In the summer of 1851, when I had passed the age of sixteen, we
lived in a little school district a mile or two from the town of
Yarmouth, N. S. Late in the summer we had a visit from a maternal
uncle and aunt. As I had not seen Moncton since I was six years old,
and as I wanted very much to visit my grandfather Prince once more,
it was arranged that I should accompany them on their return home.
An additional reason for this was that my mother's health had quite
failed; there was no prospect of my doing anything where I was, and it
was hoped that something might turn up at Moncton. There was but one
difficulty; the visitors had driven to St. John in their own little
carriage, which would hold only two people; so they could not take
me back. I must therefore find my own way from St. John to Moncton.
We crossed the Bay of Fundy in a little sailing vessel. Among the
passengers was an English ship captain who had just been wrecked
off the coast of Newfoundland, and had the saved remnant of his crew
with him. On the morning of our departure the weather was stormy,
so that our vessel did not put to sea--a precaution for which the
captain passenger expressed great contempt. He did not understand
how a vessel should delay going to see on account of a little storm.
The walk of one hundred miles from St. John to Moncton was for me,
at that time, a much less formidable undertaking than it would appear
in our times and latitude. A thirty-mile tramp was a bagatelle,
and houses of entertainment--farmhouses where a traveler could rest
or eat for a few pennies--were scattered along the road. But there
was one great difficulty at the start. My instructions had been to
follow the telegraph wires. I soon found that the line of telegraph
came into the town from one direction, passed through it, and then
left, not in the opposite direction, but perhaps at right angles
to it. In which direction was the line to be followed? It was
difficult to make known what I wanted. "Why, my boy, you can't
walk to Moncton," was one answer. In a shop the clerks thought I
wanted to ride on the telegraph, and, with much chuckling, directed
me to the telegraph office where the man in charge would send me on.
I tried in one direction which I thought could not be right, then
I started off in the opposite one; but it soon became evident that
that branch led up the river to Frederickton. So I had to retrace
my steps and take the original line, which proved to be the right one.
The very first night I found that my grandfather's name was one to
conjure with. I passed it with a hearty old farmer who, on learning
who I was, entertained me with tales of Mr. Prince. The quality
which most impressed the host was his enormous physical strength.
He was rather below the usual stature and, as I remember him, very
slightly built. Yet he could shoulder a barrel of flour and lift
a hogshead of molasses on its end, feats of strength which only the
most powerful men in the region were equal to.
On reaching my destination, I was not many days in learning that my
grandfather was a believer in the maxims of "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
and disapproved of the aimless way in which I had been bred. He began
to suggest the desirableness of my learning to do something to make
a living. I thought of certain mechanical tastes which had moved
me in former years to whittle and to make a reel on which to wind
yarn, and to mend things generally. So I replied that I thought
the trade of a carpenter was the one I could most easily learn.
He approved of the idea, and expressed the intention of finding a
carpenter who would want my services; but before he did so, I was
started in a new and entirely different direction.
On her last visit to her birthplace, my mother brought back glowing
reports of a wonderful physician who lived near Moncton and effected
cures of the sick who had been given up by other doctors. I need
hardly remark that physicians of wonderful proficiency--Diomeds of
the medical profession, before whose shafts all forms of disease
had to fall--were then very generally supposed to be realities.
The point which specially commended Dr. Foshay to us was that he
practiced the botanic system of medicine, which threw mineral and all
other poisons out of the materia medica and depended upon the healing
powers of plants alone. People had seen so much of the evil effects
of calomel, this being the favorite alternative of the profession,
that they were quite ready to accept the new system. Among the
remarkable cures which had given Dr. Foshay his great reputation was
one of a young man with dyspepsia. He was reduced to a shadow, and
the regular doctors had given him up as incurable. The new doctor
took him to his home. The patient was addicted to two practices,
both of which had been condemned by his former medical advisers.
One was that of eating fat pork, which he would do at any hour of
the day or night. The new doctor allowed him to eat all he wanted.
Another was getting up in the night and practicing an ablution of
the stomach by a method too heroic to be described in anything but
a medical treatise. [1] He was now allowed to practice it to his
heart's content. The outcome of the whole proceeding was that he
was well in a few months, and, when I saw him, was as lusty a youth
as one could desire to meet.
Before Mr. Prince could see a carpenter, he was taken ill. I was
intensely interested to learn that his physician was the great doctor
I had heard of, who lived in the village of Salisbury, fifteen miles
on the road to St. John.
One of my aunts had an impression that the doctor wanted a pupil or
assistant of some kind, and suggested that a possible opening might
here be offered me. She promised to present me to the doctor on
his next visit, after she had broached the subject to him.
The time for which I waited impatiently at length arrived.
Never before had I met so charming a man. He was decidedly what we
should now call magnetic. There was an intellectual flavor in his
talk which was quite new to me. What fascinated me most of all was
his speaking of the difficulties he encountered in supplying himself
with sufficient "reading matter." He said it as if mental food was
as much a necessity as his daily bread. He was evidently a denizen
of that world of light which I had so long wished to see. He said
that my aunt was quite right in her impression, and our interview
terminated in the following liberal proposition on his part:--
S. N. to live with the doctor, rendering him all the assistance in
his power in preparing medicines, attending to business, and doing
generally whatever might be required of him in the way of help.
The doctor, on his part, to supply S. N.'s bodily needs in food
and clothing, and teach him medical botany and the botanic system
of medicine. The contract to terminate when the other party should
attain the age of twenty-one.
After mentioning the teaching clause, he corrected himself a moment,
and added: "At least all I know about it."
All he knows about it! What more could heart desire or brain hold?
The brilliancy of the offer was dimmed by only a single consideration;
I had never felt the slightest taste for studying medicine or caring
for the sick. That my attainments in the line could ever equal
those of my preceptor seemed a result too hopeless to expect. But,
after all, something must be done, and this was better than being
a carpenter.
Before entering upon the new arrangement, a ratification was required
on both sides. The doctor had to make the necessary household
arrangements, and secure the consent of his wife. I had to ask the
approval of my father, which I did by letter. Like General Grant
and many great men, he was a man of exceptional sagacity in matters
outside the range of his daily concerns. He threw much cold water on
the scheme, but consented to my accepting the arrangement temporarily,
as there was nothing better to be done.
I awaited the doctor's next visit with glowing anticipation. In due
course of time I stepped with him into his gig for the long drive,
expecting nothing less on the journey than a complete outline of the
botanic system of medicine and a programme of my future studies.
But scarcely had we started when a chilling process commenced.
The man erstwhile so effusive was silent, cold, impassive,--a marble
statue of his former self. I scarcely got three sentences out of
him during the journey, and these were of the most commonplace kind.
Could it be the same man?
There was something almost frightful in being alongside a man who knew
so much. When we reached our destination the horse had to be put away
in the stable. I jumped up to the haymow to throw down the provender.
It was a very peculiar feeling to do so under the eye of a man who,
as he watched me, knew every muscle that I was setting in operation.
A new chill came on when we entered the house and I was presented
to its mistress.
"So you 're the boy that's come to work for the doctor, are you?"
"I have come to study with him, ma'am"' was my interior reply,
but I was too diffident to say it aloud. Naturally the remark
made me very uncomfortable. The doctor did not correct her,
and evidently must have told her something different from what
he told me. Her tone was even more depressing than her words;
it breathed a coldness, not to say harshness, to which I had not
been accustomed in a woman. There was nothing in her appearance
to lessen the unpleasant impression. Small in stature, with florid
complexion, wide cheek bones that gave her face a triangular form,
she had the eye and look of a well-trained vixen.
As if fate were determined to see how rapid my downfall should be
before the close of the day, it continued to pursue me. I was left
alone for a few minutes. A child some four years old entered and
made a very critical inspection of my person. The result was clearly
unfavorable, for she soon asked me to go away. Finding me indisposed
to obey the order, she proceeded to the use of force and tried to
expel me with a few strong pushes. When I had had enough of this,
I stepped aside as she was making a push. She fell to the floor,
then picked herself up and ran off crying, "Mamma." The latter soon
appeared with added ire infused into her countenance.
"What did you hit the child for?"
"I did n't hit her. What should I want to strike a child like
that for?"
"But she says you hit her and knocked her down."
"I did n't, though--she was trying to push me and fell and hurt
herself."
A long piercing look of doubt and incredulity followed.
"Strange, very strange. I never knew that child to tell a lie,
and she says you struck her."
It was a new experience--the first time I had ever known my word to
be questioned.
During the day one thought dominated all others: where are those
treasures of literature which, rich though they are, fail to satisfy
their owner's voracious intellectual appetite? As houses were then
built, the living and sleeping rooms were all on one main floor.
Here they comprised a kitchen, dining room, medicine room, a little
parlor, and two small sleeping rooms, one for the doctor and one
for myself. Before many hours I had managed to see the interior of
every one except the doctor's bedroom, and there was not a sign of a
book unless such common ones as a dictionary or a Bible. What could
it all mean?
Next day the darkness was illuminated, at least temporarily,
by a ray of light. The doctor had been absent most of the day
before on a visit to some distant patient. Now he came to me
and told me he wanted to show me how to make bilious powders.
Several trays of dried herbs had been drying under the kitchen
stove until their leaves were quite brittle. He took these and I
followed him to the narrow stairway, which we slowly ascended, he
going ahead. As I mounted I looked for a solution of the difficulty.
Here upstairs must be where the doctor kept his books. At each step
I peered eagerly ahead until my head was on a level with the floor.
Rafters and a window at the other end had successively come into
view and now the whole interior was visible. Nothing was there but
a loft, at the further end of which was a bed for the housemaid.
The floor was strewn with dried plants. Nothing else was visible.
The disillusion seemed complete. My heart sank within me.
On one side of the stairway at a level with the floor was screwed a
large coffee mill. The doctor spread a sheet of paper out on the
floor on the other side, and laid a line sieve upon it. Then he
showed me how to grind the dry and brittle leaves in the coffee mill,
put them into the sieve, and sift them on the paper. This work
had a scientific and professional look which infused a glimmer of
light into the Cimmerian darkness. The bilious powders were made of
the leaves of four plants familiarly known as spearmint, sunflower,
smartweed, and yarrow. In his practice a heaping teaspoonful of the
pulverized leaves was stirred in a cup of warm water and the grosser
parts were allowed to settle, while the patient took the finer parts
with the infusion. This was one of Dr. Foshay's staple remedies.
Another was a pill of which the principal active ingredient was
aloes. The art of making these pills seemed yet more scientific
than the other, and I was much pleased to find how soon I could
master it. Beside these a number of minor remedies were kept in
the medicine room. Among them were tinctures of lobelia, myrrh,
and capsicum. There was also a pill box containing a substance
which, from its narcotic odor, I correctly inferred to be opium.
This drug being prohibited by the Botanic School I could not but
feel that Dr. Foshay's orthodoxy was painfully open to question.
Determined to fathom the mystery in which the doctor's plans for my
improvement were involved, I announced my readiness to commence the
study of the botanic system. He disappeared in the direction of
his bedroom, and soon returned with--could my eyes believe it?--a
big book. It was one which, at the time of its publication, some
thirty or forty years before, was well known to the profession,--Miner
and Tully on the "Fevers of the Connecticut Valley." He explained
bringing me this book.
"Before beginning the regular study of the botanic system, you must
understand something of the old system. You can do so by reading
this book."
A duller book I never read. There was every sort of detail about
different forms of fever, which needed different treatment; yet
calomel and, I think, opium were its main prescriptions. In due
time I got through it and reported to my preceptor.
"Well, what do you think of the book?"
"It praises calomel and opium too much. But I infer from reading
it that there are so many kinds of fever and other diseases that
an immense amount of study will be required to distinguish and
treat them."
"Oh, you will find that all these minute distinctions are not
necessary when we treat the sick on the botanic system."
"What is the next thing for me? Can I not now go on with the study
of the botanic system?"
"You are not quite ready for it yet. You must first understand
something about phrenology. One great difference between us and
doctors of the old school is that they take no account of difference
of temperament, but treat the lymphatic and bilious in the same way.
But we treat according to the temperament of the patient and must
therefore be expert in distinguishing temperaments."
"But I studied phrenology long ago and think I understand it quite
well."
He was evidently surprised at this statement, but after a little
consideration said it was very necessary to be expert in the subject,
and thought I had better learn it more thoroughly. He returned to
his bedroom and brought a copy of Fowler's "Phrenology," the very
book so familiar to me. I had to go over it again, and did so
very carefully, paying special attention to the study of the four
temperaments,--nervous, bilious, lymphatic, and sanguine.
Before many days I again reported progress. The doctor seemed a
little impatient, but asked me some questions about the position
of the organs and other matters pertaining to the subject, which I
answered promptly and correctly by putting my fingers on them on
my own head. But though satisfied with the answers, it was easy
to see that he was not satisfied with me. He had, on one or two
previous occasions, intimated that I was not wise and prudent in
worldly matters. Now he expressed himself more plainly.
"This world is all a humbug, and the biggest humbug is the best man.
That 's the Yankee doctrine, and that 's the reason the Yankees
get along so well. You have no organ of secretiveness. You have
a window in your breast that every one can look into and see what
you are thinking about. You must shut that window up, like I do.
No one can tell from my talk or looks what I am thinking about."
It may seem incredible to the reader that I marveled much at
the hidden meaning of this allegorical speech, and never for one
moment supposed it to mean: "I, Dr. Foshay, with my botanic system
of medicine, am the biggest humbug in these parts, and if you are
going to succeed with me you must be another." But I had already
recognized the truth of his last sentence. Probably neither of us
had heard of Talleyrand, but from this time I saw that his hearty
laugh and lively talk were those of a manikin.
His demeanor toward me now became one of complete gravity, formality,
and silence. He was always kindly, but never said an unnecessary
word, and avoided all reference to reading or study. The mystery
which enveloped him became deeper month after month. In his presence
I felt a certain awe which prevented my asking any questions as to
his intentions toward me.
It must, of course, be a matter of lifelong regret that two years
so important in one's education should have been passed in such a
way,--still, they were not wholly misspent. From a teacher named
Monroe, [2] who then lived near Salisbury, I borrowed Draper's
Chemistry, little thinking that I would one day count the author among
my friends. A book peddler going his rounds offered a collection of
miscellaneous books at auction. I bought, among others, a Latin and a
Greek grammar, and assiduously commenced their study. With the first
I was as successful as could be expected under the circumstances,
but failed with the Greek, owing to the unfamiliarity of the alphabet,
which seemed to be an obstacle to memory of the words and forms.
But perhaps the greatest event of my stay was the advent of a
botanic druggist of Boston, who passed through the region with a
large wagonload of medicines and some books. He was a pleasant,
elderly gentleman, and seemed much interested on learning that
I was a student of the botanic system. He had a botanic medical
college in or near Boston, and strongly urged me to go thither as
soon as I could get ready to complete my studies. From him the
doctor, willing to do me a favor, bought some books, among them the
"Eclectic Medical Dispensary," published in Cincinnati. Of this
book the doctor spoke approvingly, as founded on the true system
which he himself practiced, and though I never saw him read it,
he was very ready to accept the knowledge which I derived from it.
The result was quite an enlargement of his materia medica, both in the
direction of native plants and medicines purchased from his druggist.
On one occasion this advance came near having serious consequences.
I had compounded some pills containing a minute quantity of elaterium.
The doctor gave them to a neighboring youth affected with a slight
indisposition in which some such remedy was indicated. The directions
were very explicit,--one pill every hour until the desired effect
was produced.
"Pshaw," said the patient's brother, "there's nothin' but weeds in
them pills, and a dozen of them won't hurt you."
The idea of taking weed pills one at a time seemed too ridiculous,
and so the whole number were swallowed at a dose. The result was,
happily, not fatal, though impressive enough to greatly increase
the respect of the young man's family for our medicines.
The intellectual life was not wholly wanting in the village. A lodge
of a temperance organization, having its headquarters in Maine,
was formed at a neighboring village. It was modeled somewhat after
the fashion of the Sons of Temperance. The presiding officer, with
a high sounding title, was my mother's cousin, Tommy Nixon. He was
the most popular young man of the neighborhood. The rudiments of a
classical education gained at a reputable academy in Sackville had not
detracted from his qualities as a healthy, rollicking young farmer.
The lodge had an imposing ritual of which I well remember one feature.
At stated intervals a password which admitted a member of any
one lodge to a meeting of any other was received from the central
authority--in Maine, I believe. It was never to be pronounced except
to secure admission, and was communicated to the members by being
written on a piece of paper in letters so large that all could read.
After being held up to view for a few moments, the paper was held in
the flame of a candle with these words: "This paper containing our
secret password I commit to the devouring element in token that it no
longer exists save in the minds of the faithful brethren." The fine
sonorous voice of the speaker and his manly front, seen in the lurid
light of the burning paper, made the whole scene very impressive.
There was also a society for the discussion of scientific questions,
of which the founder and leading spirit was a youth named Isaac
Steves, who was beginning the study of medicine. The president
was a "Worthy Archon." Our discussions strayed into the field
of physiological mysteries, and got us into such bad odor with
Mrs. Foshay and, perhaps, other ladies of the community, that the
meetings were abandoned.
A soil like that of the Provinces at this time was fertile in odd
characters including, possibly, here and there, a "heart pregnant
with celestial fire." One case quite out of the common line was
that of two or three brothers employed in a sawmill somewhere up the
river Petticodiac. According to common report they had invented a
new language in order to enable them to talk together without their
companions knowing what they were saying. I knew one of them well
and, after some time, ventured to inquire about this supposed tongue.
He was quite ready to explain it. The words were constructed out
of English by the very simple process of reversing the syllables or
the spelling. Everything was pronounced backward. Those who heard
it, and knew the key, had no difficulty in construing the words;
to those who did not, the words were quite foreign.
The family of the neighborhood in which I was most intimate was that
of a Scotch farmer named Parkin. Father, mother, and children were
very attractive, both socially and intellectually, and in later years
I wondered whether any of them were still living. Fifty years later
I had one of the greatest and most agreeable surprises of my life
in suddenly meeting the little boy of the family in the person of
Dr. George R. Parkin, the well-known promoter of imperial federation
in Australia and the agent in arranging for the Rhodes scholarships
at Oxford which are assigned to America.
My duties were of the most varied character. I composed a little
couplet designating my professions as those of
Physician, apothecary, chemist, and druggist,
Girl about house and boy in the barn.
I cared for the horse, cut wood for the fire, searched field and
forest for medicinal herbs, ordered other medicines from a druggist
[3] in St. John, kept the doctor's accounts, made his pills, and
mixed his powders. This left little time for reading and study,
and such exercises were still farther limited by the necessity of
pursuing them out of sight of the housewife.
As time passed on, the consciousness that I was wasting my growing
years increased. I long cherished a vague hope that the doctor
could and would do something to promote my growth into a physician,
especially by taking me out to see his patients. This was the
recognized method of commencing the study of medicine. But he never
proposed such a course to me, and never told me how he expected me
to become a physician. Every month showed my prospects in a less
hopeful light. I had rushed into my position in blind confidence in
the man, and without any appreciation of the requirements of a medical
practitioner. But these requirements now presented themselves to
my mind with constantly increasing force. Foremost among them was
a knowledge of anatomy, and how could that be acquired except at a
medical school? It was every day more evident that if I continued
in my position I should reach my majority without being trained for
any life but that of a quack.
While in this state of perplexity, an event happened which suggested
a way out. One day the neighborhood was stirred by the news that
Tommy Nixon had run away--left his home without the consent of his
parents, and sailed for the gold fields of Australia. I was struck
by the absence of any word of reprobation for his act. The young men
at least seemed to admire the enterprising spirit he had displayed.
A few weeks after his departure a letter which he wrote from London,
detailing his adventures in the great metropolis, was read in my
presence to a circle of admiring friends with expressions of wonder
and surprise. This little circumstance made it clear to me that
the easiest way out of my difficulty was to out the Gordian knot,
run away from Dr. Foshay, and join my father in New England.
No doubt the uppermost question in the mind of the reader will be:
Why did you wait so long without having a clear understanding with
the doctor? Why not ask him to his face how he expected you to
remain with him when he had failed in his pledges, and demand that
he should either keep them or let you go?
One answer, perhaps the first, must be lack of moral courage to face
him with such a demand. I have already spoken of the mystery which
seemed to enshroud his personality, and of the fascination which,
through it, he seemed to exercise over me. But behind this was
the conviction that he could not do anything for me were he ever so
well disposed. That he was himself uneducated in many essentials of
his profession had gradually become plain enough; but what he knew
or possibly might know remained a mystery. I had heard occasional
allusions, perhaps from Mrs. Foshay rather than from himself, to an
institution supposed to be in Maine, where he had studied medicine,
but its name and exact location were never mentioned. Altogether,
if I told him of my intention, it could not possibly do any good,
and he might be able to prevent my carrying it out, or in some other
way to do much harm. And so I kept silent.
Tuesday, September 13, 1853, was the day on which I fixed for the
execution of my plan. The day previous I was so abstracted as to
excite remarks both from Mrs. Foshay and her girl help, the latter
more than once declaring me crazy when I made some queer blunder.
The fact is I was oppressed by the feeling that the step about to
be taken was the most momentous of my life. I packed a few books
and clothes, including some mementoes of my mother, and took the box
to the stage and post-office in the evening, to be forwarded to an
assumed name in St. John the next afternoon. This box I never saw
again; it was probably stopped by Foshay before being dispatched.
My plan was to start early in the morning, walk as far as I could
during the day, and, in the evening, take the mail stage when it
should overtake me. This course was necessitated by the fact that
the little money that I had in my pocket was insufficient to pay my
way to Boston, even when traveling in the cheapest way.
I thought it only right that the doctor should be made acquainted
with my proceeding and my reason for taking it, so I indited a short
letter, which I tried to reproduce from memory ten years later with
the following result:--
Dear Doctor,--I write this to let you know of the step I am
about to take. When I came to live with you, it was agreed
that you should make a physician of me. This agreement you
have never shown the slightest intention of fulfilling since
the first month I was with you. You have never taken me
to see a patient, you have never given me any instruction
or advice whatever. Beside this, you must know that your
wife treats me in a manner that is no longer bearable.
I therefore consider the agreement annulled from your failure
to fulfill your part of it, and I am going off to make my
own way in the world. When you read this, I shall be far
away, and it is not likely that we shall ever meet again.
If my memory serves me right, the doctor was absent on a visit to
some distant patient on the night in question, and I did not think it
likely that he would return until at least noon on the following day.
By this time my box would have been safely off in the stage, and
I would be far out of reach. To delay his receiving the letter as
much as possible, I did not leave it about the house, but put it in
the window of a shop across the way, which served the neighbors as
a little branch post-office.
But he must have returned sooner than I expected, for, to my great
regret, I never again saw or heard of the box, which contained,
not only the entire outfit for my journey, but all the books of my
childhood which I had, as well as the little mementoes of my mother.
The postmaster who took charge of the goods was a Mr. Pitman.
When I again passed through Salisbury, as I did ten years later,
he had moved away, no one could tell me exactly where.
I was on the road before daybreak, and walked till late at night,
occasionally stopping to bathe my feet in a brook, or to rest for
a few minutes in the shadow of a tree. The possibility of my being
pursued by the doctor was ever present to my mind, and led me to keep
a sharp lookout for coming vehicles. Toward sunset a horse and buggy
appeared, coming over a hill, and very soon the resemblance of vehicle
and driver to the turnout of the doctor became so striking that I
concealed myself in the shrubbery by the wayside until the sound of
the wheels told me he was well past. The probability that my pursuer
was in front of me was an added source of discomfort which led me
to avoid the road and walk in the woods wherever the former was not
visible to some distance ahead. But I neither saw nor heard anything
more of the supposed pursuer, though, from what I afterward learned,
there can be little doubt that it was actually Foshay himself.
The advent of darkness soon relieved me of the threatened danger,
but added new causes of solicitude. The evening advanced, and the
lights in the windows of the houses were becoming fewer and fewer,
and yet the stage had not appeared. I slackened my pace, and made
many stops, beginning to doubt whether I might not as well give up the
stage and look for an inn. It was, I think, after ten o'clock when
the rattling of wheels announced its approach. It was on a descending
grade, and passed me like a meteor, in the darkness, quite heedless
of my calls and gesticulations. Fortunately a house was in sight
where I was hospitably entertained, and I was very soon sound asleep,
as became one who had walked fifty miles or more since daylight.
Thus ended a day to which I have always looked back as the most
memorable of my life. I felt its importance at the time. As I
walked and walked, the question in my mind was, what am I doing and
whither am I going? Am I doing right or wrong? Am I going forward
to success in life, or to failure and degradation? Vainly, vainly,
I tried to peer into the thick darkness of the future. No definite
idea of what success might mean could find a place in my mind.
I had sometimes indulged in daydreams, but these come not to a mind
occupied as mine on that day. And if they had, and if fancy had
been allowed its wildest flight in portraying a future, it is safe
to say that the figure of an honorary academician of France, seated
in the chair of Newton and Franklin in the palace of the Institute,
would not have been found in the picture.
As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that
former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions
has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of
prosperity. If depressed by trial, I think how light would this have
appeared to that boy had a sight of the future been opened up to him.
When, in the halls of learning, I have gone through the ceremonies
which made me a citizen of yet another commonwealth in the world of
letters, my thoughts have gone back to that day; and I have wished
that the inexorable law of Nature could then have been suspended,
if only for one moment, to show the scene that Providence held
in reserve.
Next morning I was on my way betimes, having still more than thirty
miles before me. And the miles seemed much longer than they did the
day before, for my feet were sore and my limbs stiff. Quite welcome,
therefore, was a lift offered by a young farmer, who, driving a
cart, overtook me early in the forenoon. He was very sociable,
and we soon got into an interesting conversation.
I knew that Dr. Foshay hailed from somewhere in this region, where
his father still lived, so I asked my companion whether he knew a
family of that name. He knew them quite well.
"Do you know anything of one of the sons who is a doctor?"
"Yes indeed; I know all about him, but he ain't no doctor. He tried
to set up for one in Salisbury, but the people there must a' found
him out before this, and I don't know where he is now."
"But I thought he studied medicine in Fredericton or Maine or
somewhere on the border."
"Oh, he went off to the States and pretended to study, but he never
did it. I tell you he ain't no more a doctor nor I am. He ain't
smart enough to be a doctor."
I fell into a fit of musing long enough to hear, in my mind's
ear, with startling distinctness, the words of two years before:
"This world is all a humbug, and the biggest humbug is the best man.
. . . You have a window in your breast and you must close that window
before you can succeed in life." Now I grasped their full meaning.
Ten years later I went through the province by rail on my wedding
journey. At Dorchester, the next village beyond Moncton, I was
shown a place where insolvent debtors were kept "on the limits."
"By stopping there," said my informant, "you can see Dr. Foshay."
I suggested the question whether it was worth while to break our
journey for the sake of seeing him. The reply of my informant
deterred me.
"It can hardly be worth while to do so. He will be a painful object
to see,--a bloated sot, drinking himself to death as fast as he can."
The next I heard of him was that he had succeeded.
I reached St. John on the evening that a great celebration of the
commencement of work on the first railway in the province was in
progress. When things are undecided, small matters turn the scale.
The choice of my day for starting out on my adventurous journey was
partly fixed by the desire to reach St. John and see something of
the celebration. Darkness came on when I was yet a mile or two from
the city; then the first rocket I had ever beheld rose before me in
the sky. Two of what seemed like unfortunate incidents at the time
were most fortunate. Subsequent and disappointing experience showed
that had I succeeded in getting the ride I wished in the stage,
the resulting depletion of my purse would have been almost fatal
to my reaching my journey's end. Arriving at the city, I naturally
found all the hotels filled. At length a kindly landlady said that,
although she had no bed to give me, I was quite welcome to lie on a
soft carpeted floor, in the midst of people who could not find any
other sleeping place. No charge was made for this accommodation.
My hope of finding something to do which would enable me to earn
a little money in St. John over and above the cost of a bed and a
daily loaf of bread was disappointed. The efforts of the next week
are so painful to recall that I will not harrow the feelings of the
reader by describing them. Suffice it to say that the adventure was
wound up by an interview at Calais, a town on the Maine border, a
few miles from Eastport, with the captain of a small sailing vessel,
hardly more than a boat. He was bound for Salem. I asked him the
price of a passage.
"How much money have you?" he replied.