Sept. 30th:--Not a case to set down to-day. This high moorland is your
best sanatorium. My "occupation's gone."
I have every satisfaction in that fact, or in the cause of it; which,
cynics might say, a member of my profession would easily manage to
prevent, were he a city physician instead of a regimental surgeon.
Still, idleness is insupportable to me. I have tried going about among
the few villages hard by, but their worst disease is one to which this
said regimental surgeon, with nothing but his pay, can apply but small
remedy--poverty.
To-day I have paced the long, straight lines of the camp; from the
hospital to the bridge, and back again to the hospital--have tried to
take a vivid interest in the loungers, the foot-ball players, and the
wretched, awkward squad turned out in never-ending parade. With each
hour of the quiet autumn afternoon have I watched the sentinel mount
the little stockaded hillock, and startle the camp with the old familiar
boom of the great Sebastopol bell. Then, I have shut my hut-door, taken
to my books, and studied till my head warned me to stop.
The evening post--but only business letters. I rarely have any other. I
have no one to write to me--no one to write to.
Sometimes I have been driven to wish I had; some one friend with whom
it would be possible to talk in pen and ink, on other matters than
business. Yet, _cui bono?_ To no friend should I or could I let out my
real self; the only thing in the letter that was truly and absolutely me
would be the great grim signature: "Max Urquhart."
Were it otherwise--were there any human being to whom I could lay open
my whole heart, trust with my whole history;--but no, that were utterly
impossible now.
No more of this.
No more, until the end. That end, which at once solves all difficulties,
every year brings nearer. Nearly forty, and a doctor's life is usually
shorter than most men's. I shall be an old man soon, even if there come
none of those sudden chances against which I have of course provided.
The end. How and in what manner it is to be done, I am not yet clear.
But it shall be done, before my death or after.
"Max Urquhart, M.D."
I go on signing my name mechanically, with those two business-like
letters after it, and thinking how odd it would be to sign it in any
other fashion. How strange,--did any one care to look at my signature
in any way except thus, with the two professional letters after it--a
common-place signature of business. Equally strange, perhaps, that such
a thought as this last should have entered my head, or that I should
have taken the trouble, and yielded to the weakness of writing it down.
It all springs from idleness--sheer idleness; the very same cause that
makes Treherne, whom I have known do duty cheerily for twenty-four hours
in the trenches, lounge, smoke, yawn, and play the flute. There--it
has stopped. I heard the postman rapping at his hut-door--the young
simpleton has got a letter.
Suppose, just to pass away the time, I, Max Urquhart, reduced to this
lowest ebb of inanity by a paternal government, which has stranded my
regiment here, high and dry, but as dreary as Noah on Ararat--were to
enliven my solitude, drive away blue devils, by manufacturing for myself
an imaginary correspondent? So be it.
To begin then at once in the received epistolary form:--
"My dear--"
My dear--what? "Sir?"--No--not for this once. I wanted a change.
"Madam?"--that is formal. Shall I invent a name?
When I think of it, how strange it would feel to me to be writing "my
dear" before any Christian name. Orphaned early, my only brother long
dead, drifting about from land to land till I have almost forgotten my
own, which has quite forgotten me--I had not considered it before, but
really I do not believe there is a human being living, whom I have a
right to call by his or her Christian name, or who would ever think of
calling me by mine. "Max,"--I have not heard the sound of it for years.
_Dear_, a pleasant adjective--my, a pronoun of possession, implying that
the being spoken of is one's very own,--one's sole, sacred, personal
property, as with natural selfishness one would wish to hold the thing
most precious. _My dear_;--a satisfactory total. I rather object to
"dearest" as a word implying comparison, and therefore never to be
used where comparison should not and could not exist. Witness, "dearest
mother," or "dearest wife," as if a man had a plurality of mothers and
wives, out of whom he chose the one he loved best. And, as a general
rule, I dislike all ultra expressions of affection set down in ink. I
once knew an honest gentleman--blessed with one of the tenderest hearts
that ever man had, and which in all his life was only given to one
woman; he, his wife told me, had never, even in their courtship days,
written to her otherwise than as "My dear Anne,"--ending merely with
"Yours faithfully," or "yours truly." Faithful--true--what could he
write, or she desire more?
If my pen wanders to lovers and sweethearts, and moralises over
simple sentences in this maundering way, blame not me, dear imaginary
correspondent, to whom no name shall be given at all--but blame my
friend,--as friends go in this world,--Captain Augustus Treherne.
Because, happily, that young fellow's life was saved at Balaclava,
does he intend to invest me with the responsibility of it, with all its
scrapes and follies, now and for evermore? Is my clean, sober hut to
be fumigated with tobacco and poisoned with brandy-and-water, that a
lovesick youth may unburden himself of his sentimental tale? Heaven
knows why I listen to it! Probably because telling me keeps the lad out
of mischief; also because he is honest, though an ass, and I always
had a greater leaning to fools than to knaves. But let me not pretend
reasons which make me out more generous than I really am, for the fellow
and his love-affair, bore me exceedingly sometimes, and would be quite
unendurable anywhere but in this dull camp. I do it from a certain
abstract pleasure which I have always taken in dissecting character,
constituting myself an amateur demonstrator of spiritual anatomy.
An amusing study is, not only the swain, but the goddess. For I found
her out, spelled her over satisfactorily, even in that one evening.
Treherne little guessed it--he took care never to introduce me--he
does not even mention her name, or suspect I know it. Vast precautions
against nothing! Does he fear lest Mentor should put in a claim to his
Eucharis? You know better, dear. Imaginary Correspondent.
Even were I among the list of "marrying men," this adorable she would
never be my choice, would never attract me for an instant. Little as
I know about women, I know enough to feel certain that there is a very
small residuum of depth, feeling, or originality, in that large handsome
physique of hers. Yet she looks good-natured, good-tempered; almost as
much so as Treherne himself.
"Speak o' the de'il," there he comes. Far away down the lines I can
catch his eternal "Donna é mobile,"--how I detest that song! No doubt
he has been taking to the post his answer to one of those
abominably-scented notes that he always drops out of his waistcoat by
the merest accident, and glances round to see if I am looking--which I
never am. What a young puppy it is! Yet it hangs after one kindly, like
a puppy; after me too, who am not the pleasantest fellow in the world.
And as it is but young, it _may_ mend, if it falls into no worse company
than the present.
I have known what it is to be without a friend when one is very
inexperienced, reckless, and young.
_Evening._
"To what base uses may we come at last."
It seems perfectly ridiculous to see the use this memorandum-book has
come to. Cases forsooth! The few pages of them may as well be torn out,
in favour of the new specimens of moral disease which I am driven to
study. For instance:--
No. 1--Better omit that.
No. 2--Augustus Treherne, æt. 22, intermittent fever, verging upon
yellow fever occasionally, as to-day. Pulse, very high, tongue, rather
foul, especially in speaking of Mr. Colin Granton. Countenance, pale,
inclining to livid. A very bad case altogether.
Patient enters, whistling like a steam-engine, as furious and as shrill,
with a corresponding puff of smoke. I point to the obnoxious vapour.
"Beg pardon, Doctor, I always forget. What a tyrant you are!"
"Very likely; but there is one thing I never will allow; smoking in my
hut. I did not, you know, even in the Crimea."
The lad sat down, sighing like a furnace.
"Heigho, Doctor, I wish I were you."
"Do you?"
"You always seem so uncommonly comfortable; never want a cigar or
anything to quiet your nerves and keep you in good humour. You never get
into a scrape of any sort; have neither a mother to lecture you, nor an
old governor to bully you."
"Stop there."
"I will then; you need not take me up so sharp. He's a trump, after
all. You know that, so I don't mind a word or two against him. Just read
there."
He threw over one of Sir William's ultraprosy moral essays--which no
doubt the worthy old gentleman flatters himself are, in another line,
the very copy of Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son. I might have
smiled at it had I been alone,--or laughed at it were I young enough to
sympathise with the modern system of transposing into "the Governor,"
the ancient reverend name of "Father."
"You see what an opinion he has of you. 'Pon my life, if I were not
the meekest fellow imaginable, always ready to be led by a straw into
Virtue's ways, I should have cut your acquaintance long ago. 'Invariably
follow the advice of Dr. Urquhart,'--'I wish, my dear son, that your
character more resembled that of your friend, Dr. Urquhart. I should
be more concerned about your many follies, were you not in the same
regiment as Dr. Urquhart. Dr. Urquhart is one of the wisest men I ever
knew,' and so on, and so on. What say you?"
I said nothing; and I now write down this, as I shall write anything of
the kind which enters into the plain relation of facts or conversations
which daily occur. God knows how vain such words are to me at the best
of times--mere sounding brass and tinkling cymbal--as the like must be
to most men well acquainted with themselves. At some times, and under
certain states of mind, they become to my ear the most refined and
exquisite torture that my bitterest enemy could desire to inflict. There
is no need, therefore, to apologise for them. Apologise to whom, indeed?
Having resolved to write this, it were folly to make it an imperfect
statement. A journal should be fresh, complete, and correct--the man's
entire life, or nothing. Since, if he sets it down at all, it
must necessarily be for his own sole benefit--it would be the most
contemptible form of egotistic humbug to arrange and modify it as if it
were meant for the eye of any other person.
Dear, unknown, imaginary eye--which never was and never will be--yet
which I like to fancy shining somewhere in the clouds, out of Jupiter,
Venus, or the Georgium Sidus, upon this solitary me--the foregoing
sentence bears no reference to you.
"Treherne," I said, "whatever good opinion your father is pleased
to hold as to my wisdom, I certainly do not share in one juvenile
folly--that, being a very well-meaning fellow on the whole, I take the
greatest pains to make myself out a scamp."
The youth coloured.
"That's me, of course."
"Wear the cap if it feels comfortable. And now, will you have some tea?"
"Anything--I feel as thirsty as when you found me dragging myself to the
brink of the Tchernaya. Hey, Doctor, it would have saved me a deal of
bother if you had never found me at all. Except that it would vex the
old governor to end the name and have the property all going to the
dogs,--that is, to Cousin Charteris; who would not care how soon I was
dead and buried."
"_Were_ dead and buried, if you please."
"Confound it, to stop a man about his grammar when he is in my state of
mind! Kept from his cigar, too! Doctor, you never were in love, or you
never were a smoker."
"How do you know?"
"Because you never could have given up the one or the other; a fellow
can't; 'tis an impossibility."
"Is it? I once smoked six cigars a day, for two years."
"Eh, what? And you never let that out before? You are so close!
Possibly, the other fact will peep out in time Mrs. Urquhart and
half-a-dozen brats may be living in some out-of-the-way nook--Cornwall,
or Jersey, or the centre of Salisbury Plain. Why, what?--nay, I beg your
pardon, Doctor."
What a horrible thing it is that by no physical effort, added to years
of mental self-control, can I so harden my nerves that certain words,
names, suggestions, shall not startle me--make me quiver as if under the
knife. Doubtless, Treherne will henceforth retain--so far as his easy
mind can retain anything--the idea that I have a wife and family hidden
somewhere! Ludicrous idea, if it were not connected with other ideas
from which, however, this one will serve to turn his mind.
To explain it away was of course impossible. I had only power to
slip from the subject with a laugh, and bring him back to the tobacco
question.
"Yes; I smoked six cigars a-day for at least two years."
"And gave it up? Wonderful!"
"Not very, when a man has a will of his own, and a few strong reasons to
back it."
"Out with them--not that they will benefit me however--I'm quite
incorrigible."
"Doubtless. First, I was a poor medical student, and six cigars per diem
cost fourteen shillings a-week,--thirty-(six) pounds, eight shillings,
a-year. A good sum to give for an artificial want--enough to have fed
and clothed a child."
"You're weak on the point of brats, Urquhart. Do you remember the little
Russ we picked up in the cellar at Sebastopol? I do believe you'd have
adopted and brought it home with you if it had not died."
Should I? But as Treherne said, it died.
"Secondly, thirty-(six) pounds, eight shillings per annum was a
good deal to give for a purely selfish enjoyment, annoying to almost
everybody except the smoker, and at the time of smoking--especially when
to the said smoker it is sure to grow from a mere accidental enjoyment
into an irresistible necessity--a habit to which he becomes the most
utter slave. Now, a man is only half a man who allows himself to become
the slave of any habit whatsoever."
"Bravo, Doctor, all this should go into the _Lancet_."
"No, for it does not touch the question on the medical side, but the
general and practical one: namely, that to create an unnecessary luxury,
which is a nuisance to every body else, and to himself of very doubtful
benefit--is--excuse me--the very silliest thing a young man can do. A
thing, which, from my own experience, I'll not aid and abet any young
man in doing. There, lecture's over, and kettle boiled--unless you
prefer tobacco and the open air."
He did not: and we sat down--"four feet upon a fender"--as the proverb
says.
"Heigho! but the proverb doesn't mean four feet in men's boots," said
Treherne, dolefully. "I wish I was dead and buried." I suggested that
the light moustache he curled so fondly, the elegant hair, and the
aristocratic outline of phiz, would look exceedingly well--in a coffin.
"Faugh! how unpleasant you are."
And I myself repented the speech: for it ill becomes a man under any
provocation to make a jest of Death. But, that this young fellow, so
full of life, with every attraction that it can offer--health, wealth,
kindred, friends--should sit croaking there, with such a used-up,
lack-a-daisical air,--truly it irritated me.
"What's the matter--that you wish to rid the world of your valuable
presence?--Has the young lady expressed a similar desire?"
"She?--Hang her! I won't think any more about her," said the lad
sullenly. And then, out poured the grand despair, the unendurable climax
of mortal woe. "She cantered through the north camp this afternoon, with
Granton--Colin Granton, and upon Granton's own brown mare."
"Ha!--horrible vision! And you?--you=
````'Watched them go: one horse was blind;
```The tails of both hung down behind.
````Their shoes were on their feet.'"=
"Doctor!"
I stopped--there seemed more reality in his feelings than I had
been aware of; and it is scarcely right to make a mock of even the
fire-and-smoke, dust-and-ashes passion of a boy.
"I beg your pardon; not knowing the affair had gone so far. Still, it
isn't worth being dead and buried for."
"What business has she to go riding with that big clod-hopping lout? And
what right has he to lend her his brown mare?" chafed Treherne, with
a great deal more which I did not much attend to. At last, weary of
playing Friar Lawrence to such a very uninteresting Romeo, I hinted,
that if he disapproved of the young lady's behaviour, he ought to appeal
to her own good sense, to her father, or somebody--or, since women
understand one another best, get Lady Augusta Treherne to do it.
"My mother! She never even heard of her. Why, you speak as seriously as
if I were actually intending to marry her!"
Here I could not help rousing myself a trifle.
"Excuse me--it never struck me that a gentleman could discuss a young
lady among his acquaintance, make a public show of his admiration for
her, interfere with her proceedings or her conduct towards any other
gentleman, and _not_ intend to marry her. Suppose we choose another
subject of conversation."
Treherne grew hot to the ears, but he took the hint and spared me his
sentimental maunderings.
We had afterwards some interesting conversation about a few cases
of mine in the neighbourhood, not on the regular list of regimental
patients which have lately been to me a curious study. If I were
inclined to quit the army--I believe the branch of my profession which
I should take up would be that of sanitary reform--the study of health
rather than of disease, of prevention rather than cure. It often seems
to me, that we of the healing art have began at the wrong end--that the
energy we devote to the alleviation of irremediable disease would be
better spent in the study and practise of means to preserve health.
Thus, I tried to explain to Treherne, who will have plenty of money and
influence, and whom, therefore, it is worth while taking pains to
inoculate with a few useful facts and ideas; that one-half of our
mortality in the Crimea was owing, not to the accidents of war, but to
the results of zymotic diseases, all of which might have been prevented
by common sense and common knowledge of the laws of health, as the
statistics of our sanitary commission have abundantly proved.
And, as I told him, it saddens me, almost as much as doing my duty on a
battle-field, or at Scutari, or Renkioi, to take these amateur rounds
in safe England, among what poets and politicians call the noble British
peasantry, and see the frightful sacrifice of life--and worse than
life--from causes perfectly remediable.
Take, for instance, these cases, as set down in my note-book.
Amos Fell, 40, or thereabouts, down with fever for ten days; wife and
five sons; occupy one room of a cottage on the Moor, which holds two
other families; says, would be glad to live in a better place, but
cannot get it; landlord will not allow more cottages to be built. Would
build himself a peat hut, but doubts if that would be permitted; so just
goes on as well as he can.
Peck family, fever also, living at the filthiest end of the village;
themselves about the dirtiest in it; with a stream rushing by fresh
enough to wash and cleanse a whole town.
Widow Haynes, rheumatism, from field-work, and living in a damp room
with earthen floor, half underground; decent woman, gets half-a-crown
a-week from the parish, but will not be able to earn anything for
months; and what is to become of all the children?
Treherne settled that question, and one or two more; poor fellow, his
purse is as open as his heart just now; but among his other luxuries he
may as well taste the luxury of giving.'Tis good for him; he will be Sir
Augustus one of these days. Is his goddess aware of that fact, I wonder?
What! is cynicism growing to be one of my vices? and against a woman
too? One of whom I absolutely know nothing, except watching her for a
few moments at a ball.
She seems to be one of the usual sort of officers' belles in country
quarters. Yet there may be something good in her. There was, I feel
sure, in that large-eyed sister of hers. But let me not judge--I have
never had any opportunity of understanding women.
This subject was not revived, till, the tobacco-hunger proving too
strong for him, my friend Romeo began to fidget, and finally rose.
"I say, Doctor, you won't tell the governor--it would put him in an
awful fume?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh--about Miss -------- you know. I've been a great ass, I suppose, but
when a girl is so civil to one--a fine girl, too--you saw her, did you
not, dancing with me? Now isn't she an uncommonly fine girl?"
I assented.
"And that Granton should get her, confound him! a great logger-headed
country clown."
"Who is an honest man, and will make her a kind husband. Any other
honest man who does not mean to offer himself as her husband, had much
better avoid her acquaintance."
Treherne coloured again; I saw he understood me, though he turned it off
with a laugh.
"You're preaching matrimony, Doctor, surely. What an idea! to tie myself
up at my age. I shan't do the ungentlemanly thing either. So good-night,
old fellow."
He lounged out, with that lazy, self-satisfied air which is misnamed
aristocratic. Yet I have seen many a one of these conceited,
effeminate-looking, drawing-room darlings, a curled and scented modern
Alcibiades, fight--_like_ Alcibiades; and die--as no Greek ever could
die--like a Briton.
"Ungentlemanly,"--what a word it is with most men, especially in the
military profession. Gentlemanly,--the root and apex of all honour.
Ungentlemanly,--the lowest term of degradation. Such is our code of
morals in the army; and, more or less, probably everywhere.
An officer I knew, who, for all I ever heard or noticed, was himself as
true a gentleman as ever breathed; polished, kindly, manly, and brave,
gave me once, in an argument on duelling, his definition of the word. "A
_gentleman_--one who never does anything he is ashamed of, or that would
compromise his honour."
Worldly honour, this colonel must have meant, for he considered it would
have been compromised by a man's refusing to accept a challenge. That
"honour" surely was a little lower thing than virtue; a little less pure
than the Christianity which all of us profess, and so few believe. Yet
there was something at once touching and heroic about it, and in the way
this man of the world upheld it. The best of our British chivalry--as
chivalry goes--is made up of materials such as these.
But is there not a higher morality--a diviner honour? And if so, who is
he that can find it?