to read
`Tom Cwingle's Log.' This is how I spent my first day, and a good part
of the night too, in London; and--moral--I should sincerely advise every
medical aspirant, or candidate for a commission in the Royal Navy, to
bring in his pocket some such novel as Roderick Random, or Harry
Lorrequer, to read immediately before passing, and to leave every other
book at home.