University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
A SICK MAN, AFTER SOME IMPATIENCE, IS INDUCED TO BECOME A PATIENT

The sky slides into blue, the bluffs into bloom; the
rapid Mississippi expands; runs sparkling and gurgling,
all over in eddies; one magnified wake of a seventy-four.
The sun comes out, a golden huzzar, from his tent, flashing
his helm on the world. All things, warmed in the
landscape, leap. Speeds the dædal boat as a dream.

But, withdrawn in a corner, wrapped about in a shawl,
sits an unparticipating man, visited, but not warmed, by
the sun—a plant whose hour seems over,while buds
are blowing and seeds are astir. On a stool at his left
sits a stranger in a snuff-colored surtout, the collar
thrown back; his hand waving in persuasive gesture, his
eye beaming with hope. But not easily may hope be
awakened in one long tranced into hopelessness by a
chronic complaint.

To some remark the sick man, by word or look,
seemed to have just made an impatiently querulous
answer, when, with a deprecatory air, the other resumed:

“Nay, think not I seek to cry up my treatment by

crying down that of others. And yet, when one is confident
he has truth on his side, and that it is not on the
other, it is no very easy thing to be charitable; not that
temper is the bar, but conscience; for charity would
beget toleration, you know, which is a kind of implied
permitting, and in effect a kind of countenancing; and
that which is countenanced is so far furthered. But
should untruth be furthered? Still, while for the
world's good I refuse to further the cause of these mineral
doctors, I would fain regard them, not as willful
wrong-doers, but good Samaritans erring. And is this
—I put it to you, sir—is this the view of an arrogant
rival and pretender?”

His physical power all dribbled and gone, the sick
man replied not by voice or by gesture; but, with feeble
dumb-show of his face, seemed to be saying “Pray leave
me; who was ever cured by talk?”

But the other, as if not unused to make allowances
for such despondency, proceeded; and kindly, yet firmly:

“You tell me, that by advice of an eminent physiologist
in Louisville, you took tincture of iron. For what?
To restore your lost energy. And how? Why, in
healthy subjects iron is naturally found in the blood, and
iron in the bar is strong; ergo, iron is the source of
animal invigoration. But you being deficient in vigor,
it follows that the cause is deficiency of iron. Iron, then,
must be put into you; and so your tincture. Now as
to the theory here, I am mute. But in modesty assuming
its truth, and then, as a plain man viewing that
theory in practice, I would respectfully question your

eminent physiologist: `Sir,' I would say, `though by natural
processes, lifeless natures taken as nutriment become
vitalized, yet is a lifeless nature, under any circumstances,
capable of a living transmission, with all its qualities
as a lifeless nature unchanged? If, sir, nothing can
be incorporated with the living body but by assimilation,
and if that implies the conversion of one thing to a
different thing (as, in a lamp, oil is assimilated into
flame), is it, in this view, likely, that by banqueting on
fat, Calvin Edson will fatten? That is, will what is fat
on the board prove fat on the bones? If it will, then,
sir, what is iron in the vial will prove iron in the vein.'
Seems that conclusion too confident?”

But the sick man again turned his dumb-show look,
as much as to say, “Pray leave me. Why, with painful
words, hint the vanity of that which the pains of this
body have too painfully proved?”

But the other, as if unobservant of that querulous
look, went on:

“But this notion, that science can play farmer to the
flesh, making there what living soil it pleases, seems not
so strange as that other conceit—that science is now-a-days
so expert that, in consumptive cases, as yours, it
can, by prescription of the inhalation of certain vapors,
achieve the sublimest act of omnipotence, breathing
into all but lifeless dust the breath of life. For did you
not tell me, my poor sir, that by order of the great
chemist in Baltimore, for three weeks you were never
driven out without a respirator, and for a given time of
every day sat bolstered up in a sort of gasometer, inspiring

vapors generated by the burning of drugs? as if this
concocted atmosphere of man were an antidote to the
poison of God's natural air. Oh, who can wonder at
that old reproach against science, that it is atheistical?
And here is my prime reason for opposing these chemical
practitioners, who have sought out so many inventions.
For what do their inventions indicate, unless it
be that kind and degree of pride in human skill, which
seems scarce compatible with reverential dependence
upon the power above? Try to rid my mind of it as I
may, yet still these chemical practitioners with their
tinctures, and fumes, and braziers, and occult incantations,
seem to me like Pharaoh's vain sorcerers, trying
to beat down the will of heaven. Day and night, in all
charity, I intercede for them, that heaven may not, in
its own language, be provoked to anger with their inventions;
may not take vengeance of their inventions. A
thousand pities that you should ever have been in the
hands of these Egyptians.”

But again came nothing but the dumb-show look, as
much as to say, “Pray leave me; quacks, and indignation
against quacks, both are vain.”

But, once more, the other went on: “How different
we herb-doctors! who claim nothing, invent nothing;
but staff in hand, in glades, and upon hillsides, go about
in nature, humbly seeking her cures. True Indian doctors,
though not learned in names, we are not unfamiliar
with essences—successors of Solomon the Wise, who
knew all vegetables, from the cedar of Lebanon, to the
hyssop on the wall. Yes, Solomon was the first of

herb-doctors. Nor were the virtues of herbs unhonored
by yet older ages. Is it not writ, that on a moonlight
night,
Ah, would you but have confidence, you should be
the new Æson, and I your Medea. A few vials of my
Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would, I am certain, give
you some strength.”

Upon this, indignation and abhorrence seemed to
work by their excess the effect promised of the balsam.
Roused from that long apathy of impotence, the cadaverous
man started, and, in a voice that was as the sound
of obstructed air gurgling through a maze of broken
honey-combs, cried: “Begone! You are all alike. The
name of doctor, the dream of helper, condemns you. For
years I have been but a gallipot for you experimentizers
to rinse your experiments into, and now, in this livid
skin, partake of the nature of my contents. Begone!
I hate ye.”

“I were inhuman, could I take affront at a want of
confidence, born of too bitter an experience of betrayers.
Yet, permit one who is not without feeling—”

“Begone! Just in that voice talked to me, not six
months ago, the German doctor at the water cure, from
which I now return, six months and sixty pangs nigher
my grave.”

“The water-cure? Oh, fatal delusion of the well-meaning
Preisnitz!—Sir, trust me—”

“Begone!”

“Nay, an invalid should not always have his own
way. Ah, sir, reflect how untimely this distrust in one
like you. How weak you are; and weakness, is it not
the time for confidence? Yes, when through weakness
everything bids despair, then is the time to get strength
by confidence.”

Relenting in his air, the sick man cast upon him a
long glance of beseeching, as if saying, “With confidence
must come hope; and how can hope be?”

The herb-doctor took a sealed paper box from his
surtout pocket, and holding it towards him, said solemnly,
“Turn not away. This may be the last time of health's
asking. Work upon yourself; invoke confidence, though
from ashes; rouse it; for your life, rouse it, and invoke
it, I say.”

The other trembled, was silent; and then, a little
commanding himself, asked the ingredients of the medicine.

“Herbs.”

“What herbs? And the nature of them? And the
reason for giving them?”

“It cannot be made known.”

“Then I will none of you.”

Sedately observant of the juiceless, joyless form before
him, the herb-doctor was mute a moment, then
said:—“I give up.”

“How?”

“You are sick, and a philosopher.”

“No, no;—not the last.”

“But, to demand the ingredient, with the reason for
giving, is the mark of a philosopher; just as the consequence
is the penalty of a fool. A sick philosopher is
incurable?”

“Why?”

“Because he has no confidence.”

“How does that make him incurable?”

“Because either he spurns his powder, or, if he take
it, it proves a blank cartridge, though the same given to
a rustic in like extremity, would act like a charm. I
am no materialist; but the mind so acts upon the body,
that if the one have no confidence, neither has the other.”

Again, the sick man appeared not unmoved. He
seemed to be thinking what in candid truth could be
said to all this. At length, “You talk of confidence.
How comes it that when brought low himself, the herb-doctor,
who was most confident to prescribe in other
cases, proves least confident to prescribe in his own;
having small confidence in himself for himself?”

“But he has confidence in the brother he calls in.
And that he does so, is no reproach to him, since he
knows that when the body is prostrated, the mind is
not erect. Yes, in this hour the herb-doctor does distrust
himself, but not his art.”

The sick man's knowledge did not warrant him to
gainsay this. But he seemed not grieved at it; glad to
be confuted in a way tending towards his wish.

“Then you give me hope?” his sunken eye turned up.

“Hope is proportioned to confidence. How much
confidence you give me, so much hope do I give you.

“The house is, in one sense, Mrs. Warren's,” he said;
“but a school isn't altogether like a private house. It
must be open to inspection to a certain extent, at any
time. I can easily conceive that a lady at the head
of it might prefer that some examinations should take
place, informally, as it were.”

Mr. Don spoke philosophically, and as one of the
Trustees of a school; perhaps, too, as a man whose
curiosity saw a prospect of gratification, if Mrs. Wadham
could only have plenty of room and time. Miss
Minette had more delicacy: —

“If mother was going on an official visit, — if she
was a visitor, or on a committee, — why, even then” —
but as the sentence would have had little effect, probably,
if it had been finished, so it never reached any
end, for it was cut across by Mrs. Wadham's entrance,
and she filled a good deal of space, wherever she was.

“Couldn't you send a bouquet to Mrs. Warren?”
she asked, as she came in. “You'll have enough to
make a show, after you've cut off a good many.”

“Of course,” said the daughter, “we've got plenty of
flowers; but I should prefer sending them another
time, or taking them in my hand.”

“Here! Here!” said the mother, “let me take 'em.”
And with very summary fingers she snipped and clipped,
and crowded the flowers into one of her hands without
any care for arrangement, and then putting the bunch
into Mr. Don's charge, and receiving his very courteous
acknowledgment, she said, —

“There! those shall be your share to take care of:
I like always to have my hands free to take the reins,
if any thing should happen.”

During this time Eldridge had brought the carriage

him the box, “I will be frank with you. Though
frankness is not always the weakness of the mineral
practitioner, yet the herb doctor must be frank, or
nothing. Now then, sir, in your case, a radical cure—
such a cure, understand, as should make you robust—
such a cure, sir, I do not and cannot promise.”

“Oh, you need not! only restore me the power of
being something else to others than a burdensome care,
and to myself a droning grief. Only cure me of this
misery of weakness; only make me so that I can walk
about in the sun and not draw the flies to me, as lured
by the coming of decay. Only do that—but that.”

“You ask not much; you are wise; not in vain have
you suffered. That little you ask, I think, can be
granted. But remember, not in a day, nor a week, nor
perhaps a month, but sooner or later; I say not exactly
when, for I am neither prophet nor charlatan. Still, if,
according to the directions in your box there, you take
my medicine steadily, without assigning an especial day,
near or remote, to discontinue it, then may you calmly
look for some eventual result of good. But again I say,
you must have confidence.”

Feverishly he replied that he now trusted he had, and
hourly should pray for its increase. When suddenly
relapsing into one of those strange caprices peculiar to
some invalids, he added: “But to one like me, it is so
hard, so hard. The most confident hopes so often have
failed me, and as often have I vowed never, no, never,
to trust them again. Oh,” feebly wringing his hands,
“you do not know, you do not know.”

“I know this, that never did a right confidence come
to naught. But time is short; you hold your cure, to
retain or reject.”

“I retain,” with a clinch, “and now how much?”

“As much as you can evoke from your heart and
heaven.”

“How?—the price of this medicine?”

“I thought it was confidence you meant; how much
confidence you should have. The medicine,—that is
half a dollar a vial. Your box holds six.”

The money was paid.

“Now, sir,” said the herb-doctor, “my business calls
me away, and it may so be that I shall never see you
again; if then—”

He paused, for the sick man's countenance fell blank.

“Forgive me,” cried the other, “forgive that imprudent
phrase `never see you again.' Though I solely
intended it with reference to myself, yet I had forgotten
what your sensitiveness might be. I repeat, then, that
it may be that we shall not soon have a second interview,
so that hereafter, should another of my boxes be needed,
you may not be able to replace it except by purchase at
the shops; and, in so doing, you may run more or less
risk of taking some not salutary mixture. For such is
the popularity of the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator—
thriving not by the credulity of the simple, but the
trust of the wise—that certain contrivers have not been
idle, though I would not, indeed, hastily affirm of them
that they are aware of the sad consequences to the
public. Homicides and murderers, some call those contrivers;

but I do not; for murder (if such a crime be
possible) comes from the heart, and these men's motives
come from the purse. Were they not in poverty, I
think they would hardly do what they do. Still, the
public interests forbid that I should let their needy
device for a living succeed. In short, I have adopted
precautions. Take the wrapper from any of my vials
and hold it to the light, you will see water-marked in
capitals the word `confidence,' which is the countersign
of the medicine, as I wish it was of the world. The
wrapper bears that mark or else the medicine is counterfeit.
But if still any lurking doubt should remain,
pray enclose the wrapper to this address,” handing a
card, “and by return mail I will answer.”

At first the sick man listened, with the air of vivid
interest, but gradually, while the other was still talking,
another strange caprice came over him, and he presented
the aspect of the most calamitous dejection.

“How now?” said the herb-doctor.

“You told me to have confidence, said that confidence
was indispensable, and here you preach to me
distrust. Ah, truth will out!”

“I told you, you must have confidence, unquestioning
confidence, I meant confidence in the genuine medicine,
and the genuine me.”

“But in your absence, buying vials purporting to be
yours, it seems I cannot have unquestioning confidence.”

“Prove all the vials; trust those which are true.”

“But to doubt, to suspect, to prove—to have all this

wearing work to be doing continually—how opposed to
confidence. It is evil!”

“From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to
confidence. How has it proved in our interview? But
your voice is husky; I have let you talk too much.
You hold your cure; I leave you. But stay—when I
hear that health is yours, I will not, like some I know,
vainly make boasts; but, giving glory where all glory is
due, say, with the devout herb-doctor, Japus in Virgil,
when, in the unseen but efficacious presence of Venus,
he with simples healed the wound of Æneas:—