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Sunny Life of an Invalid

BY
C. HOWARD YOUNG, M. F. S. H.
Processor o/" English,^ French.^ German., and Italian ; Fx-Pro/essor of
Modern Languages at Paris and Nice : Member oJ" Neiv Vork Acade-my of
Anthropology: Staff .^ Journal d'' Hygiene (Paris) : Honorary Tnember
Sanitary In^itute q/ Great Britain ; Member Episcopal Guild of Holy
Cross: Member o/ Good Samaritan Circle King's Daughters and Sons ;
Member Christian Men's Union and Rescue Work (N. V.) ; Hartford Sec
retary for Foreign Correspondences for Hartford Equal Rights Club;
Member of C. A. I. L, Church Association forthe Advancement of Interests
of Labor : Secretary for Foreign Correspondence for State of Connecticut
Woman Suffrage Association : Member National A merican Woman
Suffrage Association : Member Foreign Council (International Union of
Women) ; Member of the Order of Loyal Crusaders (England) : Member
de la Societe Francaise d^ Hygiene (Paris) : Member WomerCs Christian
Temperance Union: Member of the Guild of Shut-ins (Open Window)
IC. W. S., etc., etc.

For sale by the author. Price $i.oo.
Prof. C. Howard Young,
230 Asylum St., Hartford, Conn.

HARTFORD, CONN.
Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company
1897

N. B. — Those who have invaUd relatives or friends are requested to send
a copy of this book tu their address, as this work was written in pain and trib
ulation for the benefit of the sick.

J^^Tf

h"^:--

Cllc.^m

DcOtcation to a JSlinD jfrienO, bB an IFnvaltO
ConfineO for Xtfe.
To Louise M. Lee,
the inspiration of whose friendship has caused oases
to bloom for the author
amid the desert of pain that is
the inheritance of his weak mortal body.
i dedicate this volume
to one whose friendship has known no' change and
who has not been
moved by the apparently
pitiless strength of adverse circumstances.
i dedicate to one
who led, although blind, a sick wanderer out of the
desert of pain into the temple of music,
where consolation
abounds for the weary and
sick pilgrim,
The Author, C. HOWARD YOUNG.

Hartford, 1898.
230 Asylum Street.

CONTENTS.

SUNNY LIFE OF AN INVALID.
Twenty-five Years of Sickness — Fourteen Sunny
Years in Bed.

LIST OF CHAPTERS.
PREFACE.
Reasons for 'Writing this 'Work — Pathological Bill of Fare —
Societies I Belong to, and Reform Bill of Fare, . . 9
CHAPTER I.
Mind-Cure Tales— My Falls (12) Described — Cholera
Attack of the Genuine Asiatic Type — Father's Death
from Cholera — How to Prevent Cholera — Almost Ship
wrecked — Women Braver than Men in Great Emer
gencies, ......... 27
CHAPTER II.
Four Attempts to Murder Me — i , Bozen (Austrian Tyrol) —
2, Rome (Italy) — 3, Naples (Italy) — 4, Asbury Park
(N. J.), .  40
CHAPTER III.
Road of Calvary of an Invalid Fourteen Years in Bed — My
Sister's and Mother's Death — The Previous Death of
My Fiancee to 'Whom I Became Engaged in the Cata-
cornbs at Paris, France, , . , , , .51

CHAPTER IV.
Loneliness — Love and Delirium — A Loved Voice — Proofs
of the Soul — Called Back from Another World — A Sis
ter's Grief,  59
CHAPTER V.
Woman Suffrage ! — Sad Partings — A Chapter Partly on
Woman Suffrage — My Sister's Letter on Woman Suf
frage — No Double Standard of Morals ! — My Promise —
Resolutions of "Hartford Equal Rights Club" — My
Mother's and Sister's Graves — 'Woman Suffrage Tomb
stones — The First in the United States — Decoration
Day for Woman Suffragists. The Dead Soldiers of the
Yellow Flag — Letters from Miss Frances Willard, the
Countess of Somerset, Mrs. Clara Colby, Editor of " Wo
man's Tribune,'' Susan B. Anthony, etc. — My Woman
Suffrage Work and Quotations from Journals Relating
to It  67
CHAPTER VI.
Invalidism — Invalid ? — Compensation — Advice to the Au
thor of this Work by the Author of " Chronicles of the
Sid" — How to Avoid Pain — Visitors: Mrs. Isabella
Beecher Hooker, Judge Hooker, Mrs Emily P, Collins,
etc, — Hints to Invalids — Work and Play in Bed — The
Writer Lived Years on Twelve Ounces of Food a Day ;
Views of British Encyclopaedia Proved False Thereby —
The Writer's Case also Proves the Falsity of the View
that Death Ensues per Two-fifths Reduction in Weight —
Beds, Hints for Invalids, Pillows — How to Avoid Bed-
Sores — Order — Diaries — Books — Scrap Album — Ob
jects on the Walls, Water Bottles for Heat, etc, . . loi
CHAPTER VII.
Seeking Health — Travel often Useless — Philadelphia Hos
pital Experience of the Writer, and Others — Such a
Comfort to See Me Suffer so ! — Chapter's Moral: Make

Yourself Comfortable at Home — The Writer Passes
Years in Travel for Health, and in vain — A Huge Cross
on a Mountain-top in France — In Flood and Earthquake
— Earthquakes in Italy,  124
CHAPTER VIII.
Advice from Everybody and Nobodies — Doctors — Reme
dies — Cures — Sherry and Worm Specific ' ' Cured just
such a Case " — Alphonse Carr and Coryza ! — A Carpen
ter's Remedy — A Doctor at Florence, Italy — Medical
Congress and Digitalis — The Writer Escaped Fifty-two
Doctors — A Compliment — A Doctor who did Me the
Least Harm out of the Fifty-two — Surgeons — A Scene
in a Great Surgeon's OfEce at Florence, Italy — Sad
Sights — Druggists — An Apology for taking Twenty-
five Years to Die — Nurses — Choose One that Suits
Yourself — Young Nurses and Old — My Funeral Post
poned to Suit a Nurse — A French Girl Nurse — A Nurse
Taken from the Poor House,  136
CHAPTER IX.
Pets — Cats as Doctors — Dogs as Anti-Hygienists — Rat
Barometers — Pets Necessary — Princess Alice and Her
Chicks — Turtles as Pets — The Hygienic Value of Pets —
Pets are Necessary to Sick or Well — Moral Value —
Princess Alice and Her Rat " Bunco Junior" — " Bunco
Senior's " Life as Described by the Author in the Journal
of the Guild of the Holy Cross (for Invalids), also in the
Open Window for " Shut-ins,"  163
CHAPTER X.
Children — Suffer Little Children to Come unto You — Child
ren give Sweetness and Light — Little Tots Comforting
and Helpful, even if Dirty— Martha's Sayings, . .194

CHAPTER XI.
Life as a Professor in Europe and America — Pupils of all
Nations — "La Robe Bleue," Paris — A Typical French
Woman Suicide — A Pupil who Shoots Hiraself from
Love — An Insane Pupil who Chokes his Professor —
Teaching while Confined to Bed — The Monkey's " My
Lord Count" — My Friend, Alexander Hume, the Great
Spiritualist — The Chemist Professor at Nice, France,
who Blows Himself Up to Illustrate his Lecture — My
System of Teaching Languages,  202
CHAPTER XII.
medical.
Life as a Medical Reviewer — A Story of Maternal Impres
sions — Another Case — Death from Angry Words —
A Warning — ' ' Let not the Sun go down upon your
wrath," to which I add. Neither let it Rise on it, or
Shine at all on it — Anger is Poison to the System —
Makes the Blood Acid and Causes Disease, . , . 232
CHAPTER XIII.
MEDICAL.
Treatment of Disease through Colors — Red — Blue — Na
ples' Treatment of Insane — Use Red in Winter and Blue
in Summer — Blue is Calming and Cooling — Red is Ex
citing, Heating, and Invigorating, .... 242
CHAPTER XIV.
MEDICAL.
Treatment of Disease through Music — Former Articles in
France and the United States Published on the Subject
by the Writer — My own Experiments in this Line — My
Nurse during an Attack of Apoplexy Treated with Music
and Pain Controlled — All Nurses Should be Musicians, 250
CHAPTER XV.
A true story of a medical suicide in Paris, taken from my
diary — Nice ^s a climatological place, .... 263

PREFACE.

REASONS FOR WRITING THIS BOOK.
The Life of noble, christian, Chloe Langton, is a
book which must have brought patience and comfort
to many a poor sick woman and man. Written by a
noble lady, who spent over 60 years in bed, it seems
to bring words of cheer more particularly to women.
Many times, in the silent night, I have thought of
her life and its teaching, and with profit to my own,
I hope. I also read with interest and profit the beautiful,
helpful life of that noble invalid. Bell Cooke of New
York city.
As a inan mvalid, I feel that perhaps I can encour
age sick men to bear their burdens patiently and even
joyfully, and with love.
Besides the probably 100,000 bedridden invalids in
the United States, English statistics give an average
of ten days' illness per year to each adult man (700
days in the 70 years allotted us by the Bible), so that
we all need encouragement in the hour of pain which
is apt to seem interminable, unless we view it from
Christian standpoints.
I can understand and sympathize with all degrees

IO

and grades of sickness, as, besides the fourteen years
of sickness passed in bed, I spent thirteen years as
a semi-invalid, although a hard intellectual worker.
Sick and yet in harness ! Ofttimes overtaken by a
heart attack when on duty as a medical reviewer, or
as a professor of languages, it was, perhaps, a relief
when I fully realized, after a shock, that I could not
possibly ever walk down stairs again. When I
could walk a little, I wished to walk more ; when I
could drive an hour or two, to give French, German,
or Italian lessons, I wished to go on and do more.
Every lesson was a battle with pain. I was ac
customed to driving home after a lesson and going
to bed for an hour, and then driving out again, to
keep another engagement. This was true of my
seven years' life in Paris, as here.
I can remember a French professor of medicines
laughing at me in Paris when I refused a stimulant
at his house, while giving an English lesson, as I
said my stomach could not bear it. I was then
bleeding internally. I went home to bed, without
explaining. The next day Paris was ablaze with excitement,
Marschall MacMahon, Due of Magenta, President
of the French Republic, was about to make a coup
d'etat, and barricades were threatened, and blood
was to flow again in civil war, like the Commune.
I could not move ! Ill in bed at a critical time !
The French Professor of Medicine was announced.
He made his way to my bed, and said in a whisper,
" Get your mother out of Paris quickly." " I know

1 1

it all. Doctor," I said, " but I am bleeding so inter
nally, removal is impossible." He examined me,
then said, " Yes, it is true. Will you excuse me for
being a brute yesterday ? " " No matter, close your
blinds when the musketry rattles." " No Doctor,"
I said, " if able, I shall be with the students, if I can
stand at the door. As an American my duty is
plain — to stand up for liberty."
One who has not been an invalid, or semi-invalid,
cannot realize what it is to be floored just when one
prays God most for strength ! I only give this little
incident to show that the semi-invalid sometimes
suffers most, and so needs patience most. And so
we pray in the Episcopal Church each Sunday for
the desolate ¦ — for all sick persons, widows and chil
dren " and all who are oppressed."
" Well, 'tis well," I said to myself the day I could
no longer descend the stairs in Hartford, " Finis !
Consummatum est ! " No longer to be brought
home in a helpless attack, to my mother.
My attacks of Pectora Anginus were a specter to
me at many a social gathering in France. Once in
Paris, in 1876, while enjoying a Thanksgiving cele
bration at a hospitable American board, the dread
pain commenced. The youngest child had just said,
" Oh, you are late ! Here's some of my shrimps,
you can have the heads and tail." I had held the
child once for hours in an attack of a serious diphthe
ritic nature, and we were great friends. She sat
eyeing me with evident concern, which boded me no
good. I wished to pass unobserved. I could no

12
longer raise my fork. I sat silent, thinking of with
drawal, but how to do so ! Suddenly, mon enfant
terrible raps with her fork and produces an omi
nous silence, then adds : " Mr. Young don't like
his dinner." Consternation around the frozen
statue — myself, frozen by pain and impossible of
movement. A cab home, and three weeks' torture
in bed.
So you see, dear reader, in war or peace, the semi-
invalid able to be about has, perhaps, the worst of it.
I write this to comfort the really bedridden.
To the semi-invalid I say, enjoy the sky and trees
and flowers no7v, for the time may come when you
will sigh and sigh for just one sight of a green tree
before death, as I have done for fourteen years.
To sum up, I may say that I have been an invalid
in bed about fourteen years, but previous to this
period had been an invalid partly around, and work
ing at medical studies and languages for years, about
twelve. During these twenty-six years, I have not
been able to use vegetables, pastry (except sponge
cake), nor fruit, except juice of an orange occasion
ally. The average invalid who goes to bed, and com
fortably indulges his stomach in dainties, who eats
-grapes and munches charlotte russe, etc., etc., is
pretty well off.. In my case, however, I am glad to
say, I was unable to eat anything but chopped beef,
mutton chop, and raw eggs, and similar invalid food,
easily procured. My principal diet has been simple
bread and milk, at each meal, for months at a time.

13
At times, for weeks and months, I have lived on
milk, boiled, with lime water, with white of egg
beaten up and placed on top. On this alone, with
out even bread. This is the most digestible of all
dishes for a weak stomach, and is quite appetizing.
My difficulties might be summed up as :
I. Heart disease (produced by inflammatory
rheumatism). 2. Hypertrophy of heart, caused by falls and
various tribulations.
3. Dyspepsia, aggravated type, caused by drugs
given by many doctors, which ate off the coating of
stomach. 4. Internal injuries, caused by falls.
5. Neuralgia (of violent type), caused by low
state of system ; weight reduced from 169 lbs. to
78 lbs.
6. Rheumatism of a mild type.
I give this medical bill of fare to show one can be
quite ill, and yet be happy.
My most uncomfortable symptom is that my feet
have to be propped up above my head all the
time, as the blood stagnates and does not return ex
cept down an inclination. At times it is painful, but
In His Name I can bear it and still be cheerful to my
many loved friends.
My life as a real invalid may be said to have com
menced in Berlin (Prussia), where I was taken with
a sudden attack of heart trouble in the American
Chapel, in 1869. Inflammatory rheumatism was
the cause.

14
I had accompanied my mother on a trip to Europe
for her health. I hated travel ; that is the reason,
perhaps, that it was my destiny to travel. When
three years old, I accompanied my father's body 90D
miles per railroad, in company with my mother. My
father had died of cholera. I and my mother were
both attacked with cholera on the cars. I can hear
now the conductor's voice " Change cars ! " I have
heard, apparently, a conductor's voice ever since,
but in different languages. " Changement de
voiture " — French. " Wagen wechsel!" — German.
" Si cambia convoglio " — Italian.
I shall be glad to hear the Angel of Death's final
call for a change of worlds, without change of cars
in the future.
When Dr. Hartman of Berlin informed me during
an acute heart attack that I had heart disease of an
incurable nature, I was alone (my mother being in
South Germany), not speaking much German.
I was placed on a sofa and my Berlin landlady
wrung her hands, exclaiming, " Ach, mein Gott !
He will die just like my Louise did. Look at his
face. Ach, mein Gott ! "
My mother becoming ill several months later at
Munich, I took a rapid train to join her, and to take
care of her, but the weather was below zero, a north
east wind broke the panes of glass in compartment
where I was confined, alone with a drunkard, so that
I was laid up with rheumatism at Eger, Bohemia,
where the famous Wallenstein was murdered. Ar
riving, finally, at Munich, I went to a number of

IS
celebrated doctors, including von Ranke, the cele
brated Dr. von Rothmund, head of the Munich hos
pital, and many others, and they all agreed on heart
disease. My mother said I had turned a curious tint of
green on receiving the first confirmation of this, and
I reeled slightly. They never did me any good,
but seemed to enjoy thumping, and charging, and
looking wise and grave. They handed me back and
forth from doctor to druggist, etc. Success to the
firm ! I must have had a tough constitution to have
escaped alive so many medical treatments.
I think the best doctor is placidity, or equa-niinity.
The great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius,
when dying, folded his arms and gave that word
" equanimity " to the officer of the guard, as a
countersign. Swnshuie.
Although I have been for a quarter of a century
an invalid, I hope I have been a valid one. One
good for something — not good for nothing, as the
term implies.
" He also serves who only stands and waits."
I tried " to serve " both standing and while hori
zontal. To serve humanity, as a soldier of Christ
should, was harder the first thirteen years, as a semi-
invalid, I think, than as a bedridden one. It was
both humiliating and painful to have a heart attack
(pectora angina) while addressing a class of students,
or while attending a dinner party.
On another occasion, for instance, at Paris, I was

i6
present at a dinner party of American students, when
suddenly an attack came on. I was like a frozen
figure, a Pompeiian statue, unable to move either
arm, when the child of the house called attention to
things by rapping on her goblet and ejaculating,
" Look at Professor Young. Don't he look fu-n-ny?"
Enfant terrible! Professor Young wished himself
a mile away. And again he was carried away igno-
minously, looking, no doubt, very funny indeed.
It was as solemn a tableau as one at my friend's,
Arthur Jerrold's, grandson of the famous author of
" Caudle's Lectures." Arthur and I were school
mates at Paris. One evening, at a dinner party,
his youngest brother rose up at the table and said,
amid mortal silence, " My sister has got a new jess."
Then he added conscientiously and explanatively,
" 'Taint jactly new ; it's been turned." Oh, les en
fants terrible ! Later he was turned — upside
down ! And yet he merely wished the truth at all
costs. He got the truth, and the cost, too.
Sickness through a heart trouble has often stood
in the way of my advancement. Once I was ap
pointed to accompany a medical editor of France
(as secretary), to Holland, to a medical congress. I
became suddenly ill, and the one in my place was
duly made a knight of the order of Holland. I had
been told the order would, probably, be given to me,
if I went.
I had a chance to go with the same eminent medi
cal man to a medical congress in Italy, but again I
fell ill! The one who took my place died, I was

17
told, from fever contracted there. So honors were
even. " Saddest of all it might have been ! " And yet all
is for the best, even if I missed being a Cavaliere
della Corona d'ltalia!
I can play on my 'harp and sing most of the
national airs of Europe, and I like best that of Italy
" viva ritalia, viva il re."
Instead of being a knight of Italy, I became a sim
ple bedridden teacher of Italian ! My work and
tasks in life have often been left unfinished through
illness of my mother or myself. No matter ! It
was for the best. " We see now as through a veil —
darkly."
PATHOLOGICAL BILL OF FARE.
I should begin, perhaps, to give a pathological
bill of fare. My bill is somewhat long and embraces
a number of courses.
A fall of 50-60 feet produced an internal derange
ment, besides hypertrophy of the heart. I think the
shock, when a boy, produced a kind of functional
trouble of the heart, which later, at Berlin, became
an organic trouble, through inflammatory rheuma
tism attacking the zveakened part.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
This disease became worse by medical treatment,
and drugs completed the work of destruction ; the
medical fraternity and druggists joining hands, and
destroying the digestion.
Accidental poisoning in Italy, through careless-
pess of a drug- clerk (I should haye said acute poison-

i8

ing, as that of the doctors and druggists was, per
haps, chronic poisoning), made digestion of ordinary
food impossible. He was on the eve of marriage,
and, naturally, somewhat insane for a while. I was
advised to get damages out of him, but I thought I
had had sufficient damages, and repairs were urgent
ly desired — desired in vain.
I was also advised to have the young husband shut
up for five years, but that would have punished the
wife too, and besides I had quickly forgiven the man.
Modern punishment geiierally falls o-n the ¦woman, in
one viay, or another !
In reality, this was all a blessing in disguise, as the
writer was an invalid any way, and a little more or
less invalidism made no great difference, and the ac
cident made food providing easy.
The acute poisoning and the chronic poisoning
having made the digestion of ordinary food impos
sible, the writer was obliged to live most simply for
long years, on milk diet, raw eggs, and scraped raw
beef. The last diet, followed a year at Nice, France,
produced a tape worm 20 feet long, which was ex
pelled through a dose (20 grains) of the Abyssinian
drug " Kousso."
The Venetian climate, an excellent sedative cli
mate for heart disease, gave my mother and myself
the Venetian fever. My most vivid recollection
of this fever is that I got to bed with high top boots
on, and refused to allow any one to pull them off.
I think I had an indistinct idea that I could not wait
on my mother if unbooted, or possibly I jjreferred
dying, being a westerner, with my boots op,

'9
After having the Venetian fever, we moved south
ward for a couple of years, in order, apparently, to
catch other local diseases. There is nothing like
tra-vel for this 1 The writer included cholera in his
list of diseases, — a disease of which his father died,
so that he writes as a personal expert on disease.
Also had dysentery for three years in Italy. A
weakened frame brought on neuralgia, which simu
lates all diseases, and, as far as pain goes, is a hospital
ward in itself. Neuralgia complicates many dis
eases, and one may say it is to the nerves what rheu
matism is to the muscles. A medical writer says ;
Put on a thumb screw, give it a turn, — that is rheu
matism. Give it another turn — that's neuralgia.
The writer had an attack of the grip which lasted
fifty days! It seemed to simulate the entire num
ber of diseases extant.
At the time of the grip in Hartford, a boy sent
from a shop with a bundle, seeing the writer in bed
with head tied up, nervously stood in the hall door
and asked if the bedridden individual had anything
contagious. " Boy," I said solemnly and impres
sively, " I have. There are about seven hundred
diseases (see N. Y. Medical Record), and I have had
them all, or am about to have them."
The writer did not have a chance to say more, for
the lad fled. Considering the way that disease has
swooped down on the author, he at one time came to
the conclusion either that it was a dangerous world
to pass the night in, or that he was a kind of patho
logical lightning rod which attracted disease.

20

The weak stomach was a fortunate possession, as
it made cooking a minimum for mother and sister,
and later on for nurses. As neuralgia often set in
in the stomach, I, in order not to bother mother or
sister, was wont to say I liked things cold. I hum
bugged them with this view, and finally became a
victim to the view myself, prefering cold food. This
was fortunate also ; fortunate for nurse. and patient
both. In spite of the diseases that have swooped down
on me, I feel thankful for the fact that I have not got
a cancer on the end of my nose ; thankful that my
diseases are not of a " pollywog " nature (bac
terial). A lady friend, who had lost a lovely friend
by cancer, told me that she did not dare to be as
good as she could be, because she had observed that
those that were too lovely to live died of cancer. I
do not know that she meant it as a warning to me
not to be too good !
I feel deeply thankful, too, that my diseases being
of a mechanical character and not bacteriological,
I could not be a source of danger and contagion to
others, to visitors, nurses, and above all, children.
At one time I caught from my little Martha (nurse)
the whooping cough. It lasted me eighty-three
days. The little child used to whoop and choke, and
in paroxysms I would hold her, she burying her
little head in my quilt, or on my shoulders. She
seemed so deeply sorry when I told visitors that I
was poisonous, so to speak, and hearing me warn
visitors so that they might not stay, if Habl? to con-

21
tagion, she sobbed once, because she had given the
disease to me. I told her that her only punishment
would be, perhaps, a good good-bye kiss, if I was
dying. Reminds me it, really, after a while, improved my
health — the coughing.
In Paris I, in sitting up with the sick child of a
friend, caug-ht diphtheria. The child coughed re
peatedly in my face, as I held it in my lap. On ar
riving home at 3 A. M., I was choking ; my face
became dark ; struggling for breath, I tried to find
quickly a pocket knife to perform tracheotomy. My
eyes lighted on a camphor bottle. I poured a couple
of ounces of spirits of camphor into a glass, and
gargled, swallowing a teaspoonful. The membrane
came away, followed by blood, but I was saved and
had added diphtheria to my pathological bill of fare !
I am inclined to think heart disease protects from
many febrile diseases ; but in this case my system
was low. I had in the early part of the evening
taken a sick lady to the Lyons railroad depot, and
on my return took, by mistake, the wrong omnibus,
which took me at midnight outside Paris, instead of
to the rue de la Sorbonne where I lived.
My opinion of diphtheria is that it beats hanging
as a capital punishment.
For a disease which, for pain, should take the first
prize at an international congress of disease, I
should, after a fair trial, recommend Pectora Angina.
One feels as a man being relentlessly crushed by an
iron machine. Pathologically, it is a great success
(for those of my readers who are medically inclined).

22

To sum up, in 1897;
Fourteen years in bed.
Twenty-six years an invalid.
Twenty years without vegetables, or fruit of any
kind. Twenty-three years without pastry or candy.
Two years on scraped beef (raw). For six months
nothing else.
Fifteen years on milk, raw eggs, and chopped beef
(often raw).
(i) As to diseases : 54 attacks of Pectora an
ginus. (2) Heart disease.
(3) Rheumatism.
(4) Neuralgia all over.
(5) Dyspepsia.
(6) Kidney trouble.
(7) Semi-paralysis of legs. A second shock
which left me for two years unable to turn my neck.
I never told my mother or sister.
(8) Feet have to be propped up day and night ;
for the last three years propped up all the time, so
that they are now thirty-six inches above hip.
(9) Hands have often to be propped up by tapes
which pass around my neck.
(10) Twelve years bowel trouble, caused by
malaria, diarrhoea, and dysentery in Italy, followed
by three years of constipation, necessitating every
second day an injection of water at 98 degrees, self
administered. (2400 injections to date, of one quart
water, with a touch of castile.) The French use

23
tectal injections for many ills : — headaches, tooth
aches, even, etc. The American habit of taking
pill, which traverse 26-28 feet of innocent territory,
is bad, because the trovible lies in the last foot of in
testine, generally.
(11) Neuralgia of the eyes for a few years,
causing me to fear blindness, or paralysis of the
optic nerve, which seemed gradually coming on.
(12) Headaches, happily cured by using, often,
cool pine pillows, instead of feathers.
Probably my readers beg to be spared.
My old nurse, as my feet had to be propped higher
and higher, proposed getting a step ladder, as my
feet were higher than her head.
I have fifty-five pillows, tiny and large, and I
manage to use them all, and am afraid I shall leave
an estate principally of pillows. Still my appetite
for pillows continues.
My crucifixion, with my feet up in this painful
manner, has so far lasted forty-four months. Still
I must try to be patient. In His Name. I have
joined and try to be an active member in many
societies for reform and temperance, etc. I think
invalids would feel better if they could take part in
the good work of the world. " Shut in from man,
shut in with God." Still, do not shut yourself in !
I give, therefore, a partial list of the orders I be
long to :
I. Societe Francaise d'Hygiene, Paris.
2. Membership in this constitutes me also

24
honorary member of the Sanitary Institution of
Great Britain.
3. Member New York Academy of Anthropol
ogy- 4. Member Hartford Equal Rights Club, also
5. Secretary for Foreign Corespondence.
6. Member State of Connecticut Woman Suf
frage Association, also Secretary of Foreign cor
respondence for the same.
7. Member Christian Men's Union and Rescue
Work (Total Abstinence), New York.
8. Member of the. Woman's Christian Temper
ance Union.
9. Foreign Counsellor, Woman's International
Union (Seat at London). (I consider this my
highest order.)
10. Head of the Order of the Lily and Cross.
II. Member, honorary, of the Order of Loyal
Crusaders. 12. Member of a Nationalist Club.
13. Member of the Order of " King's Daughters
and Sons." Good Samaritans, Hartford.
14. Member of the Guild of the Holy Cross
(Episcopal Order). Also several other societies and
orders not necessary to mention.
In spite of my difficulties, I feel thankful that I
can take a vivid interest in the outside world, and
its progress. In spite of feet being propped up so
painfully, I try to smile and be cheerful In His
Name. My sick room is filled with curiosities,
crosses, crucifixes, celebrated pictures of Christ and

25
the Virgin Mary. I like to look at the crucifix.
My Protestant friends say, " Are you Catholic ? "
" Yes," I answer, " in the sense that catholic means
universal, and not Roman."
" How can yoti look at crucifixes — so sorrowful
a sight? " " The Man of Sorrows " hung on a cross,
and I should be able to bear the sight, if he could
bear the actual crucifixion.
It teaches me the Urst and last of all lessons,
patience. " Patience " is the motto over my door.
It was made for me, cut out in large red letters,
three inches long (red) by fallen girls, so-called. It
was made at a home for penitent magdalenes. I
placed it under a large red cross, in memory of him
who had patience with magdalens, the Master
Teacher. One of these so-called " fallen girls " sat all night
once, rubbing and soothing a very sick old nurse of
mine, who had been kind to her. Perhaps we had
best not use the word " fallen " in regard to women.
Betrayed would be a better word. Betrayed by a
man and society. We might reserve the word for
the male prostitutes who walk the streets un-
pmiished, or for society which wickedly excuses the
man and strangles (figuratively) the woman.
This girl above alluded to was one who had been
betrayed by a man who boasted once that he had
prayed to God for her possession. She went West
to her family with her child and courageously
brought it up to be a good member of society.
Let me end this chapter preface with one word,
PATIENCE ?
2

CHAPTER I.
MIND CURE TALE.
A mind-curist treating me, asked me if I had ever
had any falls, as he received the impression I had,
felt like falling, he said, when he first saw me. No
wonder !
Had I ever had any falls ? I had.
Would I tell him about it the next time ? I
would — also any other points which might strike
me. Besides the falls, a great many things struck me,
so I made out a list of falls, and other things that
struck me besides the hard, unfeeling ground. In
my innocence I numbered them so as to be accurate.
(i) Under horse's hoof (Detroit). Saved by
Mason Palmer, uncle of Senator Palmer of Michi
gan, the woman suffragist leader, from whose house
my mother was married.
(2) Fall in flour mill, 1859. Clothing torn off.
(3) Fall from first story down a New York city
arch ; broke three teeth slightly and drove one up
in head. Mother remarked a broken leg would
have been better, but I plaintively remarked I had
no choice.
(4) Fall from a base-ball accident ; brought
home ; struck on stomach. While chasing a ball

28
I ran over an embankment and struck heavily on my
stomach ; commissary department damaged.
(5) Base-ball again. Knocked over by a ball,
from the bat direct. Struck me on the cheek ; half
stupid a moment, then went on with the game
(crack could be heard all over the field!). Boys
said, "Well, you have a cheek!" No pain, but
numb for days in the jaw region. Interesting med
ically, as being such a hard blow and yet without
pain. (6) Skull hurt by a fall while wrestling. De
pression now in the skull. The fall depressed me
then, — going to bed especially.
(7) Fell from a tree at Saratoga. Sore back for
days, 1866.
(8) Fell into Saco river, near North Conway,
1863 ; nearly drowned ; quite so, as far as feeling
was concerned. The first feeling is as though an ax
had gone into the brain. The last — music —
sweet music.
(9) North Conway. Saved life of a millionaire,
of Providence ; saved him from drowning, by jump
ing and seizing him, and walking upon the bottom.
Not able to swim, neither was Master John, but he
pretended he could. Hence the double baptism.
(10) The tenth fall was one of the most success
ful I ever made. The other falls seem to have been
mere rehearsals — side shows !
My tenth fall was a distance of twenty to thirty
feet, the height of some two-story houses, and in my
dreams at times I rehearse the affair. It might be
termed more a slide than a fall.

29
At North Conway, while playing near a lumber
mill, I slipped, and slid slowly down a greasy plane.
It was used to pull up the logs from the deep ponded
pond below where they were floating, immense,
heavy affair. Then, beyond a little, there was a
huge revolving wheel, so that if one escaped drown
ing or being crushed to death by the heavy logs, one
had a brilliant chance of being ground up into hash
by the Juggernaut of a wheel. It is not often one
has such a varied choice of the means of death, and
I fully appreciated the extent of the choice. I dug
my fingers in the greasy boards until some of my
nails were gone, as I afterwards discovered, though
at the time I did not feel the pain, — anesthesed by
that powerful anesthetic, excitement, and quick
breathing, which is also an obtunder of pain. I
yelled at the top of my voice, hoping to attract men
with ropes. Still, slowly and surely I went towards
that triple death. Nearly down to the bottom, I
espied a couple of large protuding nails, and as I
could not fully shape my course for them, I
scratched away with my fingers to so shape my
course that the nails might enter my trousers and
flesh ; and as I struck them, I bore down to what
extent I could.
The scheme worked well ; the sharp spike nails,
without heads, entered my flesh, and so I hung, like
Mahomet, twixt sky and earth, or water. I trust
he was more comfortable than I was. On second
thought, considering the Armenian measures of
1896, I trust not. If animals hung on a nail to be

30
slaughtered feel as uncomfortable as I did, I can
feel a renewed interest in them. Success to the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals !
There I was hanging, Uke a leg of bacon. Finally
my lusty yells brought men with a rope, and I was
hauled up, tired and lacerated, but happy to escape.
It was some days before I really enjoyed sitting
down. Standing up satisfied me best.
(i i) My eleventh and next to last fall, was from
a wagon that was trying to cross a railroad track,
before an express train, at night. To see a huge
bulls-eye of light bearing down on one in the dark
ness, with an immediate prospect of death, gives one
a realizing sense of eternity.
(12) My twelfth and last fall completed the
dozen. It was the most successful one I ever made. It
comes back to me in my dreams. I turn, and turn,
and TURN ! The sensation is partly due to heart
disease, — it is a common symptom of the disease —
but principally, perhaps, to reminiscences.
This last fall was one of fifty to sixty feet. It was
due to a slight landslide produced by four days' rain.
I was gazing at the expanse of sea and sky before
me on a cliff, when there was a sickening, crumbling
feeling below me, and for the next few seconds I
saw, and felt too, more than I ever did before. I
saw and felt so much in a few seconds, that I am con
vinced that time is a mere invention of the human
brain — eternity lies in a second. My life had been
pure and good, I hope, but everything seemed to

31
come up in the old, regulation, Sunday-school-book
style. I have an idea that I twirled around like a tom
cat thrown from a fourth-story roof, but as I was not
exactly a spectator of my own flight, I feel uncertain.
On striking, I lost consciousness on the sand be
low. The tide coming in restored me to conscious
ness by bathing a bleeding leg. The salt made the
wound smart, and I woke up to find death by water
at hand unless I could draw myself back, which I did
with my two arms, and one well leg.
Then I was taken home to enjoy the reminiscences
for years. A second to fall, and a quarter of a cen
tury to remember !
Well, to return to my mind-curist. " Revenons
a nos moutons," as the French say.
When I had handed him the above bill of fare in
the way of falls, he stared and made an ejaculation,
strong and emphatic ! He said, " You seem to
have made a business of falling." I modestly replied
that I thought I had — a wholesale business. Then
he said details were no matter, it was the facts he was
after. I said that the details of the falls while oc
curring were of matter to me — considerable.
Well, he would treat me for falls ; asked in a gen
eral way if I had had any moral falls, to which he
got a decided negative. I had never used tobacco,
got drunk, or visited a house of ill fame, or used an
oath, etc.
Evidently my tale of tumbles was too much for
him. Acrobat, — ground and lofty tumbling !

32
As my mind-cure doctor found my list of falls so
long, a dozen in number, I varied the medical enter
tainment by an account of four attempted murders
of myself, which are given further on.
MIND CURE.
Mind cure has its mission. Just as homeopathy
decreased the doses of allopathy, and allopathy in
creased the doses of homeopathy, so mind cure will
teach all schools the power of suggestion. I solemn
ly avow that were I called in to treat a case of heart
disease, for instance, I should listen with a pooh-
bah to the heart disease symptoms, and gradually,
after an examination of the liver, turn the nervous
heart disease patient's mind to watch that supposed
ly diseased organ. That would give the really dis
eased organ a rest, while the bogus diseased organ
was narrowly watched.
Nervous women are at times drawn into organic
heart disease by over -zealous physicians. Women
and children often have palpitation, of the heart,
caused by nervous conditions, or stimulants, like tea
or coffee ; the latter being especially a heart over-
taxer. The one troubled then takes to watching
the heart, aided (?) by the doctor.
Thought directed to any part will send the blood
to that part, so that congestion may ensue. The
heart trouble which at first was only functional can
become organic (that is, produce a change in the
organ itself) by over watching, aided by the physi
cian.

33
I remember calling on a lady who prided herself,
apparently, on her form of heart disease. She fre
quently talked about it, and always thought about
it. When she went into the country for the summer
she carried sealed instructions from her city physi
cian to her country physician, etc. She lived in
perpetual fear. With lips trembling, she asked me
to give her my opinion, and said that she tried to live
as if every moment might be her last.
That was the precise difficulty. She was wealthy,
and if she had lived as if every moment might be the
last of some poor friend, by giving money, advice,
and sympathy, she would have lived longer and
better in this world, and in the world to come.
A watched pot may not boil, but a watched heart
will ; and a watched heart will become very mis
chievous. If the patient's attention were called to
his liver, and a fictitious liver disease induced (as a
former medical student at the dissecting board I can
say it would be no untruth, generally, as most
women gratify themselves with distorting their
liver with corsets) the heart might get well. Have a
rest and recuperate. One might thus have a rota
tion of diseases, which would give variety to the
patient, and do away with monotony.
An intelligent M.D. would only solemnly have to
describe the symptoms of another disease when the
nerve suffering woman would be apt to cry, " Oh
doctor, I knoTV I've got that — they're just my symp
toms." And if they haven't got them, they will have
them. 2*

34
In Bavaria, I heard of a man who was treated for
heart disease for some time, because his laundress
over-starched his shirts. On bending, this sadly
diseased gentleman would hear an ominous crackle
in the neighborhood of his heart, which he was sure
promised dissolution. It made his heart beat to
have such fearful symptoms, and, in consequence,
he had functional heart disease. He discovered his
mistake, and it was cured by a warning tO' his
washerwoman. His doctor's feelings were hurt.
I recall a case of liver complaint. I will not
guarantee the authority of this tale. Heard it at
Munich (Bavaria).
A man, hypochondriacal, had noticed a peculiar
and unpleasant odor about himself. His friends
noticed it. His wife noticed it. His doctor treated
him for aggravated foul stomach, and liver com
plaint. He was aggravating. Still that  odor
grew worse. It became unbearable. The wife
noticed the odor was intermittent. Then an idea
seized her, and she seized the husband's coat, and
submitting it to the Supreme Court of odors — the
nose ^- she detected an increase of symptoms, par
ticularly in the neighborhood of a pocket which had
a hole in it. Then foraging down that hole, she
found the cause of the liver complaint — a mouse —
" more dead than a door-nail." A little mouse goes
a great ways — even when it is dead.
Her husband who, with liver complaint, had asked
himself " Is life worth living? " decided that it was.

35
without the mouse. There was no complaint after
that — unless the doctor made it.
A STORM AT SEA.
As my mind-curist friend and doctor seemed
dazed by the amount of disaster, I threw in a ship
wreck as a diversion, or rather what came near
being one.
I will try my hand at a description.
It was in December, and I had taken passage with
my mother in a trans-Atlantic, " City of Paris."
We had trances — trances of fear — later, and the
antics, — well, the ocean and ship both indulged in
antics in that mid-December storm.
I had gone to sleep at 3 P. M. in my state-room,
dozing over " Ivanhoe " ; suddenly I dreamed the
ocean was going down my mouth ; it was, or part of
it ! It was deluging the under rooms and water
was about up to one's knee at times, and trunks had
gotten loose and were dancing the can-can up and
down the hallway, between the state-rooms. I
peered out ; finally got on to a big Saratoga trunk,
and so got to the stairway. Then hopped off and
was all right for a moment, holding on to the brass
railing. Suddenly a head, fair to see, appeared at
the head of the stairway, and shrieked, " Your
mother wishes you." Then a terrific lurch of the
ship, and the young lady shot down at me, and
caught me ¦ — on the fly, or I caught her on the fly.
Then we held on to one another while the ship
groaned and lurched, and waves swept in, carrying

36
off the doors above. Finally we got safely into the
main cabin, where we held on to whatever we could.
The young lady was the daughter of the silver ad
vocate. Senator Stewart of Nevada.
At 9 P. M.— The flooring seemed literally to be
parting. Doors forced down again — two sailors
washed in — and knocked senseless for a moment ;
then they sprang up, one with blood-curdling oaths.
More waves — finally a mountain wave. A priest,
Roman (Irish) Catholic, of high degree, sitting near
my mother, threw up his arms, and screamed, " My
God ! All is lost ! " He put his head down to shut
out the terrible sights of men howling, and cursing,
and groveling in terror. Relative to the sailors'
swearing, I felt most thankful that they did, as I
knew all chance was over when they should stop.
The women acted better, — prayed. One day and
a half of this ! It seemed terrible to die like caged
rats ! Several of us wished to die in the open air —
when the time came. But our time had not come.
The staunch Cunarder pulled through. Prayer ?
Perhaps. The wife of Sir William Cunard, years
and years ago, told my grandmother, then Miss
Brabner of Halifax, that she prayed every night that
no harm should befall the Cunard's passengers, no
lives be lost. The above Sir Wilham was once a
suitor for my grandmother's hand — so I was told,
as a child.
Average waves may be but thirty or forty feet
high, reaching in extraordinary storms perhaps
fifty feet; but when a ship seems to groan and shiver

37
all over, and settles, settles down — down — down
in the trough of the sea ; then a glance upward at
mountain waves closing over everything, is a sight
to be remembered and make your spine chilly at the
thought for months afterwards.
It is nice to remember, though, in 4th of July
weather. Our captain had lost his reckoning — the dark
clouds and fogs settled down on us, and men, the
cravenest, probablyj gave themselves up to drink.
Champagne flowed down dry throats, parched from
fear. When wind and sea finally went down, we
were a happy set of mortals.
CHOLERA.
My earliest recollection carries me back to an at
tack of the real Asiatic scourge when I was but
three and a half years old. An English proverb
says, " All good actions will some day be rewarded."
It does not, apparently, mean reward always in this
world. My father, a lawyer in Detroit, Michigan,
went years ago to take care of a brother lawyer
stricken down by the disease. When he returned
to the house in the morning, after a night's vigil
with the sick man, he passed through streets lit by
bonfires — these fires were supposed to disinfect,
and keep down contagion. Fears were great, and
knowledge was scanty. My father had cholera
symptoms rapidly developing. On reaching the
house, and entering the hall, he asked why it was

38
dark. — It was broad daylight ! He was carried
up stairs, dying, to his bedroom.
I was baptized on his death-bed. The servants
were terror stricken and worn out. One of them
had the ship fever — my mother was ill. A noble
and brave-hearted man, since a United States sena
tor, sat up with my father all night — at a time when
men's hearts were filled with fear of the scourge.
This senator once led the Woman's Suffrage cause
in the U. S. Senate, the noblest cause on earth. Still
the laurels he has won in this cause should be added
to : — the crown of a ministering angel in the cham
ber of death. (The United States crowned him by
making him chief of the World's Fair at Chicago
in 1894.)
My father's body was carried on to Geneva,
N. Y., to be buried in the family plot. On board the
cars at Buffalo, my mother and I were both seized
with cholera. A friend of my grandfather had us
carried to his house where we recovered after a week
or so of violent illness. In the case of staying up
with my father, and in this of caring for us at a pri
vate house, the good Samaritans were not want
ing. I have very rarely been ill treated by my fel
low beings, though events seem to have been un
kind, perhaps. No, everything has happened for
the best. What I liked least was best for me.
The cholera seems to have been on my path sev
eral times. In Italy, where I was quite ill one sum
mer, the cholera breaking out in our neighborhood,
my mother wished to have me carried down the

39
mountain to the railroad so that we could escape to
France, but I did not deem it best, although we had
both a vivid recollection of the time when we suf
fered from the dread visitor.
During a year when we were in Italy, at Venice,
a journal stated that of twelve gondoliers who,
frightened by the cholera epidemic, met and went
through gastronomic performances, and were merry
(too merry), I believe the journal stated, eight were
buried the next day. Burials are often made with
in eighteen hours in Italy.
I believe no one ever gets thc cholera who boils, five
minutes, the drinking ivater, and •mho zvears a band of
flannel or zuool sixteen inches broad around the bozveh.
Knit cholera belts, so-called, are equally good, if
not better. I make this recommendation because
I think that where one, particularly in childhood,
has had a real attack of the cholera, or summer com
plaint, there is left a strong tendency to dyspepsia,
or weak stomach and bowels. Hence, as the
Russians say that health goes out by the ton but
comes in by the ounce, it is well to take preventive
means. In our changeable climate every man,
woman, and child should wear a flannel band around
the bowels. This book has not been zvritten in vain
if this one recommendation is follozved.

CHAPTER II.
Murderous attempt on my hfe.
Bozen No. i.
In my life as an invalid, I have escaped from
fifty-two doctors and several hundred druggists.
I escaped also from being murdered outright,
four times. Attempts at murder are not usually
considered conducive to longevity in heart disease
patients. My first experience of this nature was at Bozen,
Tyrol, Austria. At Krautner's restaurant, finding
I had no money in my purse, I unstrapped a bag
of gold around my waist, as there was no one present
but my little friend, the waitress, and a fashionably
dressed, gold-haired lady, attired like a traveler, with
a Badeker Guide. She gave her dog a fifty-cent
beefsteak, and little Marie whispered " Shame ! "
in my ear. At 5 P. M., at my inn, I met the gold-
haired stranger on the stairs. At 6 P. M., my
mother, a poor German scholar, said, " What does
this mean ? " " Ich werde den kleinen Herr
Doctor abfertigen (I will fix the little doctor)."
I told my mother she had misunderstood, but she
answered, " Well, I heard the sharpening of a knife."
I shrugged my shoulders, and forgot. (40)

41
At 2 A.M. my door was silently forced. It awoke
me, and at the same moment as I sprang for the
door, there was heard the heavy tread of soldiers
up the hallway (600 years old, by the way).
" Open in the Emperor's name," said the officer,
rapping with the hilt of his sword on the heavy door.
" Open quickly, or we will batter the door down."
The door opened !
The gold-haired lady was seized with her pal, who,
though well-dressed, was an Austrian convict, es
caped. The man had visited, two days before, a
castle in the neighborhood, disguised as a peddler,
and stolen some diamonds. The diamonds could
not be found in the room, so the officer commanded
the mattress to be cut up. That was done. Noth
ing ! Then the dog was seized. He howled and
scowled. Nothing. On the window-sill was a
bottle of choloroform and a long sharp knife, or sti
letto. My mother's german was correct ! I was
known as the little " Herr Doctor " among the
peasants. The convict was marched off with his pal, the
golden-haired lass. He had ten back years to serve.
I had shoved a trunk against my door. I made
no complaint, as the Austrian law required wit
nesses to remain too long, and my mother needed
Italy and its sunny climate.
Then too, we preferred to leave, as a bigoted af
fair happened : — A coffin containing the body of a
Protestant had been interfered with at a funeral,
and coffin and occupant had been fired over the

42
bridge into the river below, where they parted com
pany. The Catholics did not relish Protestant
funerals. My mother said that, as a Protestant, she
did not care to be buried that way.
And so the land knew us no more.
ROME.
Second Attempt,
At Rome we took rooms in a strange old street,
in a strange old house, which struck my mother's
fancy. It had enormously thick walls, and I laughingly
observed, in western style, that we might be " wiped
out " and no one the wiser.
There was an insane woman confined in the next
room to mine, but I was not informed of it until I
had paid a month's rent.
I at first supposed there was a menagerie in that
room; possibly a parrot, a cat, and a monkey.
One day a strange looking man came in the morn
ing to arrange the rooms. Studied me, evidently ;
looked me over and over when he thought I was
not looking; seemed to be measuring my strength,
as my mother later observed.
So I pulled out a dirk and looked at it carelessly.
I laughed at her " intuition," but not quite so much
since the Bozen attempted case. No ! It was
dawning on my earthy, masculine mind, that fem
inine intuition was worth a great deal — quite as
much as masculine reason.

43
At II P. M. the landlord knocked. His insane
sister must see the room ; nothing else would quiet
her, he said. Then she would go quietly out.
At I A. M. the united party tried to force the door,
which was locked and bolted, and against which I
piled all the furniture.
I threw open my window, then stepped to the
door, and said that I had a half-dozen large bottles
which I should fire out of the window and also
through the windows across the street (which was
narrow), to arouse the police, etc. That in case
they got in, I should use the dagger freely.
Then there was a lull and a consultation outside.
I had noticed a carriage, forty feet away, and some
one was signalling, from the next room but one,
to it.
The plan was twofold. The carriage was to
carry away two dead bodies, or possibly two live
ones, to be redeemed, perhaps, by payment of
friends — an Italian custom, but principally SiciHan.
I am afraid the dead-body plan was preferred, from
what I overheard. In case the police had come in
time, the insane woman, who was really the only
innocent one, was to bear the blame, as having
killed us in an insane freak. This plan was the least
satisfactory to me !
After daybreak, there was quietness, except that
the insane woman howled continually, " Let me get
at them. I'll kill them first and then myself."
I think the relatives would not have interfered
even with the last part of the programme. It was

44
kilHng three birds with one stone. The loving (?)
relatives would not have objected, as they could
have inherited her property.
Early in the mor"ning, when I heard carriages
passing (I had the window open all night for safety),
I silently opened a little side door, after hearing the
men go out, locking my mother in and telHng her
to scream out of the window, if necessary.
Then, in my stocking feet, I noiselessly crossed
the hall. The door of a neighboring room stood
partly open and there stood the insane woman, near
a rifle. She sprang for the gun and raised it to
shoot ; but, like a flash, I had closed the door and
locked her in with the key.
At the door I hailed a carriage, immediately
came up with the driver, telling him to be quick,
and in case of a row, to help us, for which I would
reward liberally. He had a friend downstairs
(that was the reason that I took him) on the driver's
box. Both grinned. Rows are frequent in Italy,
and I suppose they thought we were sneaking off
without paying rent. It was just the other way.
I sacrificed the entire month's rent. We were both
in the carriage with the luggage in a couple of'
minutes, or less.
Any complaint to police would have been of no
avail. The parties would have said the insane sister
was the cause, and that we were nervous, etc., did
not fully understand the language, etc.
It was a very neatly-arranged affair; quite a

45
combination ; as the Italians say, " Una combina-
zione." Speaking of carrying off parties alive, for a ran
som, reminds me that one of my friends in Sicily,
a wealthy noble, wrote me four years ago that his
uncle had been carried off, and, as the ransom was
not sufficiently quickly forthcoming, his ear was cut
off and sent to the family to cause them to hurry up
with the sum demanded, " or the other ear would be
sent." Of course, if still tardy, a nose, or even the
entire head might follow. It was best " to hustle "
and pay. " He who pays and gets away.
May live to pay another day,"
After all, down in South Italy they still beat
Tammany for ways that are dark, and tricks not
played in vain.
We drove to a hotel. My mother took to bed;
had some kind of fever, due to nerves. Her hair
had grown gray during that night ! Quite gray,
at the sides !
Next morning my mother was quite ill. The
Padrone, landlord, came tip and informed me we
must leave immediately.
" Why ? "
" Well," said he, " this lady has small-pox."
There was an epidemic of the disease in Rome.
I had been shaved at a barber's and noticed,
too .late, that the preceding customer had just re
covered from this beauty-destroying disease.

46
(Apropos, with red curtains or darkened room,
there is no danger of pitting.)
I explained to Padrone my mother's state, but it
was of no avail. He had been fooled before by dis
eased people, and customers were leaving. So, to
save my mother any extra excitement, I called an
other carriage, and went to a first-class hotel, where
I was in hopes, on account of my mother, of finding-
first-class manners.
Travel is not all pleasure. I remember when in
Venice that a French journalist, during the epi
demic of cholera, having contracted the disease,
was placed on the pavement, turned out of the hotel !
He died on that pavement!
NAPLES.
Third Attempt at Murder,
At Naples, one winter, my mother and I took
apartments in a lodging house on the " Riviera di
Chiaja." At 9 P. M., I went across the PubHc Garden, and
went down on the beach, and out on a kind of pier.
It was rather dark. A half-moon at times gave a
moderate light; then clouds intervened.
I was studying Mt. Vesuvius' shape, and watch
ing the smoke rising, but I glanced back nervously
at times at the beach. I felt apprehensive and
scented danger, being so far from the street. At a
distance, advancing towards me, I could see a burly
man's form. As the moonlight grew stronger, I
could discern a heavy club held back of him. I

47
moved rapidly back from the pier, as I noticed a
large boat drawn up on the sand. If I could reach
that in time, aU would be well, perhaps; otherwise,
with heart disease, a club, and water below, there
were all the elements of a disaster, as far as I was
concerned — a disaster of which the water could re
move all trace. A blow from the club, and a push
in the water. Splash! Buona Notte!
As I quickened my pace, the man did his. We
reached the boat together. I was too late. He
was at my end of the boat! The heavy club de-
¦ scended with lightning rapidity. I had held up
an arm thinking, instinctively, that a broken arm
was preferable to a broken head. We all instinc
tively fight to the last, and sacrifice part of the cargo
with a desire of saving something
With a shriek of " Jesu Maria! " the man stood
with uplifted hand while the club had dropped to
the ground!
I went around the boat rapidly, glancing back, —
there stood the man in the same position ! !
I cHmbed up the bank and went rapidly towards
the street. Then turned again. There stood the
man in the same position!!!
I hurried up to my hotel, surmising paralysis to
myself, as the bandit's condition.
My mother threw up her hands at the sight of
my face which she thought had a greenish tint.
Most likely. I explained how the tint probably had
its origin. All night I kept wondering how my life
had been saved, and eariy the next morning I went
over to reconnoitre.

48
Romantic? well hardly! Saved by five cents'
worth of clothes line, left by a forgetful washer
woman! God bless the whole race!
The previous evening when I arrived at the Al-
bergo, or hotel, my mother threw up her hands.
" What has happened? Your face is livid, —
green!" This morning I explained the clothes
line business, and her hands went up again.
I had explained how I came to be so verdant.
Now she explained that it would be verdancy to
stay in South Italy. Then my mother remarked
further, " You wish to go to the Holy Land. Well,
I think northern lands are good enough for me in
future, so I will take up my bed and walk."
And we did. And the land knew us no more.
And we did not regret it.
The day we left Rome, I noticed a number
of Carabiniere, or riflemen, in a car in front, and,
asking the reason of their presence, was told that
the government had information of an attack
(planned by bandits) on the train, as a large amount
of specie was to be transported.
Asbury Park Murder.
I had been carried down to Asbury Park, per
railroad, and toted on men's shoulders from depot
to depot. My friends said I must do everything to
get weH, and so I endured like a martyr the trip,
though I hated to be carried Hke an old toad, as I
used to designate the performance. When I did
not undertake such a useless trip each summer.

49
people and kind friends said I was failing to do my
duty by my mother, sister, and self. So I set my
teeth and started for some infer — well some nice
place — and came back worse, and poorer! " And
the last state of that man was worse than the first."
We hired a large cottage. It seemed cheap —
too cheap. Later, when put to bed for six weeks,
without being able to turn in bed, I discovered the
sewage was in an open lake under my bedroom
floor; but then I made up my mind it was all right,
as when one travels for health one expects such
little arrangements. It is all in the programme.
So, I surmised, this is why the cottage is cheap.
But no ! there was another reason !
The season grew late. I had made arrangements
with neighbors to come to my assistance in case I
blew a shrill whistle, attached to a ribbon around
my neck.
At I A. M., one morning, a negro tried to open
my window shutter, and was successful. Then he
was about to proceed to raise the sash a few inches,
slowly. My bed was directly at the side of the
window. I had an Italian stilletto in my drawer,
open, and I grabbed it and attended strictly to busi
ness. Then, for a second, I sat up in bed, unde
cided. Should I bury the stilletto in his heart, as
the window went up, or should I blow the whistle
first for assistance.
It was moonlight at times. My mother and sis
ter were alone in the house with myself, a helpless
invalid, — well, not exactly helpless. That Italian
stilletto was sharp and made so as to cut through
3

5°
strong arteries with but little resistance to its in-
zvard curved, razor-like steel.
I pressed my nose against the window-pane.
Considerable thought per second! The moonHght
flashed down on us. The negro caught sight of
flattened face against window-pane. I was looking
for the heart. He gave a blood-curdHng yell and
flew down the street. MoonHght gave a ghastly
look to my face, probably.
The gardener explained when he came that the
cottage was cheap because a murder had occurred
in it just where my bed was. It had the reputation
of being haunted. A man in a drunken spree had
come home and with a hatchet had chopped his wife
to pieces. The negro, probably, took my ghastly,
flattened, moonlighted face for the spirit of the
murdered woman.
Later, a negro was arrested at the depot, heading
for New York, and loaded up with stolen silk dresses
which he said were for the laundry.
Some nights previous, my brave mother, who
slept overhead, heard sounds at a door beneath,
and seeing a man trying to force the door, went
back to get a pail of water to discharge on his de
voted head and cool his brain. She mistook the
way and fell backwards the entire length of stairs.
The noise frightened away the black burglar, and
my sister carried my mother back to bed, where
she remained four weeks, heating her back in this
attempt to cool the negro's head. He cooled his
head in jail, being retired from public circulation
for some time.

CHAPTER III.
ROAD OF CALVARY OF AN INVALID.
Fourteen years in bed — Stricken!
My only sister once read to me a pitiful account
of a man who, engaged to a girl, became blind
later. After his blindness had come on, his fianc6e
came one day to read to him. He suddenly heard
a scream. She had fallen, struck with apoplexy!
He groped around on his hands and knees to find
her body.
I little thought my own case would be as pain
ful, after many years' confinement to bed with heart
disease, rheumatism, neuralgia, and an internal dif
ficulty produced by a 50-ft. fall.
One day my darling sister, Lillian, who had gone
to a matinee, at my suggestion, came up the stairs
staggering. I could hear her unsteady steps as
she crossed the haU, and then fumbled and fumbled
at the doorknob. How my heart stood still as I
breathed a silent prayer! The door opened, and
she lurched forward. Stricken by apoplexy, though
young and fair!
As she staggered across the little room, she gave
me an agonized, loving look. I said, " FaU on the
bed " meaning I could attend to her, as we were
(51)

52
alone (my mother having been a year in Boston
for medical treatment). She gasped, " No — chair
— hurt you." And so, stricken and faithful unto
death, she fell into the chair and my calvary had
hardly commenced. (1886, A.D. — the year of our
Lord.) My poor mother, for a year previous to death,
was confined to her room with lung trouble. Would
not have a nurse, merely a child! At night would
have no one; so I remained partly awake nights
for months, with gas lighted, fearing a fire, in her
weakness, which occurred twice, from her oil lamp,
but was put out by her faltering hands — while I
seemed to transpire blood, in anxiety.
Then the end came. I with lighted gas, in bed,
unable to help her, while she gasped for breath. I
finally ring a bell for help. A bell which for the
second time tolled death of what was nearest and
best. Ah, those ten months of calvary ! It seemed
as if I sweated blood again and again. What ca
pacity we have for suffering. And yet I had
strength given to bear, hour by hour.
John Stuart Mill, the greatest of modern writers,
I think, says that one's sufferings increase one's
capacity for suffering ever afterwards. It may be!
Does it? Or, to the Christian, does it not increase
one's capacity for bearing?
The ten months preceding my mother's death
were the bitterest, yet probably the best, in my life.
There is most growth in rainy weather, as the saying
goes. When reasoning as a Pagan philosopher

53
might, I said to rriy self, it is aU strange! People
declaim against the death penalty as cruel !
In France (where I lived seven years), it is ac
counted a cruelty to even inform the condemned
criminal of the date of his execution. He is
awakened ait early morn by the Abbe. Yet nature
puts the noose around our necks, and it may be for
months, and it may be for years, as in my own case,
that the halter, so to speak, has been around the
neck. Looked at in one light, here was a son in bed,
condemned to die, always growing slightly worse,
facing a mother also condemned to die slowly by
nature. One, the mother, gasping for breath, bent
forward to get air — stretched on two chairs.
Two dying ones, — alone. Does not the Chris
tian Faith come in here? Can it not comfort and
help? It did.
Could any mind stand such a strain without di
vine aid? Pagan philosophy is good, but Christian
philosophy is better — best! The Light of Asia is
grand — 'but The Light of the Worid IS BEST.
Was not here the so-called dread destroyer, the
Angel of Death and Darkness — the Angel of Life
and Light? Who opens the door to a better world,
where there is no parting, no pain? A messenger
of release! A Fateful Bell.
There is a bell on my table. It has rung out the
death knell of my best and dearest, and all !

54
I was alone much, and it was placed within reach
that I might call for assistance from friends in the
public building. My mother was in Boston under
medical care, and had been for a year, nearly, while
I was left under the care of my sister.
My sister had had a slight shock a few days before,
already alluded to, and was lying on a sofa near,
in the next room. She commenced, " Charlie, I
feel that pain coming on again in my head. There ! "
then suddenly a shriek, and I heard the terrible
Cheyne stroke! Minute after minute, I rang that
bell, again and again. Sweating, one might say,
blood. The great veins stood out and the perspi
ration ran down my face that December morning.
My dearest and best on earth, and I unable to move !
What can poor humanity endure ! The situation,
months later, reminded me of that gentlest and best
of invalids, Chloe Langton. I recommend my
reader to get her book and derive comfort from its
sweet words. One may study, from a woman's
standpoint, what life in bed means. (From mine
what it means to a man.) Her book teaches much.
Those who feel inclined to grumble should read it
carefully. Chloe Langton, when I once, in pain, wrote to
her for a few lines of comfort, wrote back — " His
grace is sufficient." His grace was sufficient for
sixty-five years in bed to her. This work of cheer
— her book — has led me to write the pages of my
own biography, trusting that in a feeble way it may
help a few as her own life helped many. The army

55
of invalids is large. " They also serve who only
stand and wait."
The lesson of patience from Chloe is the great
est of lessons. Chloe Langton's cousin recom
mended me to write this work — Mary Denison of
New Hartford. She was a noble woman, and my
mother's nurse.
To those who are condemned to what may seem
a living death, I would say, a life in bed has its com
pensations. As a professor, in active Hfe, giving lessons, I
never knew when a heart attack would come on,
or when I might be carried home. I can remember
on one occasion, when calling on a young lady
relative, an attack commenced, and I lingered and
lingered, like the young man in the daily papers,
who encounters a bull dog at the end of his visit.
And still I lingered ! Finally I had to explain, and
ask for a carriage in a crestfallen way.
In the midst of a class at times, too, it is humili
ating to be seized in the midst of what is intended
to be an interesting lecture, made me feel to a
certain extent that this is a dangerous world to pass
a night in, on account of the unexpected.
An Engagemefit in the Catacombs of Paris.
My entire life seems to be a strange one. I be
came engaged to a sweet girl in the catacombs at
Paris. Becoming engaged in a balloon, one hears
of, but underground — No.
1 had procured tickets for a party of friends,

56
much to the disgust of a brother of one, a little
fellow who had already protested against our visit
ing the sewers, which, in Paris, are streets lighted,
and cleaner at the sides than many American cities.
The youngster, with wide-open eyes of horror,
screamed, " Oh, don't you do it! You'll get stuck
in the pipes! "
We descended into the catacombs, walking down
a number of solid, stone-cut steps into the bowels
of the earth, each holding a lighted candle. There
were perhaps about thirty of us. The drips from
mine descended on a lovely bonnet below me, and
I sorrowed greatly, but forgot to tell! On putting
my hand back of me, I found my overcoat illustrated
in the same way.
Then, single file, we went through these weird,
rock-cut paths, and tried to keep together, as the
guides had ordered us to, as a party had been nearly
lost some time before, by straying.
SkuHs neatly piled up on each side, trimmed with
cross-bones, etc. And so we went on for a long
distance, through the dim, damp, chilly, rock-hewn
paths. A couple behind us lagged and then disappeared
in some side cut pathway. It was all the work of
a few seconds. I told the young lady I was with to
follow the main party, and on no account to turn
back. Then I ran swiftly back, but missed the ab
sent ones. The brave girl, instead of following the
party, ran after me! We were in a dark under
ground hollow chamber, or room where religious

57
services were held at times, cut in the solid lime
stone rock.
I gazed in consternation at the girl. " Have you
forgotten the fate of the travelers who were lost for
seven days, and do you know that this may result
in death for us both? "
We stood gazing at one another by the light of
our dim candles.
It may be more pleasant to die with some people
than to live with others — still the Paris Catacombs
were not attractive as a place of demise. I have been
to the tomb of the model lovers, Heloise and
Abelard, at Pere-la-Chaise cemetery (Paris), and it
is more cheerful up there in the sunlight.
Of course there was no opportunity for a scolding
then. The damp, musty, dead-bone odor was dis
agreeable, but the wet drippings from the solid rock
ceilings were cold, and pneumonia-threatening.
Fortunately we succeeded, shortly after, in joining
the party, after I had made a dismal asset of our two
small candles and a small one in my pocket which
were all we had against darkness or starvation.
Plus one small gumdrop.
The catacorribs at Rome and Paris seem some
what similar in gruesomeness of aspect. I have
been in both. They are hardly a pleasant place,
even for lovers.
The French catacombs were made during the
French Revolution, as receptacles for bodies which
had been buried seven years, as graves " a perpet
uity" are too dear for many in Paris.
3*

58
The Roman ones date back to the time of the
early Christians, just after Christ's death. I re
member at Rome my mother and I were alone in
the catacombs outside the city. She eyed the guide,
then told me to walk behind him while she walked
behind me. My hand in an inside coat pocket held
a stilletto.

CHAPTER IV.
Loneliness.
After my beloved sister and mother were both
dead, I took comfort in having in sight an article
of clothing worn by each.
Near the bed, I had my sister's long, black, fur
cloak hung, and often when lonely, for hours to
gether, I would pull over the fur and place a part
of it under my head, or rather, cheek. It seemed
to bring up my sweet sister before me, and I could
doze lightly, and more easily.
Then, too, I had an old hat of my mother's, a
kind of dark green Tyrolean, placed on the top of a
wardrobe where I could see it without its being
visible to visitors.
The fur cloak was not so conspicuous an eccen
tricity, as its softness and beauty made it an agree
able sight.
At times, when I saw friends, mother and daugh
ter caressing one another before me, it made me
sad to think I had only a garment to love.
(Ah, no! I had humanity and Christ.)
Finally, one day, a poor lady with gray hair came
in from the bleak wintry streets, clad in a light,
summer garment. Her nose was blue. I called
attention to the aristocratic condition of her nasal
appendage. (59)

6o

" Are you not cold in such a light garment? "
" No. Oh No." Just then a hacking cough,
interrupted by a half chilly shake.
" Not cold in that? "
" Well, not very}'
I told her to lift down the fur cloak.
" It just fitted! "
Such things always do just fit when you do not
wish them to!
" Take it," I said, " and get away quickly with it,
before I repent."
She got away quickly, but I repented, before she
reached the bottom of the stairs. I repented and
repeated to myself, " The Lord loves a cheerful
giver." But as I never got cheerful over that gift,
I am inclined to think that the Lord never lost any
love on that particular present.
As to the hat, the sun faded and faded it, until it
was dirty, light-green, and dismal and untidy, and
unlike my mother; so I was sorry I had not been a
cheerful giver, and given that away. It finally
reached a state where it could not be given away,
or looked at. So I mourned over one because I
had given it away, and over the other, because I had
not. Such is life!
It reminds me there was a very pretty little pair
of slippers of my dead sister, which I had placed in
a basket near my bed, where I could see them.
Unfortunately a young girl who was working for my
mother had no suitable foot-gear, and so my slip
pers, after a struggle, went to the girl in question.

61
Yes, I mourned the loss of those tiny slippers.
" The Lord loveth a cheerful giver." StiU, in
spite of the uncheerful giver, probably the girl en
joyed the slippers just as well, and they prevented
her from getting cold quite as effectually.
Ho-w curious we mortals are! I could never
have brought myself to read my dead sister's diary,
or even see it around. I gave it by Lillian's wish
to her lifelong friend, the novelist writer and lect
urer, Harriette Keyser of New York, author of the
novel " On the Borderland," a novel of which my
noble sister Lillian is the principal character, and
to whom it was dedicated. In the same way I could
not bear to see, or read the diaries of the girl I was
engaged to, but who died suddenly, after two days
of pneumonia. Yet I kept an afghan quilt which
she was knitting for me when she died, at Vassar
college, and used it on my bed for years.
I am inclined to think that the sight of loved
handwriting makes the loneliness and desolation
too near!
And yet, I kept some letters of my dead sister,
directed to myself, and it was a comfort. to see her
handwriting at times. I had also kept near me
letters from my dead sweetheart. It seemed incon
sistent, but are we not all inconsistent on this earth?
and shall we not remain so until we see through
the veil? I have a photograph of my mother's and
sister's graves with the space on my mother's right
for my cast-off clothing, viz., the body.
I experienced pangs each time in giving away

62
apparel of my dead sister and mother. One little
Charlotte Corday fichu I kept in a little box for six
years, then gave it to a pure-faced child whose face
showed beauty and purity, like my sister. I thought
it could rest worthily on those pure shoulders and
beneath those Virgin Mary-like eyes.
Love and Delirium.
Love conquers delirium, as well as death. The
seeming absence of the soul, or reason, in insanity,
the delirium of pneumonia, fevers, etc., has at times
puzzled me as a medical as well as a psychological
student. Dr. Monk, a once celebrated physi
cian, who was an officer on the staff of a Governor-
General of Canada, I once overheard telling my
mother that he did not befieve in the soul, as he
had lifted the eyelids of many a hospital ward
sleeper, to find the eye expressionless and dead,
soulless. What a terrible shock it is to us when, after a
first stroke of apoplexy, or during the fever of pneu
monia, the loved one suddenly answers at random,
and the mind begins to wander. \A'^hat a tightening
at the heart it occasions! What a feeling of cold,
calm despair, making one turn to the Cross of Cal
vary! My mother had a number of attacks of pneu
monia. One evening during one of the attacks,
the nurse, Chloe Langton's cousin, said, " Professor,
your mother will not take the medicine and nourish-

63
ment, she is so out of her head. Can yon speak to
her?" I sadly complied. To my astonishment, a ready
assent and obedience was rendered. The answers
were sane whenever / spoke!
As the same event occurred when my sister was
sick unto death it comforted me. For though the
mind might wander, yet when the one most loved
spoke, the voice was readily obeyed, proving that
love conquers delirium, as it does death itself,
finally, without doubt. It brought to my mind what
my madonna-faced sister once said to me. "Charles,
you have suffered more than most men, but you
have also been loved more than most men. That
is a compensation. No woman ever loved a man
more than you were loved by mother, sister, and
sweetheart." Ah, if I was so fortunate myself, in these blessed
three, others must have been equally favored, in
spite of my sister's view. Shall pure love, the best
of all, die? It is eternal; and so are we.
Called Back!
At one time, fearing that the continual sight of a
sick man in bed might be depressing for my mother
and sister, and thinking that my mother could get
more (and more easily) attention, if I were but gone,
I made up my mind that I would go to the Hartford
Hospital, and so relieve my loved ones.
Then I wrote and asked if I could have a private

64
room, taking only such drugs as I thought would
not harm me, as I had studied medicine in France.
I had planned to go off in a carriage when mother
and sister were both absent, fearing the effect of a
solemn parting.
The answer from the Hartford Hospital was that
it would not be allowed; that I must take such drugs
as were prescribed. I meant the whole scheme as
a self-sacrifice. But my sister found it out laten
In sorrow, she sat, and wept and sobbed, " If you
had gone, I should have taken a carriage in five
minutes and dragged you right back. How could
you? How could you, dear little boy? " (That
was my pet name.)
An attack I had of sickness, showed me quickly
my mistake. An attack of neuralgia of the heart
brought me into a semi-comatose state. It was the
worst attack I had experienced. I had generafiy
been successful in hiding my heavy attacks from my
mother and sister, but on this occasion, although
late at night, my probably unconscious groans
must have awakened my mother, who called my
sister up. Lillian, half clad, threw herself in an
agony of grief on my bed, clasped my hands, and
threw her arms around my neck, and, finally, as I
grew more and more rigid, I heard her say, as she
hugged me and kissed me, " Oh, for God's sake,
Charley, do not go! Stay with me! I can't live
without you, I can't." Then she crept up to my
face and placed her mouth to mine, trying to induce

65
better breathing by her own sweet breath, and en
forced respiration. And so I was called back!
I heard all and saw all through my half-closed
eyelids, only things seemed far — far off. To my
sister I seemed already dead, so far gone.
And here I would say to nurse, attendants, and
relatives, to treat the semi and fully comatose patients
as if fully awake. Hovering between two worlds,
one sees and hears many things. Treat them
lovingly. The hands of those in comatose state shoidd
often be held, so that one may realize that one passes
from friends in this world to friends in the next.
When my mother died, in the next room, I so
longed to get to her to hold her hand. Fortunately,
the doctor told Margaret, her calm, gentle nurse,
to hold her hands, that she might not die desolate.
(This nurse looked like her dead daughter, and had
been chosen by her on this account.)
Then, too, strong attempts can often be made to
call the dying back. Children, and even adults,
may at times be called back by sweet loved music,
or loved songs, with associations, or appeals such
as my sister made. I came back through will power
called into play by the frantic voice of my loved
sister. By will power I have at times prevented myself
from fainting. Did I ever think of going to a hos
pital to relieve others, again? Oh no! One lesson
was sufficient.
Once my sister Lillian suddenly observed with
fervor, " I'm so glad you are sick."

66

I looked at her in amazement, inquiringly.
" Because now I have you all to myself, ahd you
have been an ideal brother."
What an inexhaustible love has woman! And
how the world will change when she has an equal
voice with man! What a comfort to look back, as
I lie in bed, and think of what mother and sister
said to me! It renders my lot sweet!
My dear mother once told me I had always been
a good son to her, except in one particular, viz. :-r-
that I had persisted in hanging up little, trifling
objects on my waUs! Dozens of objects, so that
my room looked like a retired buccaneer.
If I had not failed in one particular, I should have
feared kind oversight, but the specification cheered
me. I had certainly failed woefully in this matter,
and could only plead that I had taken down thirty-
eight articles. I was reminded that I had left up a
few hundred.
It was too true. Invalids, however, need many
things to look at when cut off completely from the
outside world. Then, too, my window did not have
a view on the street. Invalids should have it.
Friends might bring an occasional painting, or
engraving, to be hung up and left for a short while.
Those who have been invalids, confined to bed for
months, and who get well, make invaluable nurses,
as a rule, and good friends to invalids. To use a
slang expression, they " have been there."

CHAPTER V.
Sad Partings, and Woman Suffrage.
" I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist
in bearing its burdens, BY NO MEANS EXCLUDING WOMEN."—
Abrahatn Lincoln.
The sad partings of the lifelong invalid, Chloe
Langton, with her relatives, one by one, remind
me of certain sad leave takings.
On one occasion, during a very severe attack of
pneumonia, in Hartford, my mother's physician
came to my bedside and informed me that as my
mother had but a few hours to live, it would be well
to take leave of her, and to inform her of her ap
proaching end.
I begged the physician not to tell her, thinking
there might be a slight chance of life which would
be shocked out of her by the tidings.
I had the nurse place me on a couch and wheel
me to her bedside. I could only kiss her hot,
'feverish hand, which was feebly held towards me,
with a wan, sweet smile.
She looked, indeed, as if her moments were num
bered, and yet she lived some years after, and only
a month later she said, " Poor, poor boy ! Why
didn't you let me die? Now you will later have
all the suffering of watching over me to be gone
through with again." (67)

68
I told her, as any loving son would, that as long
as there was an ounce of her alive, I wished to see
and love it.
Believing that a pure, good life, which my wise
mother had led as a reformer and pioneer of
woman's advancement, woman suffrage, and reform
generally, was the best passport to a higher life, I
did not follow the doctor's advice. Blessed be
those who help on God's chariot of progress!
Deathbed repentances may be poetical, but they
are not Christian, since the works are left undone.
" Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."
My dear mother lived three years after this at
tack, and when I told her of the medical advice,
she half shuddered, and said, "Thank you; you
knew best, the shock would have killed me. You
really saved my life."
The fact is, many a dear one has been hypnotized
into dying through mistaken medical and clerical
advice. When one's relatives, doctors, and spirit
ual advisers expect one to go, one departs, as a rule,
only too often.
On another occasion, a pleurisy attack, the doctor
gave up all hope; thought my mother might live
till night.
My mother for several days had spoken of
making a will, as, on account of my being a bed
ridden invalid, with heart disease, she feared that
the shock of her death would cause mine immedi
ately, leaving her affairs in disorder.

69
As her pulse was so high, I feared that making
a will would excite her and destroy her only chance
of life. The doctor thought her dying. As it
seemed to weigh so very heavily on her mind, I
went right ahead, got witnesses, etc. To the
surprise of all, she immediately got better, within
a half hour! Later, when recovered, she said it
saved her life, in a measure, as she worried so, that
a great load was lifted off. The fever left, she told
me, because her mind was immediately at rest.
These weary, sad partings, make me yearn for
the land of the sweet bye and bye.
On another occasion, after my mother had ar
ranged to go to New York city for medical treat
ment, leaving me in Hartford, she took an affection
ate farewell of me and descended the stairs, then
slowly walked back and forth in the hall, listening
at my door for a recall.
Then she returned, opened the door and said,
" If you love me, why don't you say ' Don't go ' ?
Say only one word — stay. I do not wish to go,
I hate this trip and the search for help. Say
' Stay '."
I repHed gently, " It is because I do love you
that I cannot say it. It is for your health."
And so the weary journey was undertaken as
usual, without benefit, like many a previous voyage.
Then came the great final voyage — and I was
alone in the world. Consummatum est!

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Extra Thoughts and Notes on Woman Suffrage,
My mother, before her death, asked me to con
tinue her work for woman suffrage, and reform.
"To zvork on for the advancement of woman,"
I told her I thought my life work was done with
her earthly career and work finished. I hardly felt
the courage to continue.
My mother gazed at me earnestly, then shook
her head. " No! Go on! Go on! Promise me."
I did so.
My sister was an equally strong suffragist, and
my promise to her to work for woman's equality
before the law was equally binding. My diary con
tains a letter from her, which shows how strongly
a noble woman could feel on the subject. This
letter has been my compass in life in spite of its too
strong sisterly praise. "June 19, 1881.
My dear, dear boy,
/ feel as if I coidd hug you to think of your
speaking in woman's favor! It was a nice thing to
do, and still nicer for a young man (for it's being
ahead of the age) to have justice enough to stand
up and state his views.
When Charles Sumner died I felt as if the pilot
of the nation had gone; no one was worthy to suc
ceed him; and when I read your little speech, it
suddenly seemed as if Charles Sumner had come
back again. There was that directness of fact that

7T
carried its own logic — not a mile of argument to con
vince — the facts did it.
I could not give you a greater compliment than
to liken you to Sumner. It pleased me so much
that I felt light-hearted all day.
Susan B. (Anthony) clapped you! Is she not
the smartest woman you ever heard? Seven years
since I heard her, but she convinced me that I
needed a ballot, and that I did not need a husband.
Your loving sister (with kisses),
LILLIAN YOUNG."
This letter of undue praise was written in refer
ence to an account published of the Woman Suf
frage Convention, of sixteen years ago, in Hartford,
(I have kept it as a kind of compass guide), when,
at said meeting, I was the only man who spoke.
After my speech, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker
asked me to dinner, with Susan B. Anthony, but I
was not sufficiently strong to go.
My mother took me to a woman suffrage conven
tion when I was but five years old, so I was nour
ished early on the doctrines of justice to woman.
I have always opposed the double standard of
morality, one measure for woman — one for man —
the larger! Such a thing is dishonest.
I remember when a young student in Bavaria
(Germany), at a social gathering, maintaining that
it was just as bad to defend one measure of justice
for one sex and another for the opposite, as cheat
ing in weight at the butcher's, baker's, or candle
stick maker's.

72
Why should I not admire woman, and believe
in her equality? With a devoted mother and sister,
brave and faithful tp the cause " unto death."
My sister spoke at an equal rights meeting not a
week before an attack of apoplexy.
My mother, years later, dragged herself into my
room, the last week of her life, supported by a child
and cane. Then reclining on pillows placed in two
chairs, she, dying, dictated to me an article for prog
ress and reform, an article on burning the garbage
of Hartford. Concerned to the last for her fellow
beings! (She wished years ago to lighten the bur
dens of American woman, and so wrote a work on
" French Flats," " European Modes of Living," etc.
(The editions are all exhausted now.)
Dying, both sister and mother, they worked to
the last as Christ intended us all to do — love one
another. " Inasmuch as ye did it in my name, ye
did it unto me."
Dying, my mother calmly sat and told me which
letters and papers to destroy; nodding her head
calmly — yes, or no, as I read short extracts, being
too weak myself to read aloud much. Is it not ter
rible to tear or burn the literary work and letters of
a lifetime? And under such circumstances! A
dying mother and a bedridden son opposite, who,
himself would never leave the house until carried
to the small plot of real estate which we all inherit, ~
sooner or later. (Happy are those who then have
nothing on their conscience.)
There were hundreds of pages of foolscap closely

73
written, some belonging to a work on Egypt, on
which my mother had spent years, yet whi<;h she
ordered destroyed. I said, " Why not leave those
for posterity?" A sad shake of the head. This
destroying one's literary remains is like destroy
ing one's self literally! Yet life is fuH of such sad
pictures. Those of you who have assisted in
breaking up and leaving the old homestead can
understand. I have myself a trunk containing my
literary remains.
Women stand the great shocks of life best. My
experience of women has been to admire their great
and good qualities, and this throughout my entire
Hfe. Did not an angelic girl I was engaged to years
ago, when I released her on account of a life of
hopeless sickness before me, say, " Well, but that is
the reason, partly, why I love you. I wish to take
care of you."
She is in heaven now, having died of pneumonia,
after two days' illness, leaving word to me to meet
her in heaven, and saying that she had always cared
for me during years of separation, although I had
recommended her to marry a noble man. I had
thought it best, as I became a confirmed invalid,
to give up all claims to her hand. Just before
dying, she was working on an afghan for me, which
I carefully treasured.
Why should I not admire woman's bravery?
At sea, in a storm-swept vessel, with doors swept
away by the mighty billows, and water to the knees
4

74
in lower cabins, with engines stopping, I saw men
cursing and pallor-stricken, oblivious of all but
themselves, apparently; giving themselves over to
drinking heavily, to drown the senses, and stupify
themselves to the awful fate before them. Yet the
women were calm and prayerful; white, but digni
fied. They behaved better than the men right
straight through, as a rule.
And it is in the hour of death and the day of
judgment that conduct tells.
My own teeth, at one moment, seemed to mildly
chatter. I was saying to myself, " My God, to
drown like a rat in a cage ! " I wished for air. I
felt if I could only get out on deck to be drowned!
My mother's pretty face was pale but calm, as doors
and wood-work were swept away.
In my long illness of fourteen years or more in
bed, taken care of by children or women, I have
had cause to be grateful for their gentleness and
helpfulness. Above all, for their patience, which,
St. James says, leads to perfection.
It seems to me that perhaps Christ chose twelve
men as Apostles, feeling that their record of un
faithfulness and cowardice was necessary. Sex ar
rogance prevailed completely in those days. Christ
raised the Magdalen and, in a gentle way, told the
male prostitutes who brought her, to be gone.
Twelve Apostles — men, and all cowards and un
faithful; that certainly was a woman suffrage lesson!
Twelve women would not have deserted Christ
unanimously! Indeed, of the three women who

75
most ministered to Jesus, all three were faithful —
the two Marys and Martha!
And yet, translators of the New Testament omit
the title of deaconess when applied to woman, giv
ing falsely "servant." Shame!!!! That desertion
of all those twelve apostles should teach us men
humility. At the Methodist Convention in New York city
several years ago, when the discussion about women
delegates took place, a colored preacher asked, if
Christ intended women to preach, why he had not
appointed a woman as an apostle.
I wrote to this man (he was called that) on a
postal-card, with large letters, and asked him when,
and on what occasion Christ had appointed a negro
apostle. I also asked if he, personaHy, had for
gotten that it was a woman of Hartford, Connecti
cut, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, zvho freed him
and his race.
Even a woman. Miss Carroll of Maryland, made
the plan of campaign which ended the rebellion.
This is historically proved.
I never received an answer, yet the card was
delivered at the convention. It was just as well, as
he would have received a reply.
I wrote at the same time to the Queen of Temper
ance, Miss Frances Willard, recommending, man-
fashion, and with impatience, which was not neces
sary in a man years and years in bed, that, as the
women delegate credentials were refused, they

76
should shake the dust of that unchristian place from
off their sandals, and depart.
I received from Miss Willard the following good,
sweet reply: " Evanston, III, May 23, 1886.
Prof. C. Howard Young,
Dear Sir:
I received your card with the courteous
and chivalric suggestion to me as a discarded mem
ber of the general conference, and appreciated your
kind thought, but am quite of the opinion that the
better way is to keep the peace, and work on in
patience, until all comes right, as it surely will.
Yours with best wishes and thanks for your kind
words,
FRANCES E. WILLARD."
The note stands out in its sweetness and gentle
ness, all the more in its contrast to my own war
like note which, probably, man-like, was wanting
in sweetness and gentleness.
I seem to have been on hand to interpose my oar,
feeble, perhaps, and weak, but still an oar to help
push on a little the boat of progress. Thus, seven
years later, I received from Miss Willard and Lady
Somerset, in February, 1895, the following:
" Hotel Brunswick,
Boston, Feb. 27, 1895.
Prof. C. Howard Young,
Kind Friend: —
I wish to thank you for the manly
and convincing reply made by you in the Hartford

77
Post to the idiotic assault of a Providence paper.
Lady Henry Somerset much appreciates your kind
ness, and we both wish you to know that we are not
unmindful of your kind interest in our state and
standing, as reformers.
Believe me, yours with every good wish,
FRANCES E. WILLARD."
It occurs to me that my readers might like to see
the letter in question, so I add it below, and the
article also which called it forth, which was reprinted
in the Hartford Courant.
The article in the Providence Journal represents
the views of a great many men, I am sorry to say,
in A.D. 1897.
"A Suggestion made to Anti-Woman Suffragists.
" To the Editor of The Post:
Sir: — The following is from the Providence
Journal: ' The wealthy and eloquent Lady Henry Somer
set is to address the good people of Providence next
Friday evening upon the advantages of female suf
frage. Why a foreign woman, possessed of great
landed estates, and living in a gorgeous castle,
should come to Rhode Island to tell us how to run
the politics of our little commonwealth is a mystery
which no masculine mind has been able to solve.
When a rich man like Mr. Astor goes to England
and buys a newspaper, her ladyship attacks him in
strong language, yet she claims the privilege of
using her wealth to enable her to travel about and
scold Americans because they decline to add great

78
masses of ignorant voters to the throng which now
assembles at the polls on each election day. There
is surely enough need for reform in England to
keep the nobility and gentry busy for many years
without sending them over here to interfere with the
details of our franchise.' "
Here is an answer.
" I. In the first place Lady Somerset is not a
foreigner, as the English are our cousins and be
long in the family.
2. In the second place, the concern of every
noble woman is to help on the advancement of
woman in every part of the world, as they are all
members of the same human family. When woman
can vote everywhere, purity in state and city will
prevail and wars will cease. It is not at all gallant
in the Providence Journal to qualify the masses ol
women as ignorant.
3. The concern of every male citizen in the
United States should be to see that his mother, wife,
and sister is no longer deprived of a vote. The com
mittee of our capital on woman suffrage) has just
voted in favor of granting municipal suffrage. All
should welcome the noble English Christian (whom
we all regret not hearing on account of illness)
countess, who tries to help women in all parts of the
world, so that they may vote as in England for the
last 20 years.
As to the masculine minds of Rhode Island it
would be weH if they ceased to deny justice to
woman because she is a woman. The same mav

79
be said of Connecticut, perhaps, unless the legis
lature will follow the advice of above committee.
It would be well if our friends, the enemies,
would turn around and advocate woman's right
to vote, as this vote is sure to come, as God's justice
always does, and it is better to help on God's chariot
of progress than to strive to stop it by preventing
the purest and best part of humanity from voting.
Respectfully, dear sir,
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
" Hartford, Feb. 22, 1895."
Women Medical Students, at Paris, France.
I am glad that my destiny allowed me to be pres
ent at so many battles for women.
When women first began to make their appear
ance at the medical school (Ecole de Medicine) the
writer was present. The girls, apparently Rus
sians, sat quietly near the dissecting tables. I well
remember the stamping feet and cat-calls the male
members made. Some unclean remarks were made.
The faces of the girls grew paler, or redder, accord
ing to the temperament. The din became fearful.
I arose, and during a lull in the tumult, called out:
" Oh, cowards! a hundred men against a few girls."
I regret to say that I shook my fist.
It was a curious scene. I remember, in my
righteous indignation (is any wrath righteous?)
shaking my fist again and again, and fairly reeling
with excitement. Then I cried, " Ou est la chival-

So
rie Francaise?" (Where is the vaunted French
chivalry?) Probably the tumult alone saved me from numer
ous challenges, or the fact that I was known to be
afflicted with heart disease. Then, too, among the
students I had friends and pupils in languages.
As a lifelong woman suffragist, and the son of
one, and the brother of another, I hope that some
day the principle our government was founded on
(" Governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed ") will be accepted as the
authorization by the United States Constitution
of woman's right to vote.
Our Supreme Court judges will so interpret when
public opinion forces them to do so. Meantime we
can commit to heart what our martyr prophet
President said:
" I go for all sharing the privileges of the govern
ment who assist 'in bearing its burdens, by no means
excluding women." Signed, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Out of respect to my mother's and sister's mem
ory, I give the resolutions of the Hartford Equal
Rights Club.
Resolutions upon my sister's death:
" That the death of our young friend, the bright
and gifted Sarah Lillian Young, is a great loss to
this club, a loss that cannot be made good."
It spoke of her as cut off in the morning of her
day, and in the midst of her usefulness.

8i

Resolutions on the death of Sarah Gilman Young:
" Whereas, In the loss qf Sarah Gilman Young, we,
the Hartford Equal Rights Club, feel a sincere
sorrow, therefore,
"Resolved, That we recognized in her a woman of
rare intellectual endowment, of strong convictions,
and an ardent advocate of all that tells for the ad
vancement of humanity.
"Resolved, That in her study of social and eco
nomic conditions, her close observation among
European nations, as well as in our own country, she
brought to bear great acuteness as well as breadth
of mind, and was a faithful laborer for the progress
of mankind.
"Resolved, That, in her advocacy of measures for
the advancement of woman, a subject that lay very
close to her heart, she was untiring to the last, and
that in the richness and originaHty of her papers
before the club, we found an incentive to zeal and
devotion to the cause we represent. And lastly,
"Resolved, That, having appreciated her presence
at our meetings, and enjoyed her papers, for this
year, at all meetings of the club, her name shall be
mentioned in memoriam."
I had placed upon my mother's tombstone (a
cross) in 1892, the year she died, the following lines
from the resolutions of the club :

82

" Sarah Gilman Young,
A most faithful laborer for human progress.
Advocate of the advancement of women."
On the tombstone of my sweet sister:
" Sarah Lillian Young,
A Christian worker for Equal Rights,
Faithful unto death."
>^
She was faithful unto death to woman's cause.
Both are buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery, and their
tombs bear evidence to their noble life work for
women. I believe that these are the first tomb
stones in the country with woman suffrage inscrip
tions upon them.
Woman Suffrage Decoration Day.
The Hartford Equal Rights Club, in June, 1894,
inaugurated the custom of decorating the graves
of dead woman suffragists. It was right and fitting
that the soldiers of the yellow banner should be
remembered. The Hartford Times gave several
columns to a description of the ceremonies.
My mother's and sister's dear graves were not
forgotten. The yellow banners were planted over
their graves — the only flag which is not responsible
for a single drop of blood: a flag which means an
end to war, and the brothel, and to the saloon.
The following poem was then printed in the
Times:

83
"To decorate these silent graves,
We bring our fragrant flowers :
These loved ones who are resting here.
Were lifelong friends of ours.
"Brave advocates of woman's rights.
They met with ridicule and scorn ;
Still, for the just and righteous cause.
They toiled at eve and early morn.
"So, cherishing their memory,
Admiring friends meet here to-day.
That, gathered round their resting place.
This fragrant tribute they may pay."
The friends of woman suffrage, in memory of this
day, presented me with a large photograph of the
prominent woman suffragists throughout the coun
try. It is hung in my woman suffrage department,
on the wall of my sick-room.
I add a few lines from the Woman's Tribune of
Jan. 29, 1893, relative to my mother:
"MRS. SARAH GILMAN YOUNG."
" Mrs. Sarah Gilman Young, of Hartford, who
has passed into the beyond during the last year, was
a most earnest worker for woman suffrage. She
was a writer of high merit, a great traveler, having,
with her son, spent thirteen years abroad, closely
observing all modes of life, taking up vigorously
and using both tongue and pen for any movement
towards reforms and the betterment of the world.
She was a valued member of our Hartford Equal
Rights Club, making many suggestions which

84
caused us to defer to and highly respect her judg
ment, and we deeply deplore her loss and miss her
presence. In connection with her, was always as
sociated her son, Prof. C. Howard Young, so weH-
known as an ardent suffragist, he being an invalid,
and having spent the last nine years confined to his
bed. But while his body is in bondage, his mind
and will are active, and always turned in the direc
tion of progress. He writes for different journals,
both here and abroad, and does a great and good
work for humanity. Yet woman suffrage is, in his
opinion, at the bottom of all reforms, and he is most
earnest in advocating and pushing it everywhere.
The value of his efforts for our cause can hardly be
measured. He and his mother were urged to take
the editing and management of one of the most
prominent woman suffrage papers in Europe, but
circumstances prevented. The good wishes and
hearty thanks of all women should go out to him,
helping him to health and freedom to do all he de
sires for our, and every good work.
S. E. BROWNE."
Before my mother's death, when slowly dying,
a letter came to her, asking for a sketch of her life
and a photograph, for publication. It was for a
book called " Celebrated Women of America." She
opened it and silently closed it, but said nothing;
merely shook her head. I trust she wiH not shake
her head at reading these lines in a spiritual world.
Although I have always worked for woman suf-

85
frage and woman's advancement, I have worked
doubly since my mother's and sister's death —
worked in my mattress grave, fearing that " the
darkness cometh when no man can work," — fear
ing that with the neuralgia of the eyes, to which I
am a subject, blindness might intervene, when I
should regret that I had done so little, or that a
third shock of paralysis might come with some
works undone.
And so, far and wide, I have answered as far as
my strength would allow challenges of anti-woman
suffragists. I give below a humorous attack on myself:
" The following correspondence was sent to the
club by Professor C. H. Young, of this city. It
arose from a short communication he had in the
New York Tribune a few weeks ago, which ran as
follows :
" ' To the Editor of The Tribune:
Sir. — The ladies who in future do not think them
selves worthy of a vote can remain at home and not
vote. Is it not a crime and an impertinence, how
ever, to petition the legislature to prevent the
women who wish to vote from doing so? Will not
in the future the list of anti-suffrage petitioners be
looked upon as a roll of infamy, and the roll of the
petitioners for suffrage be looked upon as a roll of
honor?
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
" This called forth a reply, and in it the Profes
sor's correspondent, probably one of the anti-

m
woman-suffrage petitioners, calls him too young
and fresh, and thinks he is one who has committed
an impertinence ' by interfering outside the baili
wick ' of his own state, and that possibly he needs
reminding the New York constitutional convention
is to work for reform in that state, and that there
fore he should ' restrict the workings ' of his ' pon
derous intellect ' to improving the ' Blue Laws ' of
his own State: refers him to a letter in the Tribune
advocating restricted vote for men and women;
wonders if he is not a Roman Catholic, and signs
him or herself, ' One who values women by the cri
terion of mother, wife, and daughter.' "
To this Professor Young replies:
" Dear Enemy to Reform — I am not too young,
I am just the age the Lord made me. As to being
' too fresh,' just the contrary. I have been eleven
years in bed, and am what slangists would call a
' back number,' As to ' interfering outside my own
State,' guess I will ask for inter-State secretaryship
for correspondent of Hartford Equal Rights Club,
so that I can tackle the whole forty-four United
States, when they go wrong. At present I am only
foreign correspondent.
"'Blue Laws of Connecticut!' Well, I have
worked for a Constitutional convention to reform
them. No, I am not a Roman Catholic; merely a
bigoted Episcopalian, the next worse thing, prob
ably you think. 'Ponderous intellect!' Thanks!
Is yours ponderous, too? If you feel eager for a
fray, I am provided with a tame white rat and a

87
toothpick, and can still fight, even in a mattress
grave, for woman's rights. I have been fighting
for that ever since a child, and still relish it. My
mother and sister, both noble suffragists — a fact
recorded on their gravestones — enjoined on me
when they were dying, to fight for woman suffrage,
the grandest cause the world has ever seen. That
is my commission.
Yours, as ever, dear critic, for woman suffrage,
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
EQUAL RIGHTS CLUB IN HARTFORD.
(Woman's Tribune, Washington.)
"The June 23d meeting of the Hartford, Conn.,
Equal Rights Club.
" Some interesting correspondence between Prof.
C. Howard Young, of Hartford, and an ' Anti,' in
the New York Tribune was laid before the club.
To the criticism that he was impertinent in inter
fering outside his own bailiwick, he replied that it
was true he was at present only foreign correspon
dent for the club, but he would ask for an inter-State
secretaryship that would enable him to tackle the
whole forty-four United States when they go wrong.
Prof. Young, although through an injury has been
confined to his bed for eleven years, is a most
earnest and helpful member of the club with an eye
on the movement the world, over. He is the son
and brother of the Mrs. Young and LilHan, whose
memory was honored by the decoration of their
graves on which is recorded the fact of their de-

88

votion to the suffrage cause. Prof. Young re
ceived his commission to fight in this cause as a
dying bequest from them, and nobly fulfills the
charge. However, the Tribune thinks the office of
foreign correspondent quite sufficient authority to
qualify him to tackle the New York ' antis,' for any
thing more foreign to the principles of our govern
ment and the spirit of our institutions could hardly
be conceived." July 23, 1894.
The club of Hartford (H. E. R. C.) and also the
state association, made me secretary for foreign
correspondence. Among my protests was one in
a half-dozen journals against placing men's names
only on the Washington Library.
" Prof. C. Howard Young, a man of fine instincts,
highly cultured, who returned from Europe some
twelve years ago to take an invalid's couch for life,
is one of the most earnest workers for equal rights.
He should be one of our club directors, so fully
does he believe in woman suffrage and so closely
does he keep up with affairs. His pen is ready on
all matters of governmental and society betterment,
but a heart affection prevents any voluminous writ
ing. Wyoming and other suffrage flags and badges
are hung among the pictures on his walls, and when
one calls on him, it is to find his bed covered with
newspaper clippings in regard to the advancement
of the world, and especially the emancipation of
woman. Were he a less gentle man, his shout,
when Colorado declared for suffrage, would have
been heard at the capitol, for one woman of fine ear

89
heard the quicker throbbing of his earnest heart
without going to see him. Genial, generous, and
hopeful, we commend any discouraged club to send
delegates to him for supplies of good cheer."
Children and women are the ministering angels
of the sick room, and whatever I have done for them
has been rendered back many fold. Except as ye
becomes as one of these, ye shall in no wise enter
the Kingdom of Heaven.
When woman has the vote. Thy Kingdom on
earth will be a reality.
Below I give a few lines which I cut out of a
number of the Woman's Tribune (Washington), of
the date of June i, 1895. The author of the lines,
a veteran woman suffragist, Clara Berwick Colby,
is wife of the former Assistant Attorney-General
of the United States.
" Hurried as I was, I would not leave Hartford
without seeing Professor C. Howard Young, one
indeed of the faithful — with a tender loving faith
fulness to the dead, to the cause for which they
worked, to all the 'rights that need assistance' and to
the good and the true the world over, from which
helpful thought waves come to his bed of pain. An
injury in the back has confined him to his couch
for twelve years, still he keeps good courage, teaches
languages, surrounds himself with pictures and me
mentoes of suffragists, and is an active and valued
member of the Equal Rights Club. Indeed, so
complete is his ken of the movement that he holds
the office of foreign correspondent, and not only

9°
makes his reports to the club, but frequently writes
for the papers on woman suffrage topics. He is a
unique and interesting personality, and Tribune
readers will send good thoughts to the strong, sweet
spirit thus bravely learning the lessons of life from
his sore affliction, and from efforts to rise superior
to the limitations of his condition. The one thing
which he would rather than all else have mentioned
in the Tribune, is that on the monuments to his
mother and sister, Liflian, he caused to be inscribed
the fact of their devotion to the cause of woman
suffrage." I am grateful to the writer of the above lines.
When a man has been confined to bed fourteen
years as an invalid, and remembers that invalid
means in-valid, or good for nothing (that is the ety
mology of the word), he is apt to feel small, and
humiliated at times at enforced quietness, and being
laid aside. Still it is said, " shut out from the world,
shut in with God."
The reading aloud, evenings, of a noble book
entitled " Earnest Willy " (WiHie D. Upshaw, of
Georgia), has given me renewed courage.
I am fortunate in having a fine reader, Mrs.
Sophia Forbes, a reader who does full justice to
pathos of prose or poetry. A voice which follows
every shade of meaning.
(SUSAN B. ANTHONY'S LETTER OF 1896 )
When Susan B. Anthony, the Empress of woman
suffrage, cafled once with Judge Hooker, I told her

91
that my Woman Suffrage Temple had been dedi
cated ; my promise to my mother and sister had been
kept. I received from this great Priestess of
humanity a letter lately, from which I make the
following extract :
" My dear friend: I think of you very often, and
wish you could have had health and strength equal
to your inspiration, and intellectual ability.
I send you by mail a photo taken in Atlanta, Ga.,
last winter, and another taken in San Francisco, and
also a picture of my friend, Mrs. Stanton, and myself
together. If the well and strong people would only do a
tithe of what you have accomplished, lying on that
bed of yours, all these years, the women in every
state of the Union would soon be enfranchised.
When any of the friends call upon you, Mrs.
Hooker, Miss Burr, or others, please give them my
best love, reserving a great deal for yourself."
The letter was dated Rochester (N. Y.), Janu
ary II, 1896. On the back of the photographs this
great High Priestess of humanity had written " To
my dear friend and co-worker, C. Howard Young."
Co-worker! I wrote back that she was the
worker, and I the silent Co.
The label or heading to this chapter which I cafi
the Woman Suffrage Lincoln Label, I have long
used on aU my mail matter. They are little yeUow
labels like an oblong stamp, with mucilage on the
back. The views of Lincoln — Lincoln who comes

92
second in the hearts of Americans, after Washing
ton only — would be accepted by many who would
not otherwise give the woman suffrage views a
thought. The Woman's Journal of Boston, commended me
for thus spreading woman suffrage views, by yellow
labels, saying it was " a good idea, and an easy way
of preaching the Suffrage Gospel."
This speech of Abraham Lincoln was made at
Poppsville, 111., in 1832. So our immortal Presi
dent-martyr was sixty-five years ahead of his
countrymen in the year of grace (or rather disgrace),
1897. Below I quote a governor who agreed with our
President. (Post, May 21, 1895.)
"ANOTHER APPEAL FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE."
" To the Editor of The Post:
S'lT: — Woman-suffragists have been asked to
present facts. We have been doing so for many
years; we have presented reasons, not arguments,
like our opponents. A governor of Massachusetts
said there were no reasons against woman suffrage;
merely arguments which a schoolboy should be
ashamed of. He was a Republican governor.
As to facts, we point to England, where women
have voted for 20 years; to England where crime
has steadily decreased in consequence of woman's
vote instead of increasing steadily as in the United
States, an increase which will continue until

93
woman's pure vote and co-operation helps to put
down vice and crime. A stream rises no higher than
its source. Concede the good principle, and good
facts will soon convince you in New England, as in
old England. Give woman a vote and trust to God,
gentlemen, in thus doing right, that the grand
old State of Connecticut, which first led the world
with a written constitution, will again lead New
England to the highest pinnacle.
Yours for justice to woman,
C. HOWARD YOUNG.
Hartford, May 20, 1895,
230 Asylum St."
A Statue to Mrs. Stowe.
Belie-ving that the woman who freed two million
men, colored (and who would have freed 715 million
women, if she could have), should have a .statue
side by side with the father of my kind friend and
weekly visitor, Charles B. WeHs, Horace Wells, I
have in various journals advocated for this recog
nition in Hartford. I give below several such ap
peals. If a man had written " Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
statues would be abundant, and people would
tumble over one another in every direction to put
up a statue. (Examiner, Aug. 29, i8g6.)
A STATUE TO MRS. STOWE.
" Prof. C. Howard Young, our ardent woman
suffragist of Hartford, is looking for the time when

94
a statue shall be erected to the author of ' Uncle
Tom's Cabin,' here in the city of her long residence
and final departure, and is doing what he can for
the crystallization of the idea. He suggested a few
years ago that a statue of Mrs. Stowe should be in
the Congressional library as ' the author of Uncle
Tom's Cabin and the liberator of the colored race.'
Kate Field in her Washingtonian published the ap
peal. Another statue was suggested alongside that
of Dr. Horace Wells, on Bushnell Park, he who
' liberated humanity from pain.'
" Prof. Young believes that the money for this
purpose should be raised partly by school children
of the State. Mrs. Stowe belongs to humanity —
to the whole world. With her pen and that of
Lincoln, Grant's bayonets and Miss Carroll's (of
Maryland) military plan, 2,000,000 man slaves were
freed. " In the designer's own reference to the work
he says, ' Mrs. Stowe's statue might have in the hand
a book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the inscription:
" Woman who freed 2,000,000 men}' Mrs. Stowe
believed in woman suffrage, which wiU ultimately,
in God's good time, free 715,000,000 women, or
one-half the population of the globe. If the
erection of this statue to a woman is vrithout pre
cedent, it is time Connecticut established a prece
dent. The writer has seen abroad many statues
to women. Connecticut led the United States in
first establishing a written constitution protecting

95
the people, so as she can consistently be the first to
do justice to a woman, a daughter of the State, and
the United States.' "
This also appeared in the Hartford Times and
other journals.
The president of the Equal Rights Club of Hart
ford, Mrs. Emily P. Collins, who wrote me a letter of
thanks for this work, saying that it " would be hard
to get a statue erected to a woman, as sex-prejudice
persisted even after death}' I tried to have justice
rendered during Mrs. Stowe's life, as these lines
will show:
"STATUES IN THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY."
" To the Editor (New England Home) : —
Permit a protest (from a steady reader) relative
to the list of twenty-five great people of humanity,
whose names are to grace the United States Library
at Washington. The librarian there, who has de
liberated three years on the subject, has omitted to
put in the name of a single woman!!!!!
I protest in woman's name. Such an omission
is an international injustice to woman !
I suggest the name of Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, the liberator of the colored race. I sug
gest too, that a statue of Mrs. Stowe be placed in
the Park in Hartford, at the side of the great Dr.
Wells, who liberated humanity from pain.
The money should be raised in Connecticut by
school children.
The library at Washington should not have the

96
name of Napoleon or Caesar. (Give us the mother
of Washington, as we owe all great men to good
mothers.) A library is to record the fact that ' the
pen is mightier than the sword.'
The Butchers of humanity should be omitted. In
their place put the names of the great women of hu
manity who work for the Prince of Peace.
Yours for justice to women,
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
" Hartford, Sept. 4, 1894.
230 Asylum Street."
Kate Fields' Washingtonian published my appeal
about the statue, and other enlightened journals
did so also, but without avail so far. Still justice
is a matter of God's own time.
As the Australian, or similar ballot laws make it
more easy for zvomcn to vote, and will, eventually,
make woman suffrage possible, I was one of the
first in Connecticut to advocate it. Indeed, I con
tributed the following ballot plan in the Hartford
Post in 1893.
" To the Editor: —
As a good secret ballot law would meet a long-
felt want, and as the last one enacted does not fill
the bill, except the bill of litigation, would not a
blanket ballot, divided or perforated, like our
postage stamps, do?
I give a rough draft:

97

Dem. X . Rep. XX

Labor XXX . Pro. XXXX

The above should be an official ballot, provided
by the State, and obtainable only at the polls.
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
" Hartford, April 22, 1893."
By a few selections given below, I wish to show
that an invalid confined to bed is not necessarily out
of the world, but can battle for the right. If invalids
realize this, they will not feel incHned to mope at
" being thrust aside."
All the national, stat°, and local questions have
interested me, and editors are glad to accept articles
from those who, bedridden, have plenty of time
to think.
The article below was written by an editor with
reference to an article published by the New York
Tribune, signed by myself:
" Using an inkstand formerly belonging to the
great Garibaldi (it was given to his sister by one of
his dying generals, out of gratitude), Charles How
ard Young of Hartford, who lived in Italy three
years, writes a protest against the execution of
Maria Barberi. In his letter he makes three admir
able propositions, which it is a pleasure to endorse
and reproduce, as follows :
6

98
"First. The time is approaching when capital
punishment will be no more. Thou shalt not kill.
" Second. Woman, having no hand in making
the laws, should hardly be held responsible.
" Third. The double standard of morality, one
for man and one for woman, is destined, by God's
grace, to go. It causes crime of all kinds."
The above Maria was a young woman, or rather
girl, who had been seduced by a viHain. On re
fusing to keep his promise of marriage, she killed
him. My intervention was justified by later results.
After a second trial, the woman was released, the
jury shaking hands with her. Yet when my first
article appeared, the whole world seemed against
her. I wrote many letters; even appealing to a
friend in Italy, a royal Pretore or Judge — and even
to the noble King himself — the lion-hearted
Umberto. The lines below, from the Hartford Times, show
that one may be a secretary, and yet bedridden:
" Prof. C. Howard Young, secretary of foreign
correspondence, sent in his report, and sample let
ters received from prominent woman-suffragists
of England, France, and Italy. He also referred
to an aluminum badge which he is trying to have
adopted, believing that importance enough is not
placed upon such matters. The design is a dove
descending with an olive branch, with the word
'Peace,' thereon; implying that woman's vote will
bring peace in state, society, literature, art, and hygiene.

99
' When we are all well drilled with our flags and
banners everywhere,' he said, ' we shall awaken
more sympathy for the grandest cause on earth.' "
The writer may, perhaps, suffer from vanity, if
so, his apology is hereby tendered, but his excuse
is that he meant to show the sick that work is best,
and can be done. Remember, my sick sisters and
brothers, that one preaches perhaps more effectively
from a sick couch.
It was with this feeling in view, and feeling so
deeply on woman suffrage, that I sent the following
letter to the able leader of the republican party, con
vinced as I am that all reforms should commence with
woman suffrage. Indeed, it is not right to settle any
question until woman, who is half of humanity, can
have her say. But to return to my appeal to the
republican party :
"WOMAN SUFFRAGE PLANK. " July 4, 1896.
" Editor Woman's Journal: —
The following lines were sent to the former
Assistant Postmaster-General, Clarkson, as a plea
for a woman suffrage plank:
' To Mr. Clarkson : Why not put a woman
suffrage plank in the Republican platform? Then
the Republican party would continue in power
twenty-five years, and go down, eternally, in history,
not only as the party that freed the black man, but
as the party that freed the white woman. Later,
700,000,000, one-half of the population of the globe,

too
would be freed by this act. I have been thirteen
years in bed, and so am out of politics, and indeed
almost out of the world, but, for God's sake and the
sake of goodness, put in. the Republican platform
a woman suffrage plank.'
To these words I add the words of our saint-
president, prophet, and emancipator, Abraham Lin
coln: 'I go for all sharing the privileges of the
government who assist in bearing its burdens, by
no means excluding women}
Yours for woman suffrage,
C. HOWARD YOUNG."
" Hartford, Conn., June 17, 1896."
The day will come when women and men will
say, Is it possible that there ever was a time when
women could not vote? Then may be regarded
with curiosity, in museums, the signatures of women
who petitioned against woman suffrage — so-called
remonstrants, the woman traitors to humanity
and God.
In this chapter I would like to thank the ladies
of the Equal Rights Club and those of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union for their kindly calls
and counsels; also those of the Guild of the Holy
Cross and " Shut in Society."
I should like to found a grand order of men to
promote woman suffrage — Knights of Woman
Suffrage.

CHAPTER VI.

INVALIDISM.
The word invalid — in-valid — means of no use.
In God's world, the word is a misnomer; everything
has its use. " In rainy weather is the most growth."
God chastens those he loves. The pain, and suffer
ing of all kind, is a school of patience, and St. James,
our Lord's brother, says patience leads to perfection.
A man or woman without patience is like a
church without a roof. The patience of The Light
of the World, on the Cross, taught the world the
greatest of all lessons. This world is the school
for a higher, and some of us, probably, are better
taught in bed, so that external, material, disturbing
conditions may be shut out.
The child of a reformer myself, and impetuous,
when well, it may be that my energies needed cir
cumscribing to the couch; that my impatience at
wrong and injustice needed guidance.
A dear, faithful friend, who had not seen me for
years, on coming to my bedside, exclaimed : " Why
Charles, is not this a blessing? Just think, you
know you'd have been brought home often on a
shutter, probably, from your impetuosity in reform
work."

I02

Perhaps so, — it was a new way to look at it, so
I mused thereupon. Certainly between a shutter
and a bed, I rather prefer the last, as a steady thing.
Another friend, conservative, and a hater of
woman suffrage, observed : " You ought to have
been hung long ago for promoting woman suf
frage." " I know it," I observed meekly, " and I have
always regretted that I was not." "And now," I
observed mournfully, " it is too late. It has be
come, or is becoming fashionable."
Joking apart, the grand cause would have pro
gressed much faster if it had included a martyr, like
John Brown. I told one of the shining Hghts in
the cause, who cafled upon me, Mrs. Emily P. Col
lins, that I always regretted that in the interest of
the cause she had not graced a lamppost. I could
have graced the post myself, but I was not suf
ficiently of importance.
My bedside, like that of the noble woman, Chloe
Langton, has been cheered by the presence of noble
workers for humanity, like Susan B. Anthony
(the saviour of womankind); the bright, wonderful
woman, Isabella Beecher Hooker, the able woman
suffragist; the learned Judge Hooker, who so nobly
aided and wrote the law regulating woman's right
in Connecticut to her own earnings; the spiritual
poetess, Mrs. Kimball; the talented and gifted au
thoress, ^ Mrs. Jennie Dowling DeWitt, authoress
of Katie Weston — the temperance novel, and many
others. ,i i

103
During February, 1896, Judge Hooker called on
me. Several ladies were present, and I introduced
him as a man to whom every woman should courtesy
in the street even, for his work for women.
This reminds me of a serio-comic scene that once
took place in front of my window. At a political
celebration, during a, presidential campaign, there
was a club of wild young men who formed
what they called a " Belva Lockwood Club," pur
porting to burlesque woman suffrage. About fifty
young men, or more, paraded the street in female
garb of pronounced type, large boots protruding
from bedraggled petticoats; huge poke bonnets
added to the scenic effects, and gambols, not at all
shy,' showed ankles not at all shapely.
One day the party had a serenade in the street
opposite my windows. For a moment I listened
with approbation and disapprobation. I then asked
my sister if there was any ammunition in the house
suitable for a bombardment. (The party was there
in my honor.)
"Only potatoes!"
" No matter! Bring them; they shall have the
best the house provides. They entertained me,
now I will entertain them."
So I fired a number up in the air, and an oc
casional shout told that that particular potato had
been received — not with thanks or satisfaction —
but still . received. But they moved on without
stopping to hang me, as they should have done.
The oflficers of the Hartford Equal Rights Club

104
paid me pleasant visits. Mrs. Bacon of the school
committee, Frances EUen Burr of the Hartfo£d
Times, etc. - — Frances Ellen Burr whom a Courant-
man, my friend Olcott, spoke sof in my room as the
greatest and littlest of the Burrs. Another valued
friend was President of the Hartford Equal Rights
Club, a nurse during the civil war, Mrs. Emily P.
Collins, an old friend of my sister and mother (a
woman who would have graced the United States
Supreme Court), founder of the first anti-slavery
club. Another caller, with her noble brother Ber-
rian (vice-president of St. Andrew's brotherhood),
was Harriet Keyser, my sister Lillian's lifelong
friend, who is now striving, like myself, for the ele
vation of woman and the cause of labor.
The Woman's Journal and Woman's Tribune
brought words of cheer, showing the advance of
God's chariot of progress. I occasionaUy con
tribute to them my thoughts.
An invalid, though shut out from the world, is,
in a certain sense, shut in with God. The luxury
of silence — communion with one's self and God,
is perhaps the greatest. " Know thyself," the Bible
says, and in the busy world one has often but few
chances to become acquainted with one's self. I
have seen many who needed introductions to them
selves, probably we aH do.
Our lamented President Garfield said (to the
effect) that when real illness came upon us, the real
character was exposed, as the banks of a sea at low
tide, or ebb. We should strive, in health, to attain

los
such a character (not reputation — character, i. e.,
what we are, so to speak, in the dark) that at low
ebb, whfen fading away ourselvesj we may testify to
a pure life : purity in thought, word, and deed.
The invalid, if his sufferings are rightly borne,
is not without value.
A bright arid rioble blind girl who called on me
lately said, " Oh, you have made me much happier.
They say you make everyone who comes into the
room so."
God grant it was so ! I should be happy to think
it. I am inclined to think that it made her happy
to cause happiness for me by playing on the zither
so sweetly. Now I am inclined to think that some
who came into the room were more happy because
they saw one who, apparently, was much worse off
than themselves. Unfortunately (or not) it is, per
haps, true that not only does misery love company,
but it loves company in apparent superlative misery.
For instance, one of my acquaintances at the Hart
ford Hospital was inconsolable for the loss of his
leg until a man was brought in who had to lose both,
when my friend recovered his equanimity, and com
placently remarked that it was a great comfort to
have the man have both legs off!!
Certain ones of my visitors were happier because
they came to make me happier — to minister unto —
not to be ministered to. " Sick and in prison " and
they visited. And the law was fulfilled of sowing
and reaping. They sowed happy thoughts, and
they came home on the waters of time. Mrs. Sarah
5*

io6

E. Browne, the able metaphysician, was one of
these. Another, the comforting Rev. Mr. Faucon.
Many were brightened and made more 'cheerful,
especially children, by the bright colors and deco
rations of red and blue in my room; by the three
harps, music boxes, metalophone, paper angels,
bright pictures, crosses, tame rats, etc., etc.
Once a grave friend found me making a doll's
house with a little girl. "Well!" he ejaculated,
" this is a great occupation for a professor! "
" I know it,'' I returned, " there is nothing small."
The little girl answered quickly, " There is lots to
be learned making a doll's house." And there was!
One thing was equanimity, as far and as often as the
glue pot upset on the quilts, etc.
There are many crosses around my rooms, and
the child, Martha, whom I called my assistant nurse,
glanced around, and then cut and pasted crosses
in various apartments of her doll's house. She
finally observed that as I was an Episcopalian, she
would like to be one. But I told her that her
mother's and father's religion, Congregationalism,
was best for her, and that circumstances altered
cases. Many visitors inquired of me in an astonished
tone, why I had so many crosses, and even cruci
fixes, and if I was a Catholic. As to the crosses,
I answered that we EpiscopaHans had not the same
horror of the cross that many of the sects had, —
that even aside from Christ and his passion, it
typified, through darkness to light.

I07
No Cross, no Crown.
But, observed some, " It is so painful to see a
crucifix always before one." " No," I returned,
" not if you consider. If Christ could hang on the
Cross in reality, we can afford to bear the remem
brance." A crucifix before one is apt to make one more
merciful, and just, and practical.
The writer remembers once, when quite ill, and
desiring more gentleness and strength in his at
tendant, he was about to finish a letter to another
person to come, when, glancing up, he met the soft,
beautiful, sweet expression of the face of the Christ
by Ary Shefer, which hung on the window pane
as a transparency. That face counseled justice,
and above all, mercy. In every French courtroom
the law requires a huge picture of the Crucifixion,
in order that the red-gowned judges may be inclined
to mercy, as well as justice.
A French courtroom is a most impressive sight.
Perhaps we Protestants would be better if we kept
more the symbols of Christianity; " an outward and
visjble sign of an inward and spiritual grace."
Protestantism is in some respects too one-sided.
It never seems to forget its character of protesting,
and at times it protests against things which do not
need protesting against.
At times Protestantism reminds me of the Ger
man proverb: "Das kind mit dem Bade auschutten."
Luther and his friends, perhaps, threw overboard
certain things which should have been retained.
(" Don't throw the child out with the bath.")

io8
Recommendations to Invalids.
I would recommend to bedridden invalids some
interesting study; semi-study, like phrenology.
Buy the books and also the plaster chart. It will
amply repay. I practiced on the heads of my
friends and visitors to such an extent my small
assistant nurse caught my enthusiasm. She catches
many such, but they burn out like a fire of paper.
After a long study of one of my iUustrated books,
one evening, she advanced solemnly towards me,
and proceeded to remove my blue silk skull cap
with considerable speed. " Let me be," I remons
trated, catching her hand. " No," she replied, " Let
me be." " What is the matter," I rejoined, " Who
began this fuss? " In a grave voice she replied " I
have got to see if you are an idjiot." " Thanks," I
rejoined, " It is hardly worth while." But she per
sisted, even after I recommended her own head as a
basis to begin with. After a long examination of
my bumps, she was satisfied to say, " No, you're not
an idjiot. You are a wise man." " Thanks, awful
ly," I rejoined, as I had waited in fear and trembling
for her decision. Then she transported her learn
ing " to fields new and pastures fresh " ; to school,
where she seized upon a negro boy and informed
him he had the head of a-murderer. A piece of in
formation which was unfavorably received, which
seemed to surprise Martha at the time, and even
later. To his forcible remonstrance she said.
" Why yer have — the head of a murderer —
honest! "

I09
I told her that she must use more tact, or there
would be a murder where she developed her views,
and examinations.
I will give to invalids the advice of one of my
wisest friends. Miss Adelia Gates, the heroine of the
interesting work on different lands, entitled :
"Chronicles of the Sid." She was an old friend years
ago, in Geneva, Switzerland, and gave me good
advice there when I was hearing lectures at the
Geneva University. After a quarter of a century of
travel, she appeared suddenly and unexpectedly at
my sick bed in 1894. On taking leave, she returned
from the hall, and said slowly and impressively,
" There is but one way of avoiding suffering — to
look out for others."
The advice was worth coming back to give.
Interest yourself in reform, in progress. Try to
shove on, if only ever so little, the car of progress —
God's chariot. Remember that progress is the
mind of God working in the minds of men — that it is
the Holy Ghost itself!
Join good societies which work for the Prince of
Peace. Become a King's Daughter or Son, and
wear the badge " In His Name." Work for woman
suffrage. Woman's suffrage means the abolish
ment of war, the purity of state and city, the cleanli
ness of your streets (outside house-keeping). Read
such works as Chloe Langton's of New Hartford,
Conn., sixty-five years an invalid. Read the
" Little White Shadow," by Miss Emily Morgan of
Hartford. I told her once I was going to call my

IIO
book the Big Black Shadow, being 6 ft. tall, when
unrolled and ironed out.
Invalids can and should help on the world. Every
one has something to teach in this world, as well as
something to learn, and it may be that what you
have to teach wiU be doubly impressive, taught from
the bed of suffering; more impressive, perhaps, at
times, than precepts from pulpit or professor's
desk. Post tenebras lux, I used to hear an old priest
say at Notre Dame, Paris. " Through darkness to
light." As there are in the United States at least 100,000
invalids wholly confined to bed for life, I trust this
book will be of some use to my feUow sufferers. I
wrote these chapters only after feeling convinced
that my writings had a mission to perform. Then,
too, the average of sickness in men being ten days
per year, would make seven hundred days in a life
of seventy years, as reckoned by English insurance
societies. I hope sick women, too, wiU obtain some comfort
from my lines, so that I can repay to women, in a
small measure, the kindness almost invariably
shown me by the best part of humanity.
One may amuse one*s self in bed with various
grades of magnifying glasses, as well as microscopes.
I have a number of each. One may make dis
coveries even when an in-valid! The Hartford
Courant kindly mentioned this fact as follows (in
1885): " We need not go to Europe to study micoderms '

Ill

and bacteria with masters of the microscope. Prof.
Young of Hartford showed me last winter with a
small power how the common housefly is afflicted
with unnamed parasites."
One summer, noticing that flies had a reddish
tint, I caught a number and submitted them to
magnifying glasses. I found them covered with
a red, crab-like parasite, which buried and ate its
way literally into the fly. Their size v/as out of all
proportion to the bigness of the fly. Imagine
human beings, for instance, with parasites outside,
burrowing in the flesh of man, the size of a quarter
of a dollar. These flies seemed to be so uncomfort
able that their movements first attracted my atten
tion. Having once translated a large work, " The
Parasites of Man," on bacteria, with many obser
vations of my own, and quotations from many
authors, German, French, Italian, etc. (a work
which I lost in the streets of Paris, after an entire
year's work, but promptly set to work to duplicate),
it may interest the reader to know that haying sent
this work on to the National Board of Health, years
ago, it was submitted to the Smithsonian Institute,
and I received a letter saying that it was recognized
as a work of national utility, and as such, would be
published. Some time after I received a communication
saying that the National Board of Health was
abolished, and so my hopes went into the large
grave containing my other buried hopes. It is
quite a large-sized grave, too, — a trunk under my

112

bed contains my literary remains, — a book on
" Venice and the Tyrol," "-Man and His Parasites,"
etc., etc., etc.
The Hartford Courant, through its genial agri
cultural editor, Olcott, gave a description of my
red, crab-like parasite of the fly. He happened to
come in while I was investigating.
So flies have their troubles as well as the rest of
us, in spite of their gay and amuse-yourself ex
pression. My sweet sister, LUlian, came in and
studied it under the microscope. I told her, mind
ful of our hog-latin days, I would call it lilibus
bugibus. Bed does not always preclude one from active
work. I have made several discoveries in bed, so,
reader, one is not cut off from observation. Glad
stone maintains, I believe, that his head has in
creased in size, since middle age even. When I
went to bed fourteen years ago, my brain measured
an inch less than now. It has also improved in
quality. The medical works and encyclopedias
teach some untruths. For instance, the Brit. En
cyclopedia says, in an article on Conaro, that no
one has, probably, lived on such a small diet (12 oz.
a day) as he did for years at Venice.
The writer lived many years on 12 oz. a day,
weighing his food, and not losing in weight at 130
lbs. Indeed, the writer gave lessons for weeks at a
time, living on but three pints of boiled milk a day,
then weighing 122 lbs., and riding around to give
lessons in languages, without the loss of a single
pound!

113
Another error I was taught in medical work was
that when two-fifths of a man's weight had been
lost, death ensued. It ought to ensue, perhaps,
but it does not. The writer who, in Paris, weighed
159 lbs., did not retire to bed definitely until re
duced by pain and disease to 78 (seventy-eight) lbs.,
and at present, after fourteen years, weighs less.
About thirteen years ago, at Norfolk, Conn., the
writer descended in weight from 138 lbs. to 80 lbs.,
and was obliged to hide his cadaverous countenance
(from anti-mind-cure friends' sympathizing re
marks) by a luxuriant growth of side whiskers, a
subterfuge which succeeded admirably, as one of
his friends remarked, " Prof. Young, you're too
stout; better diet a little!" And this when there
was nothing left of me but a few old bones and a
great deal of gray side whiskers!
One advantage the male invalid has over the
woman is that he can retire from a wicked, criticis
ing world behind his whiskers.
When I first retired to bed without, apparently,
any prospect of ever getting out, except for a
prolonged trip to the cemetery, and found one
symptom added to another, it seemed to me rather
hard to have a noose around my neck for so long
a period. I reasoned, at times, at that time, that
Providence, or nature, seemed less kind than man.
For instance, the laws of France forbid acquainting
a criminal who is condemned to die, with the date
of his execution. He does not even know that
his demand for a reprieve is not granted until a

114
hand is laid on his shoulder on the fatal morning —
(at 4 A.M.). And yet, here was I, waiting, waiting,
waiting, — and ever in pain. In my medical ex
perience too, it seemed hard (in France) to see that
certain diseases choke the sick one, like the hang
man's rope, or the garrote neckband in Spain. The
whole thing reminded me, at times, of a certain old,
gruesome work written in the Middle -Ages, in
England, on the manner of dying from different
diseases. The author reviewed each manner of
taking off and its advantages and disadvantages.
Note. I recall a most pitiful case of one of my
French friends who, though a devoted Catholic,
and sweetness and submission itself, on dying at
the age of nineteen, in terrible pain, kept saying
during the long hours of an entire day, " How can
you see me suffer so? Why don't you get an ax? "
Another little boy, dying of diphtheria, at New Lon
don, kept saying, " Father, why don't you get a
pistol and shoot me?"
The disadvantages of ways of dying seemed most
particularly to impress the above author, for he
closes his work with the quaint saying: " None
pleaseth me! " Probably many would agree with
him, after a trial. Personally, I can not recommend
any especial way of dying.
Those days of doubt are passed; passed years
and years ago.' We see now, as through a veil
darkly. " Our wiUs are ours, to make them Thine."

"5
Health Hints for Invalids.
I recline, bolstered up in bed, propped up with my
numerous pillows, of which I have fifty-four, in
cluding my tiny pUlows, three inches long and two
inches wide, to prevent bed sores.
Hospital nurses have expressed astonishment to
me that I should have escaped bed sores all these
long, weary years. To help other sufferers, I wUl
explain: It is due to my numerous little pillows.
I have them four inches long, six, eight, ten, and
fifteen inches, and made of different materials ; some
soft, warm down; some of batting or wadding;
others cool and hard, of hair, excelsior, rubber,
everlasting, hops, corks, sawdust, etc. I have
eight of balsam pine. These little pillows, inserted
under the neighborhood of the congested, sore spot,
wUl prevent bed sores, or, if formed, will conduce
to healing.
It is my duty to give these directions for my fel
low sufferers, as real invalid literature is small. I
have had various rubber pillows, especially for the
head. I do not approve of them, as I passed much
time in trying to keep my head balanced on them,
and trying to keep the recipient of my inteUect
from gliding off, precipitately.
At the suggestion of a Hartford doctor, I came
near buying an entire rubber bed, but I reflected
that if I passed half my time trying to remain on a
piUow, it might take my entire time, and the exertion
of several to hold me on a bouncing rubber bed, so
I refrained from that line of gymnastics. Then,

ii6

as everything seemed hard under me, I thought of
a water bed; but an old lady from a widow's home,
a friend of mine, fresh from the scene of disaster,
made me change my mind relative to the beauty
and advantages of a water bed.
It seems, an old lady on the top floor, an invalid,
helpless, who was trustfully enjoying her water bed,
in the middle of the night felt a sudden collapse and
heard " the rush of mighty waters " and so she
screamed. An old lady below had the benefit of
that water, peacefully sleeping in bed! Then both
screamed ! — A duet ! A Wagner duet ! A natural
duet. Tableau !
Now this looks unreasonable. One old lady
screaming because she had the water, and the other
elderly dame, because she had not. Such is life.
There is no evil. It is good, out of place.
This reminds me that after I had been carried
from Hartford to Asbury Park, per railroad, and
toted by men, the cottage hired proved unseaworthy,
and the ceiUng roof let in rain, so I enjoyed an um
breUa in bed, while the doors had cracks large
enough to let in cats and hurricanes. Both came
in, and enjoyed themselves, too. The old New
England, hospitable custom of leaving an opening
cut in the door of the shed for the cat, showed good
hearts. It is a great thing to travel for health. I remem
ber one such invalid dying in the Tyrol, as the train
sailed into Bozen. He went, doubtless, to a better

"7
climate, and traveled, I trust, in a more comfortable
way and frame of mind. For protrayal of such
final voyages, I would recommend my readers to
read " As it is to be," by Cora Linn Daniels. This
work would be a comfort to many invalids, as it
explains more clearly spiritual things than books
written by men do. It is written logically. Try it.
An invalid's room can be made more comfortable
by having little tin cases nailed around the bed,
such as those sold for combs, etc. I have fourteen,
labelled " bills," " letters answered," " unanswered,"
etc. Then some cases contain diaries, etc., some
envelopes, etc.
To classify subjects, take a package of envelopes
(5 cts.), then write a letter on each one, a, b, c, etc.,
and so classify your newspaper clippings, etc.
Have a high table, with two drawers which you
can open oz>er the bed, yourself. Have two tin
trays, and place necessary things upon them. You
can get at them easily by turning the tray. I call
mine " The InvaHd's Circular Railroad." No
patent. So do not wait tiU the patent, or patient
expires. A good invalid, to be comfortable in his mind,
must be able to help himself. " God helps those
who help themselves."
This plan of the circular railroad tray is a grand
one, and was a great improvement on the old one
of staring at things without getting them, or of
bothering some one to rise.
I imagine during the first years of my illness that

Ii8
I hated to give trouble, because I had not become
great; but reading of Grant, and his inability to
give trouble in his last Ulness, I think it is inherent
in many men to hate to give trouble, and so I give
this advice to suffering men invalids: Submit to
God's will, but never give up helping yourself all
within your power. Laboremus! Beds.
As physicians have expressed their astonishment
(nurses have also) that a man could be in bed four
teen years entirely without bed sores, I wUl enter
into details a little more in order that those con
fined, like myself, to a mattress grave may not suffer
so much.
Practically, I did not find that rubber pillows,
circular, with a hole in the center, were of much
use; nor the square, solid pillows of rubber, filled
with air. I expended $3.75 for one pillow, $5.00 for
another, and $2.00 for a third. Invalidism comes
high — but, apparently, we must have it. Little
piUows, even those 3 inches long by 2 inches wide,
stuffed with hair or feathers, or down, are of great
use, shoved with the finger near localities where
redness shows a bed sore may arise. Bed sores
arise mostly from pressure, and it must be soft
under one in order that congestion shall not take
place. I placed an eider down quilt on my mattress of
hair, over a mattress knit cotton pad. Bed sores
are not so much a matter of over-heating, or moist

119
heat, as hardness. Hospitals, where this fact is not
recognized, will have difficulty with bed-sore
patients. A soft bed is best, too, I think, for most men and
women over forty.
I should add that I had a spring bed made,
adapted to my low weight of 78 lbs. The springs
of beds should be adapted to the weight. The first
furniture dealer, a German, to whom I addressed
myself for such a spring bed, said, " Why if I vas
to keep spring beds like dat, made for different
weights, everybody boders me every day to get a
more comfortable spring bed. No; I put em all
on de same springs!" He hinted that my ideas
made him tired. Probably his customers rose tired.
Remember one-third of our lives we pass in bed.
Bed hygiene is very important to weU and sick;
but commerce is inexorable. When women enter
commerce more, it will be different.
Soft, down pillows under the heels prevent bed
sores, when imminent, especially with the corpulent
or very thin. Pillows of pine, 9 inches by 12 inches,
are good for many purposes. I have ten of this
kind. I use them under my elbows, to bolster
them up; at times, also, I put two on one side of me
and two on the other, and then my tin tray, at meals,
rests on them instead of on my stomach. Try it,
dear invalid.
Then, at times, remove your feather piUow and
cool your head by placing under it a pine piUow,
or one made of everlasting, or hops. I have two

I20
lovely pink covered pine pUlows, sent me by a lady
who had placed them away in a drawer for a year,
as she had heard of my death. A caUer said, " Why,
Prof. Young is not dead; I am to call on him to
morrow, and I will take them."
I gratefully received the pUlows, and sent back
word that it was the first time I had ever received
anything a year after my death.
I often place a small sheep-skin under me when
I fear soreness. One should always be on the
watch for sores, — a piUow in time, saves — pain.
Saves nine — nine doctors — and nine biUs.
For instance, a French girl who waited on my
mother, in Hartford, became quite ill from the
effects of a cold, after an operation on the throat
(cutting away tumors). Although only a couple
of months in bed, bed sores made their appearance,
and the suffering was most terrible. I recom
mended her sister making little pillows, of hair and
feathers, but her suffering was so intense, I gave
my $4.00 circular rubber piUow, first, to ease her
immediately. With bed sores, forewarned, fore
armed. Eternal" vigilance is the price of immunity.
I use pine pillows, too, as a kind of lever when
I wish to turn, placing them at my side, and resting
" en mi chemin," as the French say. At times,
when bed clothing oppresses, the pine pUlows may
be so arranged as to take off any weight on any
particular part. Try this.
Bed clothing often most oppresses the toes. Such
pine pUlows mav then be kicked down to the foot

121
of the bed, on each side of the feet, so that the said
piUows take the brunt of the weight. (Now that
in 1897 my condition is worse one of my friends
has rigged up a pulley and rope, so that my 16 lbs.
of bed clothing are held up from the ceiling.)
The piney odor is vastly preferable to that of
feather pillows. Headaches are often cured by
them. The pine pillows are useful to uphold the
arms, and for many purposes which will soon be
apparent to the invalid possessor.
All invalids should possess rubber hot-water bot
tles, but they should be of the best quality, as they
are inclined to burst. Have them as smaU as pos
sible so the blessing will not be too great and the
baptism too copious and generous. I have thrice
been scalded. Probably pin-holes caused disaster.
Twice frozen! water got cold; then in night the
bag burst at i A.M. I always believed those water-
bags chased me around in the bed! I like the old-
fashioned earthen bottle best.
Diaries, Scrap-albums, etc.
Another recommendation I would make to the
invalid is to have numerous scrap-albums, and to
cut out articles that interest in the journals.
Divide it up in an orderly manner, according as
your taste goes, so many pages to history, poetry,
art, literature, medicine, hygiene, temperance,
woman suffrage, and reform work generally.
After you have written out these headings, you
will be surprised to see how interested you will
6

122

get in newspaper clippings, and to note how your
appetite will grow for little articles, which will be
stored away in your scrap-book and brain.
I have often said that babies should be provided
with scrap-albums as soon as born.
Again, I recommend everyone, sick or well, to
have scrap-albums. Also to keep diaries, even if
only short entries are made. Keep an account of
the letters written and received. Since fourteen
years old I have done so. I have written to date,
Oct. I, 1897, 7,633 letters, and received 7,300. The
difference is due to articles for the press, principally.
After reading any book, think over it, and write
out a short (if only a few lines) resume in a separate
diary. The average man and woman goes through
life too often without order, without a compass; not
knowing at all in what direction they are going, or
where they are, or even wishing to know, or trying
to inquire. The above system of diaries puts order
into life, and are particularly necessary with the
sick, or weak. The sick or weak in this way may
help on the world (as well as themselves) more than
the well and the strong. " The race is not always
to the swift."
Those who thus put order into their lives are
well disciplined troops of God's invincible army
of progress, while the others are the undisciplined
mob, ever drifting.
One hundred who read with discrimination and
reflection, will know more than thousands who read
merely to read. " Order is Heaven's first law," and
it should be on the earth.

123
Being a sick man, I have had to have more order,
more diaries (38 or 40), more scrap-albums (24).
Each book read, each letter received, has a written
date, of month and year and number. Each book
read is numbered. The writer has read several
thousand English and American books, about 400
German, about 900 French, about 300 Italian, etc.
There are quotations from each, as a rule, in my
diaries -which have been kept in French, German,
and Italian.
Did the reader ever think of the fact that though
there are three or four million books in the world,
written by different authors during the last 4,000
years, no man ever read more than 10,000, probably.
The greatest library, that known as the National
Library (Paris), has about a couple of mUlion
books. Stand in the middle and gaze at the count
less thousands, and then look at puny man! My
mother, an intensely intellectual woman, standing
in the great library at London, said, with a woe-be-
gone expression, " Oh, dear, it makes me sick at
my stomach to see so many books I cannot read."
Commencing at ten years of age, and reading at
the rate of three books a week, and continuing it
until the alloted three score years and ten, of the
Bible, would give 9,360 works read, 156 books a
year! The writer having been a reviewer of books,
was obliged to devour more than his share, and,
perhaps, too rapidly for perfect inteUectual diges
tion or assimilation.

124
What a contrast our city of Hartford presents to
day, with its public library of many thousand vol
umes, and the days of " ye olden time " in England,
when, in the ninth century, but thirteen works ex
isted. Those pleasant days of old !
" When the roofs were made of rushes,
And the walls let in the cold.
Oh, how they must have shivered,
In those pleasant days of old."

CHAPTER VII.
SEEKING HEALTH.
Travel for health is the most dismal occupation.
To those about to do so, I should say — Don't. Re
main with kind relatives and friends.
To those who have throat or lung troubles I
would say: Have some large room, without too
many curtains or rugs; temperature even, say 70;
then when weather is good, in winter from 10 A.M.
to 3 P.M., the " medical day," as it is called, try
outdoor walking, if temperature is above 40
degrees Far.; if not, use a veil (thin wool). That
elevates the temperature fully eight degrees. Under
freezing (32 degrees Far.), remain in the house.
Remain in if foggy at any temperature.
Travel for health induces homesickness, " nostral-
gia," the sad disease of the wanderer. The Wander
ing Jew may have stood it, but no one else could.
Homesickness acts often on every organ in the
body. Depresses; the heart-beats decrease. Worry
from homesickness causes acidity of the blood, just
as anger does, but in a less degree.
As a member of the staff of the French paper
Journal d'Hygiene et de CUmatologie, my attention has
been called to these problems. The saddest search
in the world is that for health. At the great health

126

resorts in Europe, I was impressed with the sadness
and the pitiful expression of the sad wanderers.
Personally, I should greatly prefer dying at home,
and with my boots on.
Invalids should not be crowded together in a
town. I remember, at Nice, when searching for
rooms for a sick patient and relative, the landlords
vaunted their carpeted rooms, which in reality were
saturated with tuberculosis spittle, a7id more danger
ous than the climates of northern lands.
I remember how one of my pupils, an Arab,
brother of the private secretary of the Khedive of
Egypt, used to expectorate on the carpet in Arab
indifference to those who came after him. One
sputa contains 10,000 bacilli — and is contagious
when dried. It was a fashionable hotel, but pre
decessors had treated the carpet in the same way.
He had a deep-seated bronchial affection, seated
more deeply by the attendance of a physician who
prescribed, apparently, for the benefit of the drug
gist, for, on asking to see a bill, which a drug clerk
brought in, I noticed that it amounted to eighty
francs for one week!
I told him that bronchial affection was evidently
quite dear to him, and, above all, to doctor and
druggist. A rich patient is a great temptation to a doctor,
and he may be very, very patient about curing the
ailment. Reminds me, that when in France,
I was amused always at a little marionette play
(Punch and Judy).

127
The sick woman, in bed, has caUed a physician.
He is superciHous and says, " Madam, your iUness
will be long. Have you the wherewithall to care
for yourself? "
She answers " $3,000."
He starts, — then bows. "What do I hear?
Three thousand dollars? Ahem! Let me see.
Everything well calculated: three-fourths for the
doctor, one-fourth for the apothecary, and the rest
for the patient if she ever gets weU."
Can we blame the medical man for being human?
A few years ago, out West, where a congress of
doctors was considering insanity (they were ex
perts), one of them is reported to have said, "Gentle
men, how can we expect to cure patients who pay
over $20.00 a week? It is hardly to be expected."
Perhaps things are more even than we think..
If the ward patients pays by their skins, the private-
room patient pays with his hide and purse too! The
fact is, the poor have their trials, but at least, when
ill, they escape the too profuse attentions of the
medical science of the nineteenth century ; the
deadly hypodermic syringe; the still more disas
trous stimulants, brandy, whisky, etc.; the extra
and costly, and, as a rule, useless, if not dangerous
drugging. Relative to drugs, I remember that a French
medical celebrity when asked as to the efficiency of
a certain drug, replied: "Certainement — mais
hatez vous d'en user pendant quelle guerrisse."
(Certainly — but hurry up and use it while it cures.)
That is, while it w^s fashionable,

128
Aside from homesickness, nostalgia (Heimweh,
German), the weary, invalid traveler suffers from
rapacity of hotel attendants, druggists, medical men,
also from the change of food, water, etc.
After an attack of double pneumonia, at Paris,
my mother was obliged to go south. So I gave up
business, and as we stepped on the train, on our way
by the Bourbonnais route through Central France,
I felt rather desolate. Would my mother perhaps
die among strangers, at the end of the line, way off
in South France, and with only an invalid son to
take care of her? We traveled on and on, through
this part of France, amongst high mountains and
vvild scenery. There was a rift in the clouds, and on
the top of a high, bold peak, was a huge Christian
cross!!! Shining in the sun, this cross seemed in
heaven. The cross and the sun go together. I
touched my mother, and we looked. Then it dis
appeared. The cross and the sun had both gone
together. Was it an haUucination? No, there it
was again. It had been placed there by monks. It
gave us courage — " In hoc signo vinces ! "
Philadelphia Hospital Experience.
To invaUds at home, who feel like groaning, I
would advise making the acquaintance of some one
who has passed some time in a ward at a hospital,
or a visit to a hospital ward is even better.
As my mother had a threatened attack of pneu
monia, on my trip to PhUadelphia, I gave up my
$25 a week room (medical attention not included)

129
and went into the ward, where I lost one pound a
day, not being used to ward life. Still I had to
remain there a couple of weeks. It was a good
thing for me to learn what hospital ward life meant,
so I could sympathize with the poor disinherited
of the world.
The lights were left up considerably, and flashed
in my eyes all night. I thought I had brain fever
the first night, but discovered it was due to a regis
ter, opened, back of my head, within four inches!
I closed it, and escaped cerebral fever.
We had a male nurse, and I hope never to see
another of the same type. The men in bed told
obscene stories. Considering that one man was in
bed from an obscene life, it seemed most particu
larly inappropriate in him.
I had always found the poor have most heart, and
probably they have in all countries. Renan says so.
The serving classes have most good qualities, but this
coarseness was not palatable. The scenes at night
were most pitiful. I remember, at Vienna, an
English woman, member of the aristocracy, was
going through the hospital there with her two
pretty, young daughters. She even took them
through the surgical wards, and told my mother
that she took the children regularly, once a year,
to hospitals, in order that they should not repine,
but should be contented the rest of the year. And
the receipt was successful.
I am not sure but some of my visitors come to
see me with the same comforting view. One visitor
6*

I30
said it was such a comfort to her to see one suffering
so. It made her forget her own troubles! I am
glad to be a comfort to any one even in that way.
One of my loved visitors was faithful untO' death,
visiting me daily for twelve years or more. He
was a man of such a sweet, noble, true Christian
character, that I felt it well to be in a world where
such grand souls live. He has gone to his final
home, and after my death I hope to be with him.
Some come to me and seem to take satisfaction
in the idea that I am a kind of moral lightning-rod,
— a kind of vicarious process. It may have, per
haps, been some such idea that flitted through my
brain once, when an active, blind young lady stood
at my bedside. In jest, partly, I said, " I have been
looking for some one with whom I could exchange
lots. As you are blind, you are, apparently, the
only one who would trade with me."
She smiled and said, " Have you not been twelve
years in bed and more? "
" Yes."
" Well, I would not exchange lots with you ; mine
is best."" Well," I answered gravely, " we are both satis
fied. I could not, on second thought, accept blind
ness." Joking apart, I have never wished to part with my
identity or individuality.
Another day, a deaf and dumb woman came in
with a paper teaching deaf and dumb language. I
pulled out ten cents after an instructive conversa-

131
tion, which she took, then wrote on a piece of paper:
" How long in bed? "
" Thirteen years."
She answered: "Thirteen years! Take back
your money, you are worse off than I."
And she refused to keep the dime.
Ten minutes after, a visitor said, " Has that old
deaf and dumb fraud been here? "
Such is the hasty judgment of the world! Judge
'not, says our divine Master.
My lot is not so hard as that of those who have
never known what Hfe is, probably. Some say it
is harder, " because you know what you miss,"
just as poverty is harder for those who were well
to do. I am inclined to think this is false reasoning,
and ungrateful, too. Personally, I think, like the
poet, it is better to have lived, and loved, and lost,
than never to have loved at all.
I had sixteen or so beautiful years before I be
came ill, then twelve years of semi-invalidship, but
of good intellectual life, then fourteen of complete
invalidship, viz., in bed, but still of work and strug
gle. During the first part of my life I had visited
eighteen states, besides Canada, having been, too,
at Niagara Falls ten times. In the second part,
dwelt in seventy-two different cities of Europe,
visited most European countries, seen the great art
collections, castles, museums, medical and other
wise; been to court balls; taught and known so-
called members of the aristocracy, etc.; studied
under men like Dr. Karl Vogt, Claude Bernard in

132
various European universities, known great scien
tists, like Pasteur, Mantegazza, de Pietra Santa, Dr.
Edward Reich of Germany, etc., etc. Also I saw
most of the Kings and Queens of Europe, as well
as the great statesmen, like Bismarck, Gambetta,
Thiers. Then, too, I have profited by the lifelong
friendship of such men as the eminent jurist,
Domenico Di Bernado, author and judge in Italy.
So, as I lie still, my mind goes back to the old
scenes, and it is not so difficult for me to recline,"
these long, weary years, with patience, as it would
be if I were a man without a past, — and a good
memory. Then, too, my being a bookworm all these years
has sweetened my life, and given me a hold on it
which otherwise I would not have had. Also this
love of books has kept me pure, and been a blessing
in many ways.
I advise invalids to cultivate a love for good
books — books with reform ideas. My mother
gave me this love and taught me more than all pro
fessors. Well, or Ul — study if possible.
Earthquakes.
When one travels, one naturally faces danger
more often than when one remains at home. I
have experienced several earthquakes in my life,
in consequence of traveling.
Once, in Italy, it was quite an experience. I was
sitting at the Royal Casino, at " Bagni di Lucca,"

133
(in the Apennines) one evening in the reading-room.
Opposite me was an Englishman, in whom I took
quite an interest, more than he did in myself, ap
parently. I had wagered with my mother that he
would speak first and without an introduction.
That wager had been made two months before the
earthquake episode. During the two months an
event had occurred, but the man from Great
Britain remained silent. One day, while we were
alone, he occupied with the London Times, and I
with a less solemn New York journal, a deadly viper
made its appearance on the marble floor. I drew
my feet up on the sofa, to consider. The Britisher,
to use an Americanism, " made for that snake," and
struck it such a violent and sudden blow with his
great cane, that it flew by me, grazing my face, a
proximity not relished. I tried to think whether
it was the tail or business end that had touched the
seat of my gigantic intellect. I was pondering on
the interesting question, and wondering just how
much a viper had to touch one to cause sudden emi
gration to another world.
That Englishman went over in the corner and
placed a No. 13 shoe on the viper, and behold, it
was not. Not much! The size of the spot on the
floor was much.
Then the Englishman sat down and resumed the
solemn London Times! Did not even say, " Foine
day, isn't it? Have the Lunnon Times? "
Weeks had passed. My London Times English
man sat opposite me again, as sUent as a block of

134
marble. Suddenly the marble Casino seemed to
sway. A terrific rumble seemed to be over, and
under, and everywhere.
In rushed the old superintendent of the Royal
Casino, with haggard face, and gesticulated wildly,
then climbed up in a chair, and, with his hands over
his face, he sat with crossed legs, like an old Peru
vian mummy!
To have the earth shake under one destroys one's
confidence in all things. I sat wondering just how
large a grease spot I would make when the heavy
white marble blocks should come on me. The
American Eagle and British Lion would mingle
after all !
Then I reasoned, I'm safer here; only one story!
Then I thought, my mother at home ; four stories !
Then I started. Up jumped the taciturn English
man. " Earthquake! isn't it? Bah Jove!!"
He had spoken first !
" It seems to be," I dryly remarked, as we swayed
back and forth, and objects fell, and shrieks could
be heard in all directions. Yes, it probably was an
earthquake !
I was soon outside. As houses lined one side of
the street, I walked over on the river side. Just
how much the houses danced I cannot say. It was
9 P.M., and people were wildly rushing hither and
thither, if anybody knows what that is. A lady in
a nightgown grabbed hold of me and threw her
arms around my neck! " Save me! save me! "
I had no objections; not at all! None to saving
myself, while I was in the saving business.

135
Then the sickening, wavy, impossible-to-de-
scribe motion. I threw the woman from me
softly and hurried home to my mother. On the
road, I wondered if the earth would open, as it had
when I was near Venice, when the fickle earth had
opened and closed, swallowing a village of many
hundred inhabitants!
I remembered, dully, how my mother, in a trans-
Atlantic gale, had moaned, " Oh, for a Httle piece of
land, only one large enough to put my feet! " Alas,
I sighed for the sea! Away from the fickle land!
To make a long story short, I got home alive,
and took care of my mother — unless she took care
of me, as mothers are apt to do.
I thought to myself, " This is what one gets
through travel: perils by land and sea." "The
frog that would a wooing go."
At Naples, each day, like the rest of the inhabit
ants, I was accustomed to look up each morning
at Mt. Vesuvius, and, mindful of PompeU, wonder,
what next ! The Neapolitans have quite a religious
nature, in consequence of the vicinity of Mt. Vesu
vius.

CHAPTER VIII.
DOCTORS.
As an ex-medical student, I should say a few
words about my medical treatment during the
twenty-four years, or more, of my invalidism, four
teen years, of which, or more, have been passed in
bed. I have had fifty-two (52) doctors, including thirty-
eight regulars; the rest being eclectic, homeopathic,
mental scientists, clairvoyants (what the last saw
clear, I did not see), rubbers with magnetism (which
I never felt) ; and even faith-curists.
One faith-curist, good lady, -was wheeled to me
in a chair, being paralyzed; told me how she had
eaten crabs, two nights before, and faith had saved
her from dying. Common sense would have saved
her, by letting crabs alone. She would have saved,
too, some expense.
When the first doctor, at Berlin, Prussia, after an
attack of inflammatory rheumatism, informed me
I had incurable heart disease, I felt solemn. My
career was over! No! laboremus! But I kept on
with my studies thinking if learning was necessary
in this world, it probably was in the next, in some
way. Laboremus! To work is a duty.

137-
I was doctored for years with violent drugs, A
two-years use of digitalis produced dyspepsia of
the worst type. I lately saw a medical article (1894)
by a doctor who said that digitalis was bad for heart
disease, but was stiU given, as doctors did not know
what to give! It is one of the peculiarities of the
usual " regular treatment " that remedies used to
cure one disease often do so at the expense of
the patient, by causing another. A therapeutical
robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is a kind of " swap,"
so to speak, in which the patient does not always
get the best of it.
It was the contrary case with the quack M.D.
who said, " I can give him something that will give
him fits, and I'm  on fits."
From the large doses of medicine which I have
received at times, I'm afraid my kind medical ad
visers must have been in the predicament of a
Harvard M.D. graduate, who said, " I can remem
ber what to give the  cusses, but hang me if I
can remember the quantities."
Personally, I can remember the strength — the
over-strength of the quantities — and the under-
strength of the unfortunate recipient.
I have in my office two little works on doses,
destined for the pockets of forgetful doctors. It
can be consulted on the sly, and so saves many a
catastrophe, when it does not cause one! A friend
of mine wrote one, Dr, Stewart of Detroit, (Mich.).
I have been a great patron of drug stores under
the patronage of doctors, and the last state of thi-

138
man, in consequence, was always worse than the
first. Naturally!
During my mother's illness, her able doctor, a
noble friend, of fine appearance, tried kindly to help
me with his remedies. Finally, he inquired if he had
done me any good. I answered that I was about
to pay him a great compliment.
He bowed his satisfaction.
The compliment was that he had done me less
harm than any doctor I had ever had, and I had
had fifty-two, or rather, tbey had me. Had the
contents, too, often, of my pocketbook!
" WeU," he said, after properly digesting my com
pliment, " considering the great doctors you have
had, I should be satisfied." (I thought so, too, —
two physicians were royal ones.)
Alphonse Carr, a witty French writer, said that
all that medicine had done for a common cold,
during the last 2,000 years, was to christen it
Coryza (from the Greek).
If names could cure, and Latin, what a happy
medical world it would be!
The greatest trial an invalid has!
Perhaps it is the individual who recommends
something tO' you ; who informs you that he knows
of a similar case, cured by the means which he
proceeds to unfold, whUe you wriggle helplessly.
Someone once asked me what tried my patience
most. I said the fact that I could not keep an ax
and brain the ioo,oooth person who had ^ remedy

139
" for just such a case." I closed with the remark
that I thought I could die happy if I could kill just
one — only one. I spoke quite plaintively.
In Florence, Italy, there was an old English army
officer who proposed to me that I should get one-
half pint of common earth-worms, keep until dry,
then pound to a powder and put in a pint of sherry.
Dose, — one tablespoonful before breakfast.
I never should have broken fast, or breakfasted,
with such an appetizer previously.
But the old officer used to chase me through the
streets to say, " Better? "
" No."
" Well, serves you right. You should take that
remedy." I met him looking badly himself, one day, and
told him I was hopeful Providence would remove
him to a wormless sphere, and a warmer one.
He smiled and growled, and commented so de-
mentedly that I remarked that I wished a ^ pint of
worms could get at him, now, underground.
There was once a carpenter fixing my windows
in Hartford, who was preparing to leave the room
without suggesting a remedy for my case!!! He
was actually going, — gone !
Bless him! How eccentric!
No! he returns. Oh, for an ax!
" I'd like to ask you if you ever tried mind-cure?
I knpw of a case " —
" I know," — I ejaculated.
I said to myself, soto voce; " He knows of a case
^nd I know of a cnrs?."

I40
" I knew you would come back, too," —
Oh, if I could only have tried my ax cure on this
friend !
I told him that the mere sight of the back of a
mind-cure practitioner cured some people, but I was
not myself of such a lovely, curative disposition. I
had reviewed, in a French medical magazine, the
works of the celebrated Dr. Evans, the father of
modern mind-cure, and had received from him his
thanks for the justice of the review, as well as gifts
of his works, which I hereby recommend as the best
books on the subject, the source from which many
mind-cure arguments are drawn. (His letter of
thanks is in my album of autograph letters.)
Still the carpenter proceeded to enlighten me.
" You see," he remarked, coming close to my bed,
and laying his forefinger, French fashion, at the side
of his nose (to heighten the solemnity of his elucida
tions) " You see, my wife was cured; wonderful
case; given up by the doctors." (Given up, —
given down to the burial ground would be the better
expression.) " Why? Was her pocketbook empty? "
"WeU; nearly."
Then he continued, and continued, and continued,
and continued, until I was afraid we would both
get to be old men. I sighed when I thought of that
favorite ax idea of mine. It seemed such a good
idea. Finally, the carpenter spoke of his wife needing
the mind-cure doctor one day, so he went for him.

141
But the mind-cure doctor had considerable sense
on this particular day, and so refused to come on
account of the snow. The day of the great blizzard.
" But," objected the carpenter, " I thought you
told me that snow was an illusion of the senses, — a
materialistic phenomena without existence."
" Well," drawled the doctor, looking out of the
window, " when it is up to your ear, it is real."
This same mind-curist was lecturing in New
Haven on the text " There is no death for the mind-
curist," when he dropped dead!
The carpenter had not heard of this embarrassing
end. I told him. Tableau !
Probably he was right. There was one mind-
cure doctor who told m& it was useless trying to
put mind-cure principles in by the teaspoonful,
when relatives and friends were shoveling in the
contrary by the pint, etc.
I gravely rejoined that I thought it useless, and
too expensive top, at $2.00 a teaspoonful. That
would make $224 a pint! He w'ent home without
leaving a pint or a point, but he carried away $3, —
the price of a first visit. The last, too!
I thought it would be cheaper to look at the back
of an inspiring mind-curist when passing my
window. Among my fifty-two doctors was an English
physician, at Florence, Italy. I was quite ill, and
remarked, as I read the prescription, that, owing to
an idiosyncrasy, I thought one drug might be left
out. As a medical student, I had observed, nar
rowly, the effects of the drug on myself.

142
The Briton glared at me. He rose suddenly,
jammed his cylinder hat on the back of his head,
and made for the door.
WeU, the total depravity of inanimate objects!
The door stuck fast, and yet it never had before !
My mother said, clasping her hands, " What is
the matter, doctor? Do not go! "
The doctor still struggled wrathfuUy with the
door, and his hat and attitude appealed to my funny
bump, which, perhaps, is too large for comfort.
" Let the enraged British Lion depart in peace,"
I ejaculated, " the American Eagle is all right."
The British Lion did depart, but not much in
peace. He thundered down the hallway, banging
a door or two on the way, in a way that threatened
to leave me, — in pieces. The American Eagle was
quivering. An hour after, his servant, in livery, handed me a
note. (Very stylish stationery): " Florence, Nov., 1872.
Dear Sir : — Knowing your condition to be danger
ous, I hereby give the list of Florence medical
advisers —
It is necessary that a patient should have full con
fidence in his medical man. I advise immediate
choice, etc. Yours respectfuUy,"
He meant, " yours disrespectfuUy," but etiquette
must be.
My answer was that I considered the case too
serious for a " medical man," and that I should have

143
to attend to it myself, to produce a thoroughly good
result. And I did, and recovered in spite of his prognosti
cations that a man must have confidence in his medi
cal man. Why, where was the confidence to be had?
I believe I laughed myself well.
Speaking of medical prognostications, I have a
number of times felt ashamed at not fulfiUing them.
There was a " medical man " in the Tyrol, a medical
light, who informed me I could not live there
through the summer. As he was a high medical
celebrity, and I was a low medical case, and an
obscure medical man myself, I really felt ashamed
at meeting him, and improving. Then, too, at
Munich there was the celebrated head of the Munich
hospital, who had informed me that I would not live
to get through the Brenner Pass.
Most of the doctors who informed me twenty
years ago that I could not live have died. Died,
perhaps, of over wisdom. In one sense the gentle
men were right, as I have been dying, as one might
say, for twenty years, a fact for which I owe an
apology, like my namesake, Charles II of England,
for the unconscionable time spent in this most
serious of all occupations, and at times most tedious,
when a man travels thus for twenty years in the
same direction, that is, toward the grave. I should
think it would become monotonous for his friends.
Probably it does, — at times.
One of my old coUege friends, Nathaniel Bacon,
observed, " Say, Howard, as you've had one foot
in the grave ten years," —

144
" Yes, friend," I returned, " you are about to say
that makes twenty years for both feet."
" The calculation is correct. Next! "
My mother always regretted that I did not accept,
whUe a member of the Paris Medical Press, the in
vitation of a pupU of languages, a Professor at the
School of Medicine, to be examined by the Acade
mic de Medicine de France. I should have stood
nude before hundreds of grave men, and I shrank
from the ordeal, perhaps unwisely. My friend's
remark about medicine rather chilled me.
" You study seven years here," I said, " before
getting a degree of medicine."
" Yes, and you in the United States only three
years? "
"Well, la medecine c'est de la blague! Cest
assez! "
Medicine is — gab. Its enough!
Medical men gave me so much useless and deadly
digitalis for the heart, that I wish they had confined
themselves to — talk. I used it for years !
In 1879, at  weU, in Connecticut, several
doctors sat around a medium. As the spirit of old
Dr. C  , a once celebrated M.D., made his ap
pearance, I questioned, " With your superior,
heavenly wisdom, would you still use digitalis? "
" Yes."
Then I turned to the living doctors. " Would
you?" " Yes."
" You? "

145
" Yes," etc.
" Gentlemen," I said, " Do you recognize the
authority of the Medical Congress of 1878? " (I
think this date correct.)
" Yes."
" Well," I added, " That Congress counsels its
disuse, saying that it is dangerous, as it makes up
by intensity of action what it decreases in velocity,
producing added dangers."
The April or May number of the Phrenological
Monthly (Fowler & WeUs, N. Y.), 1895, represents
an M.D. as saying, that M.D.'s know the bad action
of this drug in heart disease, but use it as they do
not know what else to give ! !
It is a most poisonous, deadly, useless drug, in
heart disease, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.
I am very sorry that I ever touched a single dose of
this terrible drug.
The medicine of the future will be hygiene, or
preventive medicine ; — prevention, rather than cure.
The Russians say, " An ounce of prevention is
worth a TON of cure."
I have had unusual opportunities for consulting
the best medical skUl. At Berlin, as a student, I
went to consult the famous physician. Baron von
Langenbach, physician to King William, who be
came Emperor of Germany.
I waited and waited in his antechamber while
the old medical Baron coughed and coughed in the
next room. Can it be possible, I thought, that the
physician to his Majesty is not able to cure his own
7

146
cold? Alas, it was very possible! When I took
the learned Baron's prescription I bowed low and
held it with awe, and I wondered if it would be as
efficacious as his treatment of his own hollow cough
on the lungs.
The prescription read, " Pills every evenings to
be taken." The Baron's English was not on a level
with his medical knowledge.
I do not know that I experienced any relief from
the piUs. Possibly, I felt too much awe at taking
pills prescribed by His Royal Majesty's physician.
I have filed away the medical prescription beneath
a photograph of his baronialship. I have a book,
scrapbook of medical prescriptions. I feel thank
ful to have lived in spite of them.
Later, in Paris, I came under the treatment of
Dr. Prosper de Pietra Santa, ex-physician to His
Imperial Majesty, Napoleon III, author of many
medical works, and head of a clinic for lung com
plaints. He helped my mother who suffered from lung
complaint. During an attack of pneumonia he
came over to examine my mother, and then, on
her asking for a doctor who lived near, in the ward,
he wrote off a list of doctors and then said, " Madam,
I know of no one superior to the one who lives in
the next room." He meant myself! Told me to
keep room at 55 Fahrenheit! A low temperature
is best for pneumonia.
During the Commune of 1870, this courageous
doctor was physician to the prison of Majas, Paris.

147
The Archbishop of Paris was waiting to be shot
by the Communists, and the prison authorities re
fused to give the Archbishop a bath. The plucky
Dr. Prosper de Pietra Santa ordered U, and enforced
it, although the director of the prison told him his
turn would come next. But de Pietra Santa was a
Bonaparte by birth, a Corsican, and the blood of the
Napoleons was in his veins. The bath was given,
and the Archbishop died with a clean skin.
For a number of years I worked on the staff of
the Journal d'Hygiene, of which Dr. Prosper de
Pietra Santa was the head editor. I made a review
of the medical works given me, in German, Italian,
English, etc.
I made the acquaintance thus, and later became
correspondent of such medical authorities as Dr.
Edward Reich of Germany, Dr. Paul Mantegazza
of Italy, etc. This fact below I intend to mention
to St. Peter (as gatekeeper of heaven).
I introduced in France a respirator, sold now as
the Howard Young-Wolff Respirator. It has been
sold for years by the Societe Francaise d'Hygiene.
The immortal Pasteur told my friend and chief
editor. Dr. Prosper de Pietra Santa, that he ap
proved of it. It was used in great firms where
jDoisons were used, and many lives were spared or
saved in consequence. Surgeons.
If medicine is not yet a science, surgery may
claim to be. What precision and coolness one sees

148
in the operating rooms of a great surgeon! How
well I remember a visit of my mother and myself
to the rooms of the greatest in Italy, at Florence.
My mother woke up in the middle of the night,
one autumn in Florence, with a scream. Some
thing had pricked her, — some poisonous insect.
It pained and swelled greatly. It swelled so, when
morning came, a German M.D. was sent for. He
thought it was due to a scorpion. He treated it for
days, then one morning looked at me gravely, after
an examination, and spoke rapidly in German so
my mother could not understand: " It is getting
dangerous. If the operation to be performed this
morning is not successful the hand wUl have to
come off, and perhaps the arm. Drive quickly!
His operating hour is over at 2 P.M. This note
wUl give ypu precedence over all patients there."
My mother anxiously asked what the doctor said.
I answered evasively to the effect that the hand
needed the examination of a brother doctor. Then,
putting my mother in a cab, I told the driver I
would give him an extra dollar if I arrived at the
surgeon's office within twenty minutes. I was
sorry immediately after that I had offered so large
a pourboire, for we rattled along in a way that
agitated my commissary department, and threatened
the dissolution of that carriage.
Turning a corner suddenly, I was shot out of the
arrangement, holding fast to my mother, whUe she
held fast to me, as she did always in emergencies.
I was hurled against a lamppost, and felt sore for
days afterwards. The wheel had come off.

149
I had acted as a padij or cushion, as I often had
before in life, for my mother, so she was all right
and the affair took her attention off her hand.
Paying the poor Jericho, we got into another
carriage, and got to the surgeon's on time. There
were a number waiting in the outer rooms. Oh,
the sad, frightened look of many! Women and
children had their eyes glued, so to speak, on the
door, wishing, yet dreading their turn. What
pitiful faces! Oh, if I had been the Prince of Peace,
and could have said to each frightened soul. Peace ! -
Be whole! Depart in peace!
But I was only a common man anxious over an
uncommon good mother. The note was carried in,
and as it said that the operation was urgent, we
were ushered in at once. Not even a good morn
ing! The surgeon seized the hand. A rapid
glance !
" Madam a besoin d'evanouir? Is she about to
faint? "
" No," I rejoined, " I will hold her."
The knife flashed back the sunlight; a scream,
and the work was done. The matter gushed forth
with blood.
" The hand wUl not have to come off. Relieve
your mind."
My mother exclaimed, " My God! was it so
serious?" I felt faint with relief for a moment. Then so
glad! But when I crossed back through the re
ception rooms, and saw those sad, anxious faces

150
awaiting their turn, then I felt solemn again. Poor.
sick humanity, — bleeding at every turn. And
stumbling, and falling, too! God help us all!
Years later I knew more exactly how they felt.
I had gone down to New York to consult the cele
brated Dr. Alonzo Clark. I had been carried on
men's shoulders, so that I felt humiliated. I re
member it hurt, the idea of being toted around like
an old toad. Then the modest price of an examin
ation at my residence, $35.00, was appalling.
Finally I was examined by Dr. Dunn, the ex
aminer of a great insurance company (Jay Gould's
private physician), and after an hour's tapping,
while I lay sneezing, without clothes, I heard the
welcome words, " Well, you probably have an ob
struction of the bowels, due to the fall, but after an
operation it would not heal, you are so weak and far
gone with other diseases that it would be best to do
nothing. Go back to Hartford, and die as slowly
and as comfortably as possible ! "
I was thankful to do nothing. That evening my
sister said she had never seen me so gay; felt en
couraged, etc. (The tapping and examination pro
duced internal bleeding, which fact I hid.) I felt
that things are not always what they seem.
As this medical man had told me a wound would
not heal in my weakened condition, I did not take
the interest I might have in the kind proposition of
a friend surgeon, who later offered to bring around
his surgical case, and friends, with the object of
exploring my stomach and bowels.

" Would I live through it? "
He shrugged his shoulders.
" In case I lived through it, would the explora
tory cuts heal up? "
Another shrug.
" What, then, would be the advantage? "
" Oh, medical science might be benefited."
It might be, certainly, but so many mistakes have
been made in my case, whUe living, that explora
tory cuts or a post mortem would probably only
result in more mistakes and discussions.
Hence I prefer surgeons should leave me in peace
(not in pieces) when dead.
I regret not having abstained from my fifty-two
doctors while living, by slowly dying.
Drugs rise and fall in estimation ; become fashion
able, — then " back numbers." StUl, we have made
progress over the days of yore, when compounds
of fifty or sixty ingredients were to be met with;
when our medical compounds resembled those of
the present Chinese. When after the purging and
relentless blood-letting, the relatives pulled roughly,
as in the Middle Ages, the piUow from the dying
one, with the object of making him uncomfortable,
' and so taking his attention from his inward ills.
I had been told to die as comfortably as possible. I
am trying to do so.
Yes, the world moves, even if we do die, just as
usual. We die more comfortably.

152
Druggists.
I said that I had escaped alive from several hun
dred druggists. There was one in Italy, however,
who nearly did me up "with neatness and dispatch."
It was at Zampironi's drug store, at Venice, Italy,
where I resided ten months.
An Italian doctor had given me a tonic, which
contained poison, as most respectable tonics are sup
posed to do! The prescription called for twelve
powders, the poisonous tonic being divided up in
some inert powder.
Unfortunately for me, the clerk was engaged to
be married the next day, and so was naturally insane.
Probably might be so for a year. The temporary
insanity, usually called love, sometimes lasts as
long as a year after the marriage ceremony. Then
something better comes — friendship.
One powder received the dose of poison intended
for twelve. Naturally, when I opened the box, that
particular powder lay on top, and was immediately
swallowed by the idiot for whom it was intended.
I was three days unconscious, and suffered greatly
from the drug. I say idiot, because that is what
drugs are put up for, as a rule.
I was advised by several parties to have the
erratic clerk arrested, though my advisers failed to
point out what special advantage I should derive
from depriving two lunatics of their so-called hap
piness. I was advised, too, to sue for damages, but what
I needed was repairs from the drug.

JS3
No, I think I was more than satisfied. All I
asked for was peace and quietness, peace from the
druggist and quietness in my internal commissary
department. Dr. Oliver Holmes said aU drugs should be
thrown into the sea, except six. He added, with
frankness, that it would be hard on the fishes. Con
sidering that the United States Dispensary has
about 2,200 drugs, six survivals does not seem too
many. I knew a relative of Dr. Holmes, a doctor,
dying of consumption at Paris, so there was no
specific for that disease among the six. Physician,
heal thyself, holds just as good as the day it was
spoken. Nurses.
In a chapter on invalids and doctors, I should
not omit a few lines of advice about nurses.
I would suggest that the nurse should have dry,
magnetic hands, not damp, clammy ones. It is
generally admitted that nurses should first be
cleanly. The most important thing, however, is that the
nurse should be gentle, of a sweet disposition.
There is a worse thing to be met than dirt, and that
is the soil on one's soul, produced by impatience in a
nurse (or in one's self). It is a positive fact that
men prefer a slovenly woman to an impatient
woman, even to marry. So, too, wUl an invalid,
after he has had some experience, prefer a nurse
who is gentle, rather than ove;--tidy. Let the

154
invalid please himself, when possible, in the choice
of a nurse, and not his relatives or friends. Each
one wiU chose a different nurse for him, or at least
suggest one.
My first nurse, left me by my mother, was young;
twenty-two years, or so, old. A very gentle nurse.
Lady visitors of sixty, or more, years counseled an
older one; "of more experience," etc. By the
way, people of much experience are often arrogant.
NaturaUy! Circumstances made the writer, later, take an old
lady who had no home but the poorhouse, from
which she had escaped. She had six different
diseases, viz., bronchitis, heart trouble, brain trouble,
produced by an apoplectic shock at New Haven,
Conn., where she had lain a year in the hospital;
4th, a tumor back of the ear, next to the bump of
destructiveness, whjch tended greatly to increase
her irritabUity; 5th, advanced kidney trouble, which
necessitated getting up from ten to fifteen times
during the night; finally, last, but not least, rheu
matism, which spoilt her hands.
Why did I take so weak a nurse? For several
reasons. As a woman suffragist, I had promised
my mother to look out for women, especially the
weak. Secondly, my nurse, who had tried to com
mit suicide, said she would, if sent back to the poor-
house, try to commit suicide again there.
The state should insure the life of every chUd
born, and do away with this frightful bugbear, the
poorhouse. The state is criminal in its neglect.
Give us nationalism, and soon!

155
On several occasions I did discharge this nurse,
who had many good quaUties, but not that of
patience, which includes all, or leads to perfection,
St. James says. Being so weak and old, however,
she could not find any other place.
At one time the writer took a nurse, a very intel
ligent lady, who had had many troubles in this life.
A wayward relative was such a worry and anxiety to
her, that it naturally developed impatience. Her
devotion, though, to her erring relative was grand
— and she has easily climbed the Golden Stairs.
The invalid, in choosing a nurse, has to choose
not only one that is naturally sweet, but one whose
relatives are quiet and temperate, or who can rise
superior to events.
During the administration of all three mentioned
nurses, the writer had a sweet, gentle girl of eleven,
who did the running of errands, and going up and
down stairs. Her name was Minnie, and May, and
Martha, but she was best when I called her Martha.
So I came to consider her as my Martha, and other
people's Minnie.
Under the name of Martha, she strove to imitate
and follow the example of Christ's Martha. She
said once, " I could use my hair on your feet." In
her childish way this meant that she was faithful.
Her bright ways and kind disposition lengthened
my days. I think we mutually improved one
another. One of the nurses lengthened my days in a curious

156
way. I had taken Communion during an attack of
dangerous and painful Pectora Angina, which had
lasted for days without remission from pain. In
deed, the writer, fearing he could not properly re
spond to the Communion Service, had at first
declined it. But, at the clergyman's suggestion,
I persisted. Not with any idea of being worthy of
the divine supper, or of goodness, but as a help to
become better and more patient. My earthly end
seemed at hand.
Later in the afternoon, the nurse in question
came in, fidgeted a whUe, then said, " If you think
you are going to die, I'd better go away,. as I make
a point of doing so when people are about to die."
The way she screwed her face up, and her anxiety
to clear out under certain contingencies, made me
smile. The anxious expression gave way to one of
displeasure on the nurse's face, as I smiled and
smiled, and finally broke into a laugh. A laugh
long continued. It made me perspire and relax.
The attack was gone. " Under the circumstances,
I do not make a point of dying. The funeral is
postponed." This reminds me that a pleasant and kind lady
who had rooms in the apartment-house said plain
tively to me: " Professor, I do hope you won't die in
the house! It is so sad, — a funeral in the house."
It made me think of that ideal rat-exterminator
warranting the rats not to die on the premises. I
again promised to try and not have a funeral " on
the premises," and the lady left, partially comforted.

157
My oldest nurse informed me she had nursed for
thirty years, but had never seen people troop in to
see a sick person as they did to see me. She sug
gested fewer, but in vain. I have always seen every
one who wished to see me, no matter how ill. That
was Emerson's way: he never knew what message
they might have for him — or he for them.
Different people have different standards for a
nurse. My mother's first requisite was obedience,
and so, after trial, she preferred young girls of 14,
or 15, or 16. She said that elderly women were set
in their ways, and did not yield a quick and ready
obedience. One nurse, for instance, a very lovely
lady in every way, said she " had been her own boss
too long to be bossed by any one."
My mother at one time had a good, sweet-tem
pered French girl who was patience itself, and kind.
She was a French Canadian, and had the love of the
French for dancing and amusements. As she had
since early childhood suffered from scrofulous
tumors in the neck and under the arms, late hours
and exposure did not agree with her. After each
such exposure the tumors would grow larger, and
endanger her life, but her love of dance was so in
grained that it did not deter her from late hours
and dancing. Finally, my mother said to this
seventeen-year-old girl, " We are your sick chUdren,
and at times vou leave us to go to dances. Is that
right? "
" No," she returned, " it is not nice, and I will
try to do better." And she did try.

158
Surgeons said the tumors should be cut out. I
was against it, but after consultation with six medi
cal men, she courageously mounted the operating
table, after taking leave of my mother and myself.
She had been sO sweet and gentle, that, as I held
out both hands to bid her farewell, I really felt like
giving her a brotherly kiss, but I refrained, and have
felt sorry since. I admired, too, her sweet, womanly
courage. The operation, under ether, lasted two hours, and
the child never recovered from the effects.
During the operation the younger sister came
over, crying, to my room, to stay and be comforted.
As she passed through the operating room, she had
given, unfortunately, a glance back, and the sight
of her beloved sister, pale, and with cut throat,
from which the blood was running, had unnerved
her. I spent an hour telling her stories in French and
trying to divert her mind.
Catholic faith had induced, previous to the opera
tion, a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Anne de
Beaupre, in Canada, but without avail. I did not
discourage this trip, as faith and mind-cure are often
potent in disease. All in vain. The child died. A
few days previous, word was brought down to me
that sweet Louise was worse. I commenced to
tell my dying mother, but she placed her fingers in
her ears and shook her head.
Some one asked Louise how she liked Professor

159
Young and his mother. She said, " I never knew
two better people." Merci bien !
May we all meet in a better world! My mother
died first.
Some one told the dying girl, saying, " Isn't it
terrible, Louise, isn't it sad. Professor Young being
left all alone in the world, now that his mother is
dead? "
The dying child said nothing to the visitor, but
turned her back to the wall, and was without a
word till midnight, when she turned to her mother
and said, " Why did you not tell me before? Why
deceive me?" It was my suggestion she should
not be told in her condition.
She sent word that if ever she had done wrong,
or failed in her duty, to forgive. A Catholic, Chris
tian custom. There was nought to forgive.
Psent her a little Catholic cross, given me by the
Pope's " Chaplain in Extraordinary," a friend. It
was placed in her dead hands, too. Her golden
hair, my mother's pride, had to be cut off before
death. Before death, she said, " Why don't you get an
ax and kUl me, when suffering so! " Alas! Such
sufferings! Poor, sweet, gentle, little one. She
died finally in Christian, child-like faith.
At one time she said, " I am only nineteen — my
birthday — so young to die."
If one's chief point is obedience, I think Catholic
nurses are best. The Protestant is more apt to
protest. Forty sects protesting against each other.

i6o

Each have their good points, but as Lecky, in his
grand work on " European Morals," says, " the
qualities are different. Obedience, gentleness,
suavity, on the one side; on the other, justice, in
dependence, brusqueness," etc. So choose, your
self! A little Catholic girl, also French, who took
Louise's place, stumbled on a knife the first night!
My poor mother, at the same moment, fell against
the window-pane and could not be lifted away until
I had tied the frightened chUd's deep-cut arm. I
had to steady the child with one arm, although she
kept saying, " No matter. Professor, don't mind it."
Her lips grew paler and paler, until a partial faint
gave me an opportunity to fix the arm properly,
which I did by tearing up a towel near me. Then
I had her help my poor, helpless, fainting mother.
Good, beneficent nature, with her ready faint!
At one time we had a boy nurse. In a measure
he resembled a girl, in his gentleness, and in fact
he seemed a choice combination of a boy and girl,
with all the good points of both. Future ages will
produce such a race. LTnfortunately, his mother
drank, and he was placed in a county home. Once
he passed the night sitting in a closet, fearing to go
home and face his drunken mother, and the objects
she was wont to throw.
Again, his sister, who waited on us at times, came
one evening with her scalp wounded. The mother
had dragged her around by the hair. For a whole
year the two hid from me their mother's drunken-

t6i

ness, as well as their father's. Oh, the sufferings of
childhood! " Honor thy father and mother! "
When I kissed the little fellow good-bye, on his
way to the county home, he cried at the caress. It
opened his heart.
This little sketch is one made by myself, to please
the children. I think it the worst sketch I have
ever seen. Probably no one wiU dispute the fact.
It represents myself, with my fifty-four piUows, my
two regular nurses, and assistant nurse, Delia, my
friend Avery Eberts, a young man whom I called
my assistant engineer; my best pupil. Princess Alice
Eckhardt. The rat, the tame white one, occupies
his usual prominent position on Mt. Ararat (my
feet). He usually wore a yellow ribbon and was a
woman suffragist. Cats also grace the landscape.
One wears a yellow ribbon on which is pasted the
3^ellow woman suffrage Lincoln label. Fact! it
circulates so as a woman suffrage cat.
The yellow Woman Suffrage Banner is in my
hand. It really hangs over my bed, and I trust it
will be placed on my coffin. On my tomb will be
carved, I hope, the words: "Woman Suffragist}'
C. Howard Young — woman suffragist! Nothing-
else. All my life I have been, so to speak, a speciaHst in
the woman suffrage line. It has always seemed to
me that other reforms should wait untU both halves
of humanity could express themselves. To vote
on and decide such questions as divorce, war, silver
coinage, etc., without the aid of woman, seems to

1 62

me to be stuffing the ballot-box, viz., cheating, in
plain English.
Sketch — My sketch is headed " Chambre de
Torture of the XIX century."
" And still he bore, mid pain, heat, and mice, the
banner with the strange device, — Excelsior.
Looking upward."
Drawn by the poorest artist on earth, — myself.
Withdrawn — at the request of friends — in the in
terest of a long-suffering public — suffering from
woodcuts, and other cuts! If, however, the pubHc
feels that it has lost anything in the way of high art,
in case my book meets with a favorable reception,
and a second edition, it will be furnished — viz., the
illustration — meantime be thankful you have not
got it!
My eyes, in reality, are quite normal, so I might
apologize here for the appearance of one eye in the
photograph on the first page. It is not closed for
repairs, but half closed on account of sunlight strik
ing it. I asked the photographer if he charged any
thing extra if one eye was double size, but got no
reply.

MY SKETCH !

p. S. — tVithdrawn, as above stated. Reminds me to also withdraiv
anything in my book that may wrongfully hurt any one's feelings, or
any class, As a would-be good Episcopalian and cosmopolitan. AMEN,

CHAPTER IX.

CATS AS DOCTORS.
A DEBT OF GRATITUDE PAID TO CATS.
Grimalkin Heroes and Heroines.
You laugh? Why? I have several times, in my
invalid life of twenty years or more, received valu
able assistance from kindly feline visitors.
There was a Florentine cat, gray and grave, at
Florence, Italy, in an Italian hotel, who came to my
sick room to render what cheer and assistance he
could, to share with me, on my bed, various deli
cacies. There was solidified Liebig Extract of
meat, which the invaHd placed, for mischief, at the
bottom of a vase. Sir Grimalkin placed that vase
sideways, cried, then shoved in his paw to the
shoulder, and enjoyed the contents by slow and
patient labor. Evidently he realized, " God helps
those who help themselves."
I should allude more at length to the pussy who
cared for me at Asbury Park, N. J.
Sitting on the veranda, one summer eve, a poor,
woe-be-gone cat slunk by, with pitiful appeals. It
was soon to become a mother.
We caUed it, but in vain. It feared. All men's
hands, it felt, were against it And men's feet, too.
My sister, who had sympathy for aU that suffered,

1 64
always had good influence on all animals. She fol
lowed it, and talked soothingly, and soon carne back
with it. We petted it a few days, and then my sister
prepared a bed for it in the woodshed. Large
oyster sheUs were placed around the interesting
patient, with various delicacies in them, and the
feline population of the United States of America
was soon augmented by six.
The next day, that cat appeared in my room with
one baby kitten in her mouth. As there was
another bed in my room I had it covered with jour
nals. The kitty waited patiently, sprang up, and
laid number one on the bed ; then emigrated to im
port the other five kittens.
That cat then took care of the six kittens and
myself, and at times brought them over for a visit
to my bed. It seemed to regard me as a kind of
godfather. Also seemed to regard my bed as
possessing superior accommodations for cat house
keeping. " Cast your bread upon the waters." Well, it
was this same cat (cats seem to apply the injunction
to increase and multiply) that later, with a new
family under the stoop, chased away a burglar, by
fastening her claws in the calf of his leg at midnight.
Possibly, or even probably, she thought the intruder
was after her feline family, as well as her adopted
human family, but " One good turn deserves an
other." From the oaths I heard on the veranda,
I can see that the burglar felt that one bad turn
deserves a scratch. Several!

i6s
Later, my cat doctress was poisoned by a neigh
bor, and came to die on my bed, in a torturing,
lingering way. Even in the agonies of death it
turned to me and licked my fingers. " Requiescai
in pace."
Then there was my cat doctor at " Bagni di
Lucca " (Italy), in the Apennines.
My bed was near the window, and a mountain
ran up the side, steep, so near I could touch it with
my hand! This strange cat in question amused
itself by catching the brilliant-colored lizards, and
dexterously biting the tails off; then aUowing them
to escape, after a careful consideration to see that
the tails were properly short. Each day the same
performance. It may have imagined it was per
forming a duty, or, perhaps, it was learned, and
knew that lizard's tails re-grew. Hundreds of liz
ards were frisking around without tails, and they
seemed to be satisfied. Perhaps they enjoyed it,
as men do having their hair cut off. In fact, they
all seemed to be playing " I'm on Tom Tidler's
ground," and enjoying it, too.
One day I noticed the cat engaged in a struggle
with a deadly viper which it finally kUled. My re
spect for the kitty grew, and I invited her in for a
friendly chat, which proved of so fascinating a
character, that Minette decided to board with me,
and take care of me, as far as she could.
When we left in a carriage for Lucca it jumped
up and prepared to go, although its owner lived near
by. When it was put down, its grief was intense,

i66

and it had to be pulled off the carriage, holding on
desperately with its claws. Though we drove
rapidly, it tried to keep up and mewed and flew
along. If Cora Linn Daniels, in her grave work " As it
is to be," is right, I shall call that cat into immor
tality, with several others, friends in days of yore,
and of adversity. Tyrolian " Miess."
In the climatological place, Bozen, Tyrol, Austria,
I passed as an invaHd ten months. My friend and
doctor there was a little gray kitty that I saved
in the hotel from death by hanging. The usual
cruel boy, who has not improved, apparently, since
the time of Julius Caesar, or the good king Herod!
The kitten in question was lowered from a win
dow above by an Italian peasant lad. I cut it down,
and, on its partial revival, it kissed me very demon
stratively and refused to depart. As there was an
old peasant woman on the top floor who often
whined over her poverty and inability to support a
cat, I offered to provide for its commissary depart
ment if she would look out for it. She did so. The
cat came, down daily, three or four times, and took
care of me in its way, and grew in grace. This puss
was a •'great comfort. It had a fine developed
brain, a Shakespearian head, filled with kitten lore.
One day I missed her, and after several days in
quiry, I found that the family of an Italian railroad
engineer on the second floor had boiled and eaten

167
her! It was a case of partial starvation! Oh, the
misery in the old countries! The woman had an
extra baby born, — there was no extra food — and
poor puss was buried in their stomachs. Doubtless
she went higher, — Darwinian struggle for exist
ence !
I shall call that cat to life, if possible, in a future
state, if mortals can do such things.
It was no use to remonstrate with such misery.
A four-year-old child sat on the cold stone pave
ment of the room, attending to a two-year-old off
spring. Then there was the starved new baby, in
the starved woman's arms, who was around work
ing the first day after confinement! No fire! no
wood! The cat was evidently needed.
After all these years my heart longs for that cat;
more, if possible, than their stomachs did. It never,
in life, forgot that I saved its life, and I never shall
forget that it comforted mine. Peace to her bones!
And forgiveness to the owners of the fierce
stomachs. The Darwinian struggle for existence
was too much for the poor woman. An extra fine
cat had to be sacrificed to an extra poor baby. StUl,
the burial place of that poor cat was satisfactory in
one sense. It had gone higher, been assimilated
in a higher organism.
DOGS AS ANTI-HYGIENISTS.
A Counter Chapter to Cats as Doctors.
My mother always said that there must be some
inherent wickedness in me (which she had never

i68
discovered) because dogs, who are accredited with
considerable discrimination, " in knowing a good
thing," when they see it, apparently did not, to use
a slang expression, take much stock in me, and in
sisted too often in showing their disapprobation by
tasting of me. I had on several occasions, after
such gastronomic performances, to explain to my
mother that they tasted of me because they were
over fond of me, but the explanation was not satis
factory entirely.
My first experience, as a boy of twelve, was with
a buUdog who thought a piece of my calf, as I ran
up stairs, would taste savory. It evidently did.
Bulldogs should be exterminated, as unworthy of
civilization. My second experience was with a mad dog
(hydrophobia), also of the buUdog persuasion, who
preferred a good bite on my right hand. He got
it, — got shot. I got cauterized and sewed up.
At the age of thirteen, the sewed-up part afforded
me considerable satisfaction, — before boys on pa
rade, — a seven-inch bite in length ! Many people
kindly informed me they thought the bite would
develop rabies in me, sooner or later. I was not
over nervous, and preferred to take it later, very
much later.
Some twenty-five years after the affair some
kind-hearted croaker said to me, " I should think
you'd be afraid it would develop yet. You know
such things have occurred," etc., " I knew of a
man," etc., etc.

169
I replied that I was worried for fear I might bite
some hydrophobia croaker yet.
In Bavaria, High Alps, Schliersee Village, a little
dog, in 1870, ran out of a baker shop, leaped in the
air in a festive way, and fastened on my finger. I
thought to myself, " This affection of dogs for me
is getting tedious; misplaced affection." I went
home and took an oil lamp. My mother was 500
miles away, so I heated her scissors red hot and had
a fine, first-class auto da fe celebration, heating and
burning, burning and heating. A fellow student,
overhead, called at the head of the stairs, " Say,
Howard, those peasants down stairs are roasting a
chicken, and we're not invited."
" Come right down and have some of the
chicken." He did come, and threw up his hands.
He took me for a crazy gander, not chicken.
Lingered at the doorway, so he could make better
time, in case of an insane attack.
I explained the over-fondness of dogs for me.
The German owner of the dog said his dog had
never acted so before. Once was enough.
Experience No. 4; Scene, Geneva (Switzerland)
bridge, I, absent minded, in the center. WUd
halloos — yeUs, etc. Looked up. Crowd chasing
mad dog, with sticks, stones, etc. One stone keeled
him over, then up he jumped and made a bee-line
for me. I was glued to the spot, not by LaPage's
liquid glue, merely cowardice. I was not fascinated,
but I was frozen, and the dog kept on. As he was

I70
within a couple of feet, I recovered my presence of
mind, but preferred absence of body; gave a leap
over his head, but the froth, as he snapped, covered
one boot. But I was safe, and ready for more dogs
in the future.
I crossed back to the park, and I wiped that boot
with considerable neatness and dispatch on the
grass. And I wiped, and wiped, and wiped. I felt
as if I could wipe that foot away. Somebody sug
gested another park, so I could get sufficient grass.
One suggested Ireland. Olcott, known as the
grass-fiend, says there are six hundred varieties of
grass. I wanted them all.
Dog Experience No. 5.
Arrested!
As hydrophobia is often the result of weak nerves,
combined with a dog bite, I give the following ac
count :
In Paris, near the Gare de Lyori (or railroad
depot), I had just got into an omnibus when I
noticed a man running to catch the bus, and a bull
dog behind him, trying to catch him. The bus,
dog, and man stopped at the same moment. The
dog had obtained a piece of the man's calf. Blood
flowed somewhat. A serjeant de ville — police
officer — ran up and collared the dog. I was hold
ing up the man, with two others, as he was in a semi-
faint. He was, a minute before, a strong, ruddy-
faced man. He had become already a white-faced
thing, a limp rag. I was musing on the change,

171
on life, dogs, etc., while I suggested carrying the
man into a drug store, which was done ; but I could
not assist, for the officer said to me, laying his hand
on my shoulder, " I believe it was your dog. You
are under arrest, sir."
Another police officer had run up and was hold
ing the dog by choking it from behind. He held
his short sword bared, for an emergency. When
a dog is suspected of rabies, French law requires,
that, if possible, it shall be arrested and kept until
the matter can be settled at Alfort. This is sup
posed to quiet the bitten. It does not always quiet
the biter, nor the one who holds him. It must
make a Parisian police officer's existence quite ex
citing at times.
I disclaimed the honor of the dog's acquaintance,
but the conductor said, " Yes, it is his dog; it was
following him when he got into the omnibus!"
The officer laid his hand on my shoulder again,
saying I was under arrest.
I denied again, took out my cardcase, and gave
him a card. He read it, — " a professor — member
of the press," etc. Placed it in his pocket, bowed,
and said, " Monsieur le Professeur, I beg pardon, I
shall have to verify,'' etc.
I got back into the bus and the conductor charged
me a second fare! " Cetait la loi! " And the law
is there, everytime, in France.
That man, later, died of fright; not hydrophobia.
I do not, of course, deny hydrophobia exists; merely
I would say that it is a disease of the nervous system

172
and, as such, is greatly helped on to a fatal termin
ation by fear, and that pseudo hydrophobia exists
too, and often.
Before closing, I would say that nearly all dog-
owners are more or less callous to the feelings of their
neighbors. When visiting regularly the great hospital at
Munich, Bavaria, for treatment for heart disease,
I had to face, three times per week, a huge, chained
mastiff, who growled and tugged at his chain in his
anxiety to see more of me, and feel more, too, I
thought. The old doctor said, "Ach Gott, nein!
He don't bite, he is only a puppy." I remarked that
he was the size of a pony, almost, and had teeth an
inch long, and a very open smile, that boded no
good to an invalid with heart disease. But, " Ach
nein, der Kerl beizt nicht." (The fellow don't bite.)
One day his joy at seeing me apparently made
him more vigorous, for the huge iron chain
quivered, and the dog kennel also. The post had
snapped and the dog was not only taking up his
bed and walking, but his house, too.
My coat-tails were soon in his mouth, and I was
thankful he was satisfied with so little, and deriyed
so much satisfaction from it. The reason was that
servants, gardeners, etc., ran out and restrained the
angry dog's painful appetite. I said to the doctor,
"Oh, no! he doesn't bite! merely chews up one's
attire, to show his welcome! Fine manners! Very
demonstrative! "

173
" Well," said the doctor, " he is a puppy and he
don't bite as hard as other dogs ! "
Dog-owners always think their dogs either do
not bite, or, at the worst, bite less hard. Bulldogs
should, by law, never be allowed the freedom of the
street or yard, but should be kept in the owner's
bedroom, where they can settle it between them
selves. A man who owns a bulldog had best not
come out alive. A good bulldog is always dead.
If I have been unfair to dogs, I am sorry for it.
I owned a dog once, which perhaps prejudiced me.
When an old churchyard was opened by the city of
Detroit, my dog Ponto brought home a leg-bone of
a corpse. He was chased, but got away with it.
The day after, my mother had a dinner party. That
dog, with a lady friend of the canine persuasion,
removed the viands to the rear of the barn where,
with other dogs, a celebration was held.
Pets.
An invalid, confined to bed, should have a tame
pet. Personally, I prefer Chinese white rats.
Females are most affectionate and tame. I have
had one over two years, which lives principally on
my bed, and enlivens my days with her antics, and
charms my little visitors. She treats each visitor
differently, but each one has the same reception
each time. Several children, girls, it always tries
repeatedly to kiss; others it merely smells of, while
with others it plays. Others again, are quietly
greeted, or the rat sleeps in their hands. Probably

174
these last have most magnetism. It climbs to one
clergyman's shoulder, and nestles close to his
episcopal collar for an hour at a time (Rev. Mr.
Faucon). At present, my little white comforter is suffering
from the loss of an eye, produced by a piece of
plaster, the ceiling in my room having fallen in
October, 1894.
Ceilings are no respecter of persons or circum
stances. After eleven years in bed, my ceiling de
scended one Sunday afternoon, with much effect
and noise. The dust kept my throat sore for two
days. A large piece of plaster descended on my
bed, grazing my knee; a tiny detached piece strik
ing " Bunco," my tame rat, and putting out one of
her lovely pink eyes. A small piece fell on my
devoted little Martha's neck, but a small piece of
lime goes a great ways, and it obliged the chUd-
nurse to sit up all night with pain.
There was a curious swishing noise, fortunately,
before the main part of the ceiling fell, so I had
time to point at the ceiling and get my little nurse
friend, Martha, to leave. Martha hesitated at my
comraand, and held out her little arm to me, as
though I was a baby to be carried out from the im
pending disaster! She was but a baby herself!
(There is a mother in every girl child. God bless
all women!)
" Get out! Obey! " I screamed, pushing her
away, and finally my clinched fist made her, ac
customed to obey, jump for the door. I held a port
folio over my head. Then crash! The dust was

175
blinding, and a small amount in my eyes gave me
more than satisfaction. Fortunately, or I should
say providentially, two huge pieces sank slowly,
to overlap and balance on a steam pipe lately put
up over the bed. It saved me from great harm.
Many marveUed at the sight of those pieces balanc
ing like a butterfly over my bed.
Workmen finally carried me into the next room,
on a mattress, but they accidentally, being nervous
and afraid lest they might hurt me, got too near
one another and doubled me up on the mattress
too much, so I begged to be laid on the floor, half
fainting with pain, while two clerks were summoned
from down stairs and added to my hospital retinue,
and they hoisted me on a lounge. " Resting easy,"
the old nurse answered to visitors, just as the
journals say, when a man has been done up by some
thing, or somebody, and then done down by doc
tors ; being half dead, in fact, and quiet and resigned
because they have to be. And yet, all is well,
probably, that ends well. My new blue ceiling and
Venetian red floor looked so well when I was moved
back that the silver lining to the dark cloud became
quickly apparent.
At one time I felt nervous about fires, but my ex
perience in doubling up in my mattress grave led me
to feel that I did not care, perhaps, to be saved, on
account of jolting, etc. So that experience removed
all fear of fires.
Reminds me that years ago, when my mother
and I were both Ul, confined to bed, I told a little

176
friend, a fireman's son, that in case of fire I would
give $200 to save my mother, and a bonus of $100
fpr my less valuable self. (Men, any way, are not
as valuable as women.) I had forgotten the inci
dent, when a neighboring house caught fire and the
little chap rushed in, all excitement. I asked him
how he proposed saving me. He answered, " Why,
sure, just give you my hand and lead you out."
" No $100 prize for that, Jimmy," I returned. I told
him that the proper way was to tie a rope around
my neck, and lower me so, with neatness and dis
patch. This boy's father, a fireman, always took an in
terest in me and said that I had been so good to his
children that he should be on hand in case of fire;
but after the fall of the ceUing and transportation
to an adjoining room, I made up my mind that I
preferred roasting to the pain of moving. I felt
like St. Christopher, who thought it would be nice
to be turned on the spit as he had roasted sufficiently
on one side; but I did not care to be remov d from
the spit, the bed.
The last time I had been carried up stairs, I had
promised the man a good sum if the cargo was
undamaged, so he made extra exertions; but he
slipped, got nervous, as my head banged against
the ceiling, and pressed his arm around my waist
so that I suffered for a long time afterwards. It
was the last time I was down stairs, or moved in
fourteen years. I seem to be an entire hospital
ward with my heart disease, neuralgia, rheumatism.

177
partial paralysis, dyspepsia, and stomach disease,
which caused me to live on milk, without fruit, etc.
However, when one has not got what one likes,
one must like what one has got. " Quand on n'a
pas ce qu'on aime il faut aimer ce qu'on a."
Again let me emphasize the fact that pets have a
hygienic effect. Pets are necessary to both sick
and weU. They have a refining influence, and
soften both. The animal, or bird, is raised, through
human companionship, higher; and the owner is
raised higher,- in doing good and caring for one of
God's creatures.
I remember reading, lately, statistics of the
criminal classes in England, which showed that only
a very, very small number of boys and girls became
criminals who had pets to develop them. In other
words, the boy or girl who has a pet will not be
come a criminal.
The time will come when in the United States
we shall have become so civilized that the birds of
the air will descend to us in friendship and enter
rooms, as in India.
But the small boy who, as a writer says, has not
improved since the time of Julius Caesar, will have
to improve, as there are no good King Herods
around here now, and no real good pestUences.
If well people would carry a pet, like a canary,
or pigeon, or chick to a sick person, and leave it
for a few hours, or days, it might, if weU received,
produce a change of thought in the sick one; any
thing to turn one's thoughts from one's ill and pains,
8*

178
The learned librarian. Miss Hewins, of the Hart
ford Library, kindly sent me a book of poems by an
invalid poet, Hamilton (1895). The poet dwelt,
perhaps, too much on his sad sufferings. He
needed pets. Anything for a change! I remember
my astonishment when a lovely chUd (whom I caU
Princess Alice) and a sweet mother, with many
signs of secrecy, brought a box and placed it on
my bed. It seemed a very musical box, — and a
very animated one, too, — out of which strange,
weird sounds proceeded. And when that box
opened, as it did of its own sweet accord, two soft
balls of down hopped out and proceeded to chirp
and peep, as very young chicks do.
And as the learned Prof. Garner enjoyed monkey
language, by study in sunny Africa, the unlearned
Prof. Young became initiated into the mysteries of
hen language, by studying chicks that had prome
nade concerts on his bedquilt. Small chicks that
mistook him, evidently, for an uncommonly large
hen with side whiskers, which served as sleepy
bowers for tired — from play — chicks.
I remember an astonished lady visitor hearing
apparently unintelligible answers to her questions
from the region of my whiskers, and the series of
" WeU! well! well! " ejaculated when she discovered
the mysterious source.
If the reader thinks this chapter trivial, it is easy
to skip it, and yet nothing is really entirely trivial,
perhaps, and we may learn in bed, even from chicks
a few days old.

179
Well, Princess Alice's little chicks taught me that
though they had not had the advantages of a care
ful, solicitous, hen mother, yet they had a good little
language of their own, inherited, doubtless, from
way back, showing both involution and evolution.
When tired of insulting my tame white rat by
pecking at his nose, which protruded from the cage,
in curiosity (insults which he promptly answered
by trying to claw off a few downy feathers for
closer inspection), the heavenly twins would have a
fight together in regular Angelo and Diavolo style.
Though twins, the dispositions were entirely dif
ferent; one was quarrelsome, the other gentle and
meek. As the mother hen had been gentle, it may
have been a case of atavism, or relapse. As a rule,
their language, except when angry, seemed choice
and refined. They did not, as Mark Twain says
of jays, " Use sickening grammar." When worn
out with frolic, they had a little sentence which said,
" I am sleepy." Another which followed in quick
succession, generaUy, was, " I'm so comfortable."
It sounds like the French, oui, oui, oui. " Quick,
Quick," meant. Here is hash. Errr; " Oh, I'm so
afraid," was another phrase. They had a kind of
Oh, my! of astonishment, accompanied by a just-
look-at-that expression of countenance.
These mites seemed to look upon me as a large
and curious specie of hen, and if the door opened too
rapidly, they flew to my whiskers, but a dispute fol
lowed, with bad words from Diavolo, if both met in
the same compartment, or whiskers.

i8o

On account of the over development of conver
sational powers, these educated chicks had to be
banished to my little Martha's tenement where they
frequented the ice-box refrigerator to such an ex
tent that one contracted something, perhaps pneu
monia, and died. Or perhaps it was chUblains.
Anyway, it died in the prime of its youth and beauty.
It was the evil one that remained. It was trans
ported, or rather, on account of his behavior, de
ported to the country, where little Martha believes
it will furnish her with eggs for the rest of her life,
ultimately rendering her wealthy, and covering the
earth with its progeny. We figured it out on paper
and came to the conclusion that there would be
room only on this earth for that chick's progeny,
and humanity would have to move on, and off.
What we regret is that that chick should pass its
temper on to feathered posterity.
A small friend, an irrepressible boy, once brought
me a little turtle, the size of a silver doUar. He had
caught it down on the Connecticut river, and kept it
in his trunk several weeks, until he could make a
call on me. His turtleship seemed a little deteri
orated by his trunk residence, but brisked up and
lived a year, wandering over my bed, back and forth,
and into a little granite bowl of water, which took
the place of its former residence, the Connecticut
river. He would come and take live flies out of my
fingers, and foUow my mother about the room, but
he died from over-curiosity, while investigating a
rain pipe hole on the tin roof.

i8i

A little child who used to visit me always gazed
horror-stricken down that hole on each occasion.
It seemed to give her a delicious sensation of the
terrible, on no account to be omitted. It probably
gave her the same delightful, chUl-down-your-back,
creeping sensation that the " Heavenly Twins "
enjoyed when engaged in the Chapel prank.
As pets for invalids, I should not recommend
turtles, although they are quiet and unobtrusive,
and patient. In France, I remember, they seemed
to be favorites, and to follow their owners up and
down gardens and balconies. A relative of mine sat
in a French raUroad compartment, when an old lady
lifted a large turtle out of her handbag with the
sweet invitation, " Kiss mother, dear." It excited
some horror among the passengers. StUl, they
gave her more room — so it zvas useful.
My little turtle lived a year, on or about my bed,
and then was gathered to his forefathers and fore-
mothers. As a woman suffragist, I mention both
sides. He performed his mission, which was to
amuse many a little child-visitor at my bedside.
Also the creature took my thoughts often away from
my pains. It had a ridiculous way of crawling
around the bed until it came to a sunbeam, when
it would back slowly into it untU the sunbeam
moved, when it would look around in an aggrieved
manner, as if had been robbed, and seek, and find
it again. Then it would open its mouth and ap
parently laugh, or smUe. An old toper taking a
stomach whisky bath never gave more extravagant

I82

proofs of delight, than " Turtley " did on receiving
his sun-bath. I said above, apparently smiled, so
that my veracity might be unquestioned. Evidently
he was a sun-worshiper!
Once I had a family of very young mice. Too
young ! The old mother had been caught in a trap.
A — well, a Caesarian — operation liberated a famUy
of six hairless, blind babies, about the size of your
finger nail. Then that tender family had to be
brought up on the bottle, so to speak, viz., an India
rubber medicine-dropper. They could not see, but
they took a lively interest in meals. Wrapped them
in cotton batting.
A little later on I will give a description of my
pupil, Princess Alice's Httle white rat, " Bunco,
Junior." My pupil wrote it herself, and it appeared
in the children's column of the Hartford Post, in
1895- My own white rat, " Bunco, Senior," came to an
untimely end. He had the habit of going into the
neighboring room each day, and sitting on the mop
while my old nurse propelled it around the room
while cleaning. Then he always proceeded to the
coalbox, and made an Ethiopian of himself. Later,
he would sit on my nurse's foot while she ate dinner.
One day she arose suddenly, he slipped under her
foot, and her entire weight came on his tail. It
was in such a condition that I had to amputate it.
I had heard that hydrophobia sometimes devel
oped in rats if the taU was greatly damaged. Three
weeks after, at 11 P.M. .(after my old nurse had re-

183
tired, and my little assistant nurse, Martha, was
lying asleep on the sofa bed in the next room), I
was about to give the white rat water to drink when
he entered into the convulsions of hydrophobia. As
the animal had been licking my fingers, and as there
was a scratch on one, I felt quite an interest in the
matter. I got him safely back into the wooden
cage, but he commenced biting through the bars;
a lead pencil introduced, he bit at furiously. Fear
ing his escape, I pushed up the window at the side
of my bed and placed the box outside. Then I com
posed myself to sleep, after using a caustic prepa
ration on my finger, fearing later developments.
Then hearing a racket outside, I saw the rat was
attempting his escape, and fearing it would climb
along the ledge and get in at the open window and
bite my tinjr nurse, Martha, I again pushed up the
window and placed a flowerpot over the hole. Then
I slept peacefully until morning.
In the morning I had the rat put out of misery
by chloroform. I sent out for 20cts. worth, but
" Bunco, Senior " did not die untU 15 cts. worth had
been used! I have since wondered if hydrophobia
had not made that rat especially recalcitrant to the
effects of chloroform, as, later on, 5cts. worth, or
rather a mere fraction of it, put to an eternal sleep
" Bunco, Junior," who was dying of grip and pneu
monia. To my old nurse, I said, that I was reserving the
5cts. worth of choloform for myself, in case hydro-

1 84
phobia developed, and I added that the rat had been
generously dealt with.
I also wrote a note to a doctor, saying that as I
had heart disease, a small amount of chloroform
would soon put me at rest, in case I developed symp
toms which made me dangerous for my friends.
Later, an anxious, dear, kind relative spoke so
many times of this rat, and his licking my hand, and
the danger of hydrophobia, that I must not worry,
etc., that, on her asking me what I was writing, one
day, I told her I was making out a list of those I
had decided to bite, and that her name headed the
list, so that she would receive early attention.
My old nurse could not abide any more rats, so
my fair pupil. Princess Alice, sent for a white mouse,
a tiny, pink-eyed female, which came from Nor
wich, Conn., by rail, after a week's journey. After
seven days' waiting, I decided that the mouse had
not heard " Hartford " caUed out, and had been
carried by. FinaUy, an expressman turned up and
fired the cigar-box cage across a wide space, not
knowing the contents. That mouse's nervous
system was upset, so I had to give it water by a
medicine-dropper. It never recovered its confi
dence in human nature, or in express companies.
The telegraph and express and telephone business
should be conducted by the government, as in
Europe,

i85
I will now give Princess Alice's account of her rat.
(June 29, 1895.)
"THE CHILDREN'S CORNER."
How Good Company a White Rat May Be.
Story of " Bunco Junior " — His Cunning Little
Ways.
His Favorite Weakness is for Colt's-Foot Candy.
Some of His Cute Tricks, and Little Idiosyncrasies.
" Uncle Tom thinks that his young readers can't
help liking this short story and that they will ' bull '
the market for white rats after reading it :
" During the latter part of January, 1895, a new
member came into our family in the form of a white
rat. He was but three months old when I bought
him. Of course the first thing was to think of an
appropriate name for our pet. A friend, the Pro
fessor, has a white rat also. His he. named Bunco,
because of his habit of stealing. My rat began to
develop the same habit and capacity. Hence his
name, ' Bunco, Jr.'
" Most people wiU say when they see a white rat
in the house, ' How can you keep a rat as a pet? '
in a most scornful tone; but if you were to get one,
to observe it grow and watch its habits, you would
think as much of it as any of your other pets. You

1 86
who love pets, add a white rat to your coUection,
and see if this is not true. In the first place you
can keep them in the house, as there is no odor
whatever; in the second place, they are very intel
ligent and repay care. After Bunco had been
among us a short time, and had gotten used to his
surroundings and become acquainted with us, he
began to play some of his tricks. We let him out
on a chair, and he would amuse himself by the hour.
On the chair was a tidy. One day when he was
out on his chair, everything was unusually quiet,
and, on looking up, I saw Bunco chewing the tidy.
I spoke to him sharply: ' Bunco! ' As quick as a
flash one little paw was put over the hole he had
chewed, covering it up completely, and he looked
up at me with as innocent an expression on his face
as I ever saw. It seemed to say: ' Did you speak
to me? Why do you look at me so? ' As he can
not see well in the daytime (being an Albino) it is
truly wonderful to see how he runs around by
scent. He clings with his tail as with his four little
pink feet. He has little pink ears and two lovely
eyes, the color of a ruby. At times when the light
strikes them they look like two beautiful jewels laid
in a bed of white cotton.
" Rats are very fond of colt's-foot candy. They
will eat all they can get. One evening, when I was
reading the Post, Bunco sat upon my shoulder.
After a time I missed him, and on looking all around
for him I happened to put my hand in my pocket.
There he was, eating colt's-foot to his heart's con
tent.

i87
" Rats are very persistent. If I had on a dress
with large sleeves. Bunco would enjoy nothing bet
ter than to get inside of them and play hide and seek.
He would run up and down and peek out at me.
Bunco is also very affectionate, and shows it, too.
He likes very much to have some one scratch him
on his little neck, and pull his little pink ears very
gently. As you do this he will lick your hand with
his soft little tongue. The prettiest thing of all that
Bunco does is to wash his little face and hands. He
will sit up on his hind feet (it makes no difference
where he is) and take his fore feet and rub them all
over his face after which he will lick his hands all off.
He does this in such a hurry that you would think
he has only a minute to live. He very much re
sembles a cat in washing. Bunco has done many
more tricks that I wish I could tell you about, but
there are so many that I will tell of only one more.
" One night after all the family had retired (I
should think it must have been about one o'clock),
as I turned in bed I felt something very soft scamper
across my hand. I thought in a moment it must be
Bunco, and on getting up found that it was. His
cage door had been left open, and he, being lone
some, decided to make me an evening call. I
thought it a late one, too late. About three weeks
ago Bunco caught a bad cold which resulted in
' la grippe.' He has not quite recovered, for he stiU
sneezes once in a while.
" On May 27th I added another rat to the family.
The last one is a black and white rat, a Brazilian

i88

Bunco, and he seems very friendly. Perhaps some
day I can write something about this one. I have
named him ' Pluto ' because of his love of mischief
and his big, wicked, black eyes. I hope all who can
will get in some way a white rat for a pet, especially
invalids.
" A. ECKHARDT, Hartford."
As Alice's teacher, and final guardian of Bunco
Junior, I regret to say that he was cut off' in the
prime of his youth and beauty by an attack of the
grip developing into pneumonia. After nineteen
days of suffering, I gave chloroform to hasten the
inevitable end. Its Ulness was quite pitiable. It
moved to a corner of the cage nearer to me, so it
would not feel so lonely, and so that it could see me
by day or night. FinaUy she (for it was a trifling
inaccuracy to designate Bunco, Junior as he) was so
weak as not to be able to raise her head to eat, so I
placed mUk on a sop to her mouth, and as she
always enjoyed pinks to the extent of stealing all
within sight or smell, I placed several near her
dying, quivering nostrils. She evidently enjoyed
them even to the last. The ruling passion of this
little snow-white, snow-ball animal was cleanliness,
just as the ruling passion of Bunco, Senior, was
slovenliness. Bunco, Senior, was affectionate, but
dirty, — Bunco, Junior, cold but clean. (Like peo
ple.) While in a dying condition Bunco Junior
would try to clean away imaginary spots of soil,
and lean back exhausted, only to try again,

i89
Animals are as different as people. I remember
a friend doctor once dumped on my bed four little
" Dach Hund " puppies. They were of entirely
different temperaments. One growled and bit at
the slightest touch: choleric temperament; another
whined and crouched at the slightest touch: melan
choly temperament; another, one could pull around
by the tail, only to receive a kiss, etc.
(Note.) I add to this my article on white rats,
printed in the Journal of the Guild of the Holy Cross.
An officer of the Guild of the Holy Cross, an
Episcopal order of which I am a member, requested
that I write for the invalids, for whom the order is
established, an account of my first rat. Bunco
Senior's doings. I give it below as it appeared in
the Journal.
" To the Members of the Guild of the Holy Cross:
Greetings to all in the name of the Cross :
" My friend, Mrs. Morgan, Ward Mother here,
suggests that I write a few lines, and proposes that
my subject shall be principally the white Chinese
rat, the principal member of the firm.
" We are not quite as brilliant as last year, as the
ceiling of the room in which I am confined fell in
October, last, and deteriorated the firm, especially
one member, the rodent, so that he is not quite so
frisky since the loss of his eyes in consequence. As
to the senior member of the firm, myself, I strive to
be patient and to lose myself in reform work, be
lieving that our Master's will is that we should help
all in our power to move on God's Chariot of Prog-

190
ress, the first condition of this progress being
woman's proper advancement in society, church,
and state.
" During the last year, flowers and children have
brightened my life with their visits; also a member
of the Guild, Mrs. Morgan. One bright girl who is
blind, I, in jest, offered to exchange lots with, as
perhaps the twelve years in bed seemed a trifle
monotonous for the moment. Heart disease and a
fall of perhaps fifty or sixty feet are the causes of my
crucifixion in bed. My feet have to be propped
up above my head. But the visitor declined the
exchange, and probably it was just as well — in fact,
better. " I am not quite sure which member of this firm
is the most popular with children. Bunco, the rat,
has had several visitors of his rodent race. One
brought by Princess Alice, a dear pupil in language,
is called Bunco Junior, but Bunco Senior slaps
Bunco Junior's face, and receives simUar attention,
thus forgetting the laws of hospitality. It is a case
of jealousy, " the green-eyed monster " who invades
even the hearts of rats!
" An amateur photographer asked to photograph
my room, with its angels, flags, and various em
blems. A sweet little one, Martha, whom I call
" Sunshine," held Bunco, and we were told to look
pleasant. The total depravity of that rat! He
never squeals, but on this occasion, at the most
solemn moment he gave a concentrated squeal that
startled us all. I believe that rat had been saving up

191
his squeals for nearly two years to let it aU loose in
one grand effort. The squeal is not visible in the
photograph — the effects are.
" Still, that rat has his good points (we all have).
For instance, he is patriotic, and has an earnest way
of saying " hurrah " with his taU. The tail hangs
out of the cage, and so I pull it regularly at meal
times to signify that dinner is ready.
" He is six inches long, and six inches tail, so
that he is about ' 'alf and 'alf.' I suggest a white rat
pet to our invalid members.
" If my rat has intruded too much, why you must
hold my superior officer and friend, Mrs. Morgan,
responsible, as she suggested the subject.
" I have just written notes to three Connecticut
members of the Guild, Miss Abby Sherman, Miss
May Morgan, and Mrs. Finney, enclosing tiny
stamp photographs of myself, or rather of what is
left of me. I have been writing a biography, ' The
Life of an Invalid.' I have put it by for a while,
as I am more interested in ' The Life of Earnest
Willy,' a book published in Atlanta, Georgia. The
author, William Upsham, has been an invalid nine
years, and I counsel members of the Guild to read
his book. Here in Hartford, Miss Emily Morgan
lives, and I have received patience from reading her
lovely little work about an invalid, entitled ' The
Little White Shadow,' which she sent me through
Mrs. Morgan. I am in hopes of receiving a call
from the gifted authoress of ' The Little White
Shadow,' which is now being so aptly published in
our journal.

192
" As it hurts me to write I must close. God
bless the editor of our Guild and all members.
Yours in the shadow of the Cross,
C. HOWARD YOUNG.
" Member of Guild of the Holy Cross, member
C. A. I. L. (Church Association for the Advance
ment of the Interest of Labor), member King's
Daughters and Sons, Good Samaritan Circle of
Hartford, etc., etc."
My rat is a barometer, superior to a spider in
foretelHng the weather, superior even to my rheu
matism and neuralgia. I recommend the United
States signal service the use of white, pink-eyed,
Chinese rats as members of the force. When the
weather is going to change, to be moderately cold,
my white rat prepares for the change, hours in ad
vance, by dragging the piece of newspaper which
serves as his Brussels carpet to the sides of the cage
and placing it so that no air can get in, except on
one of the four sides. This open side he leaves open
for observation, and cheerfulness, and gossip. If
the mercury is going to drop, say thirty degrees,
he anticipates it, even in early autumn, by tearing up
his paper carpet into tiny bits, the size of a thumb
nail. It may take an hour or two, but he believes
in earning his comfort by the sweat of his brow.
He fluffs it all up, finaUy, and makes a hole through
it, closing all up behind him to such an extent that
once I threw him in the waste-paper basket to be

193
carried down with the garbage! He was in the
center. One .September evening, I went to sleep with but
one covering on. I noticed Bunco, my rat, working
industriously and feverishly, as though the end of
the world were at hand by another glacial period.
My good night salutation was " Good night, you
idiot, it won't be cold to-night! " At two A.M., I
awoke with a shiver. The white furred idiot was
right. The thermometer had faUen thirty degrees!
I believe that rat laughed at me, for I heard a kind
of chuckling noise when I groaned with rheumatism
in my arms and legs, and neuralgia in my heart.

CHAPTER X.
ChUdren are a blessing to invalids in many ways.
The bright, cheerful faces are the best of tonics.
My little assistant nurse, Martha, who came each
day with her sister Margaret, who was my head
nurse, was ten years old. On Flag Day I explained
to her the United States Flag, — how the red, white,
and blue signified Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
How a woman had made the design at Philadelphia.
Then I told her how there were forty-four stars in
the blue field, each standing for 'a state. She was
so primed and loaded up with information that at
school she was requested to unload. She did so
with considerable embarrassment.
A year later I observed her at one of my windows
muttering to herself, while looking up: "Humph! I
thought so! There's more than forty-four stars."
It turned out that I was considered a false teacher.
" Yes, you did tell me there was forty-four stars and
forty-four states and I already counted more'n a
hundred." In my heaviest attack of pectora anginus, or
neuralgia of heart, the child Martha stood fanning
me at intervals, often with the thermometer at 98
degrees Far. Later, I overheard her tell a little
friend that when I was dying last year she saved

»95
my life. " And every time he'd die, I'd fan him
and the next minute he was alive again, and he'd
die again every little whUe, too."
Speaking of dying, I had told Martha not to hang
her head down over her chair (just to see how she
could make her head feel big and her face red) as
it might cause apoplexy, or death. A week after —
" I've saved hundreds of lives this week."
"Hundreds?"
" Well, a hundred any how! "
Wouldn't she take off a few?
" No."
How had she done so?
" Just told little girls not to hold their heads
down that way, and it saved their lives."
The fact that they had had no idea previously of
hanging their heads down did not apparently enter
into her calculations. Her statistics were always
interesting. She told them how to jeopardize their
lives, so she could, ultimately, save them!
Her statistics were tall, but she would never take
much off her figures.
(Reminds me of President General Jackson, who
was remonstrated with about his statement relative
to a horse. He was surprised himself. " Did I say
eight hands? Well, by the Eternal, then it was
eight hands high.")
A neighbor, one cold, wintry eve, brought, wrap
ped in a long shawl, to my bedside, a huge black
cat, for a friendly call. It weighed about fourteen
pounds. It seemed to enjoy its promenade through

196
Hartford streets. Its owner was surprised by
Martha's statement that she knew a lady who had a
cat that weighed one hundred pounds. Finally, she
consented to knock off two pounds, and call it
ninety-eight. Her sister said, " Why, that is larger
and heavier than you ! "
" I know it," she remarked calmly.
Martha has faithfulness among her virtues. She
was explaining to a little girl, in a prideful way, how
her name was Martha, when the other little one re
marked in a scornful way: "That's nothing; it's
awful common, I know hundreds of 'em." " Well,"
said Martha, " that aint the kind I am; I'm the kind
of Christ's Martha."
She had seen engravings in my room of Martha
and Christ, which I had explained. One day little
Martha surprised me with, " I could wash your feet,
and dry them with my hair.'' Questioned, she said:
" WeU! Christ had his Martha, and you have yours."
Faithful little Martha, with her blue eyes and
light, silky hair and fair complexion, she looked like
a Httle New-Testament maid.
As my next nurse was old and feeble, a fact which
led me to take her into my employ, she, at times, felt
Ul and was confined to her bed. Little Martha then
took care of us both, and bustled around with the
quick movements of a virrathful spider. A lawyer
friend who came in and was amused, remarked:
" Well, you seem to be very responsible." " Yes,"
she answered, " very responsive. I'm head nurse.
I've got four to look out for, — the big nurse. Pro
fessor Young, Bunco (the rat), and me."

197
Her duties may have become too great, for, when
kneeling at my side to say her prayers one evening,
she finished as follows: " God bless Professor
Young and Mrs. F. (the nurse), and make her weU
. . . and quick, too— -Amen."
Martha's little sister, Dela, was gifted with a
briUiant imagination. One day, looking over my
European albums, she screamed, "Oh, my! here's
God in your album."
"No?"
" Yes, it is."
On repeated negations on my part, " WeU, looks
like Him, any how."
I never knew whose photograph it was in my al
bum that looked like God's, as the disputation pro
duced a kind of coolness over the meeting, and Dela
afterwards pressed her lips together when the sub
ject was again broached.
Over-heated Imaginations.
Some of Martha's little friends seemed to have
over-heated imaginations. One day a little pro
cession of tiny girl visitors came in. The spokes
man, or spokes-girl, said: " Please, Professor, can
we see the big doll? "
" What big doU?"
" Why, Mamie told us all you had a doll as big as
her!" The little crowd had to go home without behold
ing the doll, whUe Mamie held down her head.

198
While they were here, a young lady visitor spoke
of being obliged to catch a train for the country.
After she had gone, the little girl who had informed
the little audience of my big doll, which never ex
isted, got up and said that she had " got to catch a
train for the country! " The little creature copied
even the intonation of my grown-up lady visitor!
One evening, little Martha and her tiny sister,
Dela, brought into the hall a diminutive young lady
of six or seven. I asked why she was not brought
in, and Martha replied, " Well, she is waiting outside
because she is so dirty."
" No matter, bring her in! "
So Martha went to the door and screamed:
" Come in, he likes dirty children just the same."
One reason Chloe Langton could pass sixty-five
years happily in bed was that she loved children, as
they loved her.
Christ said, " Suffer little chUdren to come unto
me ; " so do not repel the little ones at your bedside,
even if ragged or dirty. It costs time and strength
to be clean, and the poor have, by under pay, over
zvork, insufficient food, and too many babies, but little
of either.
Running my memory over the list of little ones
who came to my bedside, I come across many a
quaint face and form. I remember a little emigrant
boy of seven or eight years of age, a vender of the
Hartford Times, who anxiously watched my win
dows for a chance to sell me a journal. " Say," he
said once, " When — er you — er — die, will there

199
be a big funeral? " I told him I hoped not. "You
look like a soldier," he said, with a sigh at the dismal
prospect of a small funeral. Then he brightened up,
while he told me that he had 82 cents saved for the
purchase of a comforter for the lounge on which he
slept with a little brother, who huddled up to him to
keep warm. His family had been driven from Rus
sia by the Czar. Perhaps that Czar is warm now.
Anyway, he is dead. Noticing my two watches, he
exclaimed, " Well, there's one good thing about me ;
I never steal." And he never did, and he returned
borrowed money with a promptitude that would
shame many a merchant bankrupt.
Little Martha, about ten years old, and I grew to
become considerable of a comfort to one another.
She was a winsome child, and seemed always to
have a retinue of smaller ones than herself in her
wake, whom she brought in to congregate around
my bed — a children's congress. I think, too, the
blue and red decorations of my room pleased them,
the huge pendant angels swinging around, the
thirty flags, — French, Swiss, Italian, and United
States; the crosses; colored hanging lamp; three
harps and five music-boxes, and other musical in
struments, had a charm for them. The cats playing
with the rat was also an attractive sight.
I tried to enlarge my little Martha's stock of in
formation, but at times, though carefuUy imparted
and as carefully treasured, it seemed to return in an
enlarged form.
" Call children around the invalid. Like pets,

200
they have a great hygienic value. In sorrow and
sickness, children give strength. The invalid can
teach patience to the child in return."
" A child is always the best comforter, uttering no
word of sympathy, yet arousing interest in life be
cause its nature is sweetness and light."
(These last few lines are from the Journal of Hy
giene, Paris, February, 1895.)
I remember that after my sister's and mother's
death I felt dumb, but the silent efforts of my nurse's
little sister to amuse herself in a gentle way, roused
me to sympathy to help her, and called forth in me
the principle of universal brotherhood, so that I felt
dimly that, as my dearest relatives were gone, my
" next of kin " for the time being, at least, was the
child playing on the floor. Suffer little children to
come unto you, has many significations. Even if
the invalid does not like children, if one will philo-
sophicaUy accept them as a necessary evU, one will
soon get to consider them as a necessary blessing.
There is one now, snuffling with a bad cold, at
my bedside. She cheerily announces: " I've dot the
same old told."
" Look here, Dela," I observe, " that cold wUl
make an angel of you if you don't look out and be
careful. Do you wish to die? "
" Think I'd be so mean," she objects, " as to die
and leave you hallone. Any way, I don't want to
doetoheU!" I suspect her of two words for herself and one for
nie, but no matter.

20I
One day, the little nurse was smoothing things
out around me. As I was writing, I mildly objected,
to meet the counter objection — " Stop, lemme be!
think I am dooing to have you look like an old rag-
baby." One day — Governor's Day — when the new
governor of Connecticut was installed, I said,
" There are two governors." She listened open-
mouthed, then answered, " Be you the other one? "

CHAPTER XI.
LIFE AS A PROFESSOR.

Pupils.
As a professor of modern languages for many
years, I had some curious experiences, both in
Europe and America. I think I most enjoyed teach
ing Catholic priests, in Europe, on account of their
blandness and suavity.
I have taught Swedes, Danes, Russians, Swiss,
Frenchmen, Englishmen, Armenians, Turks, Egyp
tians, Italians, Austrians, Poles, Spaniards, Irish
men, Hungarians, Russians, Cossacks, and Nor
wegians, etc.
My pupUs in Paris were largely medical students
in the " Latin Quarter," where I resided seven years.
In Bavaria, on putting an advertisement for pupUs
in the Munich paper, I received thirty-two answers.
A number were from ladies from the demi monde!
Ladies, probably, who could have ensnared rich
Englishmen better, with a smattering of English,
As I was not a penniless man, that may have had
something to do with the warmth, and number of
these letters, which were {ill torn up, or thrown into
the waste-basket.

203
I think European children are more easy to teach
than American, as they are better disciplined, though
never whipped. A child never needs the whip.
I never had, in teaching, any disagreeable episode,
except, perhaps, with a couple of French dry-goods
clerks in Paris, who, for a lark, tried to humiliate me.
I think they were radicals, and thought, perhaps, to
humble me as a professional man (as the classes are,
in Europe, pretty distinct). During the first lesson
in English, they kept on their hats, untU I requested
them, kindly, to remove them, which they did with
bad grace. At the next lesson they appeared with
evil-s-mtllmg government cigars in their mouths,
and continued smoking, lustily watching the effect
on me. I begged to be excused, went into the ad
joining room, put on a heavy Montagnac overcoat,
and my hat and silk muffler, and then returned and
threw open all the windows softly. They under
stood, and were outwitted. They shivered, smoked
a little, and put out their cigars, and begged to have
the windows closed.
The next time they appeared, purposely, with
boots covered with mud, although there were many
mats outside. From an observation, I saw that it
was intentional, so I calmly rang the bell, and
sweetly asked the " garqon " to sweep up before we
continued our lesson. Told them I knew they would
be more comfortable with the mud gone. Then they
concluded my practical methods of teaching man
ners, as weU as English, were too much, and that I
had not been humiliated. After a few more lessons.

204
I told them that I was for the masses myself, and,
though a teacher, was not conservative, and that
there was no necessity of having so much fun with
me, because I was a professional man.
We parted friends, but they forgot, as " reds " do
sometimes, to pay their bill. They alluded to my
black-gowned priests as " les animaux noir appele
cures." (Black animals known as curates.)
Once, an escaped member of the Sultan's harem,
a sultana (this was in Paris), sent to me to come and
give her English lessons. She had become a mem
ber of the fast circles of Paris. She had seen a
large photograph of me on the student's Boulevard
St. Michael, and thought I would make " a charm
ing professor."
That photograph seemed my only recommenda
tion to her, apparently! So I did not go. Suffer
us not to be led into evU, Turkish, or otherwise.
One of my most charming pupils in France was
an Egyptian. He was, en bon seigneur, fond of re
ceiving his lesson in bed, which disturbed my equa
nimity, as a free-born American and a professor.
He was then sleepy, and, on correction, would glare
at me in a manner which boded no good to a luck
less wight of a professor, if we had been in the land
of the Pharaohs. Probably he would there have
clapped his hands, "What! ho there! my minions,
remove this bold professor to a dungeon dark, and
see that he does not again come forth on a lark."
And then I might not have come forth.
Once, on a correction, he angrily pointed to his

205
head, and said, " I, me, have one very large tete,
understand? "
" Yes, I know it," I answered in English, which
he only partly understood, " but there is nothing in
it." He understood "yes," and was pleased!
I informed him he could not be taught well, re
clining, and obliged him to rise.
His brother was a secretary, private, to the Khe
dive, and I was offered the under secretaryship, but
my mother objected to it. Said that after they got
tired of me they would give me a cup of " too strong
coffee." There is a handsome colored photograph of my
Egyptian Lord hanging on the wall of my sick room.
He is handsome, in his Arab dress, but the features
are haughty and remind me of old days in the Hotel
du Luxemburg, Nice, France. My Egyptian Lord
was a trifle too fond of gaming at Monte Carlo,
Monaco, and, after losses, his temper wsls not what
it should have been. After a strong correction of
his English, his hand would instinctively go to his
side where was his sword in days of yore. But we
were in civilized France, and his sword was not
there, so my head was there, and in its usual place.
He had an unpleasant manner of spitting on Brus
sels carpets, as he was afflicted with a mUd form of
consumption; and so the Egyptian variety of "ba
cilli tuberculosis," were merr}^ and numerous, doubt
less. I would say here, that at climatological places,
like Nice, Pan, Mentone, Bozen, Meran, etc., inva-

2o6

lids and their medical advisers would do well to re
member that there is such a thing as infection, and
re-infection. The places are saturated with ba
cilli. My advice is, stay at home, if consumptive;
remove superfluous carpets and curtains, and die,
at least, comfortably. Having visted these places,
I am competent to judge. Our own California is
said to have become dangerous in this way.
Sometimes I regret more the pupils I had, and
did not get, more than those I really taught. For
instance, besides this Viceroy, I, once, while passing
a summer in a little village in Central Italy, high up
in the Apennines (at Ponte a Serraglio — Bagni-di
— Lucca), was invited to become, for a short time,
probably, teacher in English to the Prince of Naples.
His mother, now Queen Margherita, was then
Princess, under Victor Emmanuel's reign.
Someone had fallen iU and I was to take his place,
probably, only temporarily, through the influence
of a little Danish baroness friend, who was teaching
in the famUy. Having heart disease, the pleasure of
the fact may have made me more ill myself, so that
I could not accept. So, now, in my sick-room, I
have a portrait of Her Majesty, Margherita, the most
beautiful and inteUectual queen of Europe, and the
King, Umberto (Umberto, the first, the most chival
rous king). It is good to look back at lost oppor
tunities for fame, or semi-fame, or semblance of it.
I like to look back at my work in Paris, as a pro
fessor of languages in the Latin Quarter, among
the many students of all nations. Then, too, I like

207
to look back at my own experience as a young stu
dent in Paris, before the Franco-German War. I
can well remember the day when little Cavaignac,
a son of the great General Cavaignac, refused to ac
cept a school prize at the hands of the Prince Im
perial of France. Our schoolboys were there.
General Cavaignac's body lies in Cemetiere Mont
Parnasse (Paris). In 1848 he was a candidate for
the presidency of the second republic, but stepped
back to give the place to Louis Napoleon, whom he
trusted. Louis Napoleon betrayed his trust and
arrested General Cavaignac. Cavaignac died of
grief and shame, and a broken heart.
A bronze, nearly naked figure, life size, appeal
ing to heaven for justice, was placed, by his friends,
over his grave. At times, when covered with verdi
gris, the effect was terrible. At this grave the
Radicals of Paris assembled at times and were
chased around the tombstones by the Imperial ser
geants de vUle, with drawn swords. Many of our
students were once implicated, and one of our pro
fessors lost his coattails in jumping over a tomb
stone as an energetic blow of a sword severed them.
" He who fights and runs away, may live to fight -
another day."
Justice comes. What a thrill ran through that
building when the son of the outraged man refused
a prize at the hand of the imperial son of the Em
peror! Poor Prince; how pale he looked! That
thrill ran through Paris and then through France.
" Justice is mine, saith the Lord " of all history.

208

Yes, Napoleon, the Little, had come to the bar of
justice in the person of his innocent son.
Yes, I am an invalid, but what memories sweep
over me.
The Prince Imperial, sweet lad, died with an as
segai through his eyes, in Zululand, Africa, while
the Cavaignac scholar is one of the future rulers of
France. He is, even now, in 1896, a member of the
Cabinet. Poor, handsome Prince! I met him once, as a
boy, near Paris. I was gazing intently, perhaps
rudely, at him, with a rudeness peculiar to young
America. He gazed at me fully as intently and
gravely. My mother touched my arm, that I might
remove my Scotch cap. With a start, I made a
movement to touch my cap, but the manners of the
Prince were better; he bowed in his saddle, remov
ing his cap. I have rarely seen such glorious eyes !
Not a dozen times in my life!
My mother said afterwards, " What a strange en
counter! You two seemed to have forgotten the
worid!" I replied, " I did. I fell in love with the lad.
Vive le Prince Imperial."
I do not seem to have had luck in my manners be
fore princes. In Berlin, as a student, before the
Franco-German War, I met, one early morn, in the
Thiergarten. the " Kronprinz," known later as " Un-
ser Fritz " (the grand, progressive Emperor of Ger
many"). It was a narrow path. Several days be
fore, I had been nearly run over by the carriage of

209
King WilHam, and so my republicanism was ram
pant in my breast. I walked on, just as my better
nature got the best of me. It was nearly too late to
step aside.
The handsome, most soldierly, kingly man I ever
met, had, smilingly, almost stepped aside with a
military salute!
" Excuse me. Highness." A quick jump, and
the royal man, royal by grace of nature, had the
right of way.
No, there is no use in such pride; stupid, young,
and foolish! This Prince became Emperor, and is
known in history as " Frederick the Noble." Died
of cancer of the thoat, after a reign of 90 days.
Pupils — La Robe Bleue (Paris).
One of my most fascinating pupils was an aristo
cratic looking nobleman from South Italy, a student
of medicine in the " Latin Quarter." He became
entangled in a love affair with a fair girl, whom I
used to call " La Robe Bleue," as she always wore
blue. Sometimes I called her the " blue jay."
One day, when I mounted the stairs of the " hotel
garni," I received no response to my loud knock,
so, hearing groans, I entered. The sight that
greeted my eyes was certainly sufficient to unnerve
all but. a medical student. On the floor lay the
beautiful girl, " La Robe Bleue " ! There was a basin
with a large quantity of blood in it, and all over the
floor were pools of red. I saw from the student's
countenance that he was innocent. The girl, who

2IO
had heard that he no longer cared for her, had
mounted to his room when he was absent, had
opened a vein, and then laid her arm over the basin
so as to bleed to death.
When my friend came home, she appeared to be
dead, as she, had fainted from loss of blood. It was,
fortunately, so, as nature stops bleeding by a faint.
Mother Nature is a good physician, as well as a
nurse. We carried the girl to the bed, and then my friend
dressed the wound, and restored the girl to complete
consciousness. I offered to leave immediately, for fear I might be
one too many, but my pupil said he felt ill, so I re
mained. He was quite well when he entered that
room, but the shock had literaUy soured his blood.
The mind-curists are right in many things, and
the " regulars " would do well to remember always
the effects of the mind on the body.
Two angry boils immediately made their appear
ance on my pupil's neck, and the next morning they
were dangerous and looked like carbuncles.
Doctors were summoned. My pupil exhaled,
too, all that day, a disagreeable acid odor of a very
strong nature. I could hardly remain near him.
Science teaches us that the blood, ordinarily al
kaline, in worry and anxiety, particularly in anger,
becomes acid, and so does much damage; is on the
road to decomposition, as one might say.
The fair suicide became cured of her infatuation
after a whUe by the homeopathic way, " similia

211

similibus curantur." Fell in love with a friend of
my pupil, also a pupil of mine. My pupils quarreled
over the fair one, and when I tried to reconcUe them
and strove to prevent a duel, they both turned on
me! Human nature! You know the proverb
about putting your finger between the anvil and
the iron.
I expostulated. Said, " At first you wished to
kill one another, and so deprive me of a pupil, or per
haps two; nozv you wish to kill me, and yet I protest
there is not the slightest necessity for so doing," etc.
They laughed, and we all three became friends again.
Reminded me of one dark night in Geneva,
Switzerland, when, hearing a dispute in the suburbs
and a woman's wail, I poked along a country subur
ban road until I came to the disputants. It was a
family festival, and husband and wife were engaged
in pounding one another. To save the woman, I
interfered, when both turned on me. Then I
backed up against a lamppost.
" What right have you to poke your nose in this,"
said the wife. " Mind your own business," said the
husband. So both turned on me with uplifted fists,
when I said, " I beg your pardon, 1 had no idea you
were so thoroughly enjoying yourselves. Pray con
tinue to pound one another, as there is not the
slightest necessity of pounding me." So I Hfted my
hat to the lady and left.
The Robe Bleue became the fast, but naughty,
friend of a Russian Prince. The doctor pupU is
now celebrated in Italy. The other one returned to

212

Italy, fell in love with an American girl who was en
gaged to his brother; the brother was ordered off on
garrison duty, when the girl listened to my friend's
love, to throw him over and marry his brother on his
return !
Then my handsome friend, whose photograph
hangs on my waU, vvent to his bedroom, and, placing
his revolver to his own mouth, fired. His hand may
have trembled. In any case, the baU deviated,
striking a tooth first. My friend lay paralyzed, un
able to speak, six months, or move. When his
father heard the sound of the revolver he fell back
in an apoplectic fit and died.
After my friend recovered, Italy seemed too small
for him, and I received a letter from him, posted on
his way through Egypt, postmarked " Port Said."
The letter bears the inscription, in my handwriting,
" La Robe Bleue and its foUowers — my pupils."
OCEAN TRIP.
Homeward Bound.
European doctors warned me that a trip across
the ocean would be fatal. It was worse than fatal!
The Cunard people were very kind, gave me an ex
tra sailor, so my window could be open when pos
sible, but the effect on my heart was terrible; also
on my stomach. There was a patent, self-poising
berth, which prevented sea-sickness, but a young
lady occupied it, and although my doctor told her
that a man's life and a mother's son depended on

213
having it, the young lady said she should stay on.
The agent wished me to have it, too, as I was a
medical press correspondent.
I begged the kind doctor to make no more at
tempts to deprive the young lady. Previously, at
Queenstown, as the huge steamer started for the
open sea, my mother had begged me to be carried
back. The storm, the heaviest for years, was dash
ing its waves mountain high over the breakwater.
It was my luck or fate.
I refused. Then poor mother, as I vomited blood,
ran to the captain, and, beside herself, cried: " Cap
tain, how can you sail out into such a merciless
storm? It is madness ! "
" Madam, the Royal Cunarders carry the mail,
and wait for nothing.''
Then she clasped her hands and offered $2,000 (!)
to turn back and put me ashore. Then added, " But
my son says he won't."
" I wish nothing," he said. " To do my duty is
enough. In a couple of minutes it will be too late ;
I can signal now to the tug. Be quick and see your
son." I refused, however. It seemed to be my duty.
In a minute or two more, we tossed and tossed, and
the doctor gave me a narcotic. Then I was stupe
fied with drugs the entire trip.
On landing in New York, I fainted, and never
again walked five minutes without resting, as the
pain was so intense.
Later, I gave lessons in Hartford, driving around

214
to my pupUs' residences, but never being able to
walk, except a few steps at a time, and after long
rests. To be circumscribed to a few steps is a
great trial to a man.
I had many pleasant pupils. Among them aU, I
never found one who grasped things so quickly as
Governor Hubbard, an ex-Governor of Connecticut.
A most gigantic mind, and yet so gentle and sweet.
One felt one's self in the presence of a man. His
mind seemed so pure. What a pleasure it must
have been to be always with him. As good as a
university education in itself.
One evening I found him, on arriving to give a
French lesson, tossing over impatiently, with sup
pressed disgust, the pages of a French novel by
Zola. It was the original. He had bought it on
the raUroad train, coming from New York. Sud
denly he fired it at me, so that it struck me on the
chest, and fell to the floor! " There," he said, " you
can have it; it is too dirty for me! "
I picked it up, fingered it for a moment, found
things I did not like, then fired it back. " Gover
nor," I said, " I do not know why, if it is too dirty for
you, it is not too dirty for me! "
It had faUen near the ex-Governor, after striking
him on the chest, and, with his foot, he kicked it
under the lounge, after a kind of chuckle to himself.
The same evening, several gentlemen, apparently
politicians, from Litchfield County, came in while
I was giving a French lesson. In talking politics,
I was somewhat reticent, perhaps, and one observed,

215 «
" You do not seem very conversant with politics,"
Quick as a flash the Governor observed: " So much
the better. It is a dirty pool."
What with Zola and politics, the dirt did seem ap
parent that evening. If all statesmen were like
Gov. Ilubbard, what a pure, noble country we
should have!
I had his photograph in my album as a memento
of his noble work for women, but I removed it and
placed it on the wall of my sick-room, among noble
woman suffragists. I have made a cross of these
photographs, which I call my woman suffrage cross.
It contains the twelve great apostles of justice to
women. They are the modern disciples; the mod
ern crusaders.
Christ took up His cross to lighten, and, finally,
remove woman's cross. Woman's cross and cruci-
fl.vion was lust. I. S. W., Jesus Saviour of Woman,
not merely I. H. S., Jesus Hominum Salvator, or
saviour of mankind. The apple of death from the
tree of life was generation from lust, generation other
than for God's one purpose — better and better chil
dren. Woe to those who think and act otherwise!
The Catholic picture of Mary the A^irgin standing
on a quarter-moon means, Woman, the Queen of
Heaven and of Earth, will finally put down lust
under her foot. Amen!
An Insane Pupil.
He imagined himself to be a member of the royal
Bourbon family of France, and became enraged if

2l6
that family of bigots was mentioned disparagingly.
We got along months well. His French was weU
learned, in fact, better, far, than the average.
One day I gave him a French novel to read aloud.
" Notre Dame de Paris," by Victor Hugo. He read
a line of condemnation of the said royal famUy. His
brow grew dark ! His face grew purple ! His eyes
bulged! Bloodshot! He roared: "I'm a member
of that family myself," and he jumped up, and, with
protuberant eyes and bent fingers, clutched at my
throat over the table. As he was a man of 195
pounds, and I a heart-disease man of 135 pounds,
the result looked exciting and unpleasant. I smiled
and quickly said, " We can fix it," and drew a pencU
through the obnoxious lines, hiding the words com
pletely. A smile, baby-like and bland, spread over
that purple countenance. The bloodshot eyes be
came clear. The brawny fingers left my throat. I
did not feel sorry to see them go. But the royal
family was not insulted in our books again!
I received a note from the head physician where
the mad man resided, saying that he was liable to
drop dead in my presence, and that it would be best
to give him up. It seemed to me that I was the one
liable to drop dead with those stalwart fingers
around my throat. However, we might have under
taken the great voyage together. His attendant in
the carriage was the responsible one.
My reticent nature led me not to mention the
names of pupUs, or even to ask their names. I re-

217
member having as a pupil the niece of a Governor
of Connecticut, without knowing her name or the
fact. At a dinner-party the name of the lady, and
also the insane gentleman alluded to above, were
mentioned as my pupils, by a friend, much to my
(repressed) astonishment. Without betraying that
I did not know the facts, I asked more questions of
pupUs in the future. Writing this book as I have
does not prove reticence, but it seemed to be my
duty. In time my disease grew so much worse, that I
had to give up driving around to pupUs in Hartford;
then, finally, at home I had to take to a lounge, from
which I taught, to at last retire from life to my bed
for life, from which I tried still to teach, although
always in pain. I do so still (1897), en attendant a
third stroke, or whatever else is in store for me in
the mysterious future.
I was always dressed. Indeed, my disease is" of
so painful a character, that I wear my usual day
clothes without change at night, sitting, half prop
ped up, half lying down, in bed, changing only at
the end of the week, as any movement of arm back
wards hurts my heart, bringing on neuralgia of
heart. I wear tape bands around neck, which hold
up my hands, as the blood stagnates in them when
hanging down; they become purple and very pain
ful, although not so much as my feet.
My feet, too, have had to be propped for the last
fifty months, very high, too, so I give the impres
sion to some of being crucified with my head down
ward, St. Peter or St. Andrew fashion.
10

2l8
It is painful, but one must bear cheerfully, mind
ful " In His Name." I have not passed an hour for
many years without pain. Dr. Ephraim Cutler of
New York told me that it was to be expected, as
the heart had no longer force to pump the blood
through on its backward trip, hence painful stagna
tion. My own explanation is somewhat different.
My feet stand up so high that I sometimes allude
to them as the highest peak in Connecticut. Little
Martha sometimes exclaims, "Ain't you terrible."
When a western journal asked to have a photo
graph of me for publication, while doing it up for
the mail, she observed, " Don't yer do it. They'll
make yer funnier looking than yer are."
I can count one year for each apostle, years which
I have tried to bear patiently in the Name of Christ.
LIFE AS A PROFESSOR.
A Pupil with a Monkey.
To go back to reminiscences of France, one who
called himself one of my pupUs in Nice, South
France, was famed, or rather noted, far and wide, as
" the Count who owned the monkey." It was only
a polite fiction to express it in that way, for, in
reality, the monkey owned the Count, the house,
and all he surveyed.
The Count was wealthy, but hotel after hotel had
found his monkey too much of a monkey — he out-
monkeyed any monkey they had ever seen, or hoped
to see. FinaUy, the monkey and his master had
come to the hotel where I was domiciled, as a Pro-

219
fessor of Modern Languages. The monkey occu
pied the room and balcony under mine, or was sup
posed to. In reality, he occupied the entire house,
and occupied it very much, and very completely.
I could see it scaling the walls of the hotel, so I
kept my blinds rigidly closed. He would rattle
them, but I was rigid. Positively no admittance,
except on business. That monkey's life business
was fun.
A sort of high school professor in the next apart
ment was not so thoughful. He became so later.
One day he bought a new (" Christy's ") London-
made Derby for his august brow, and a quart bot
tle of nice black ink. After placing them correctly,
the bottle on a table, and leaving the hat on an
emaculate counterpane on his bed, he went down to
dinner. He felt at peace with the whole world, as
a man does who has a new hat. The monkey came
up to investigate. When anybody went down, he
went up. Jocko found the ink right off, and also
the new, white, silk-lined derby. He made a com
bination — una combinazione, as the Italians say.
He transferred the ink to the derby hat; then, as
there was plenty left, he sprinkled it all over the
room, as he had seen the priest do in church. The
white counterpane, he was very generously inclined
toward. His reminiscences of church work and
holy-water sprinkling, I wUl speak of later. Then
he paid attention to the walls, furniture, etc. The
etc. covered a good deal. " Sundries " generally
do, even outside of America.
The Count paid for it all, with a laugh (he felt

220
grateful to the monkey for sensations), S9,ying the
monkey was religiously inclined, as he had learned to
sprinkle in a neighboring Catholic Church, whither
he had escaped one day, and high up on the stone
column had watched the proceedings with great
interest and apparent devotion for a while. After
the congregation had gone. Jocko came down to
study. He tore up sacred leaves and distributed
pieces all over the Cathedral, and desecrated the
place generally. He had seen the incense waved-
around, and he thought that was the proper thing
to do. The monkey was caught, but only after a
prolonged siege; and the satanic imp, as the priests
caUed him, was handed back to my friend, the Count,
who paid the bUl (cheerfully and wUlingly, as usual),
with a laugh and a sneer, for my Lord Count was a
skeptic and a cynic, and the Lord God did not
occupy his mind.
At night, four would gather around the Count's
festive board (festive with the monkey leaping over
it) to play cards. These were the only friends brave
enough to face the monkey, who was quite large,
and wandered around the room, on mischief bent,
if possible. It was possible generally.
One player was brave, being a Prussian Baron,
Colonel of Cavalry. He had seen worse things
than monkeys, and more devilish, on battle fields,
like Gravelotte and Sedan. We were friends. I
wore at times the red cross when a boy, and helped
a little to translate and take care of the wounded (in
Bavaria), and so I was used to the uniform.
A second was the Count, who, having never seen

221
God or the devil, feared neither, and did not seem to
fear his " Jocko," though it had torn his coat off
once, and severed an artery, necessitating a doctor,
and speedily.
A third player was courageous, being a good
priest, or abbot, who crossed himself when his eyes
met the monkey, and murmured: " Oh I'empie! sac
rilegious beast! " The fact was, the neighboring
peasants were thirsting for the blood of the impious
creature, who, in reality, had eaten the Host wafers.
That monkey had lots of enemies who desired to
attend his obsequies.
The fourth player was the landlord. He played
with my lord, the Count, as in duty bound; as mine
host should, who is mindful of shekels.
As to me, I was there, apparently, to study man
nature, and monkey nature, and ill nature. I placed
myself on a sofa in a corner, with my front to the foe.
If I had taken part in card playing, the monkey
would have had me at a disadvantage. He was as
strategic as General Count von Moltke, and attacked
from the rear. So I sat and watched the imp of
darkness and his pranks. And the priest crossed
himself, whUe I wished I could cross that monkey
with a stick.
One evening he got hold of the Count's shaving
soap and ate a part with evident relish. I gave no
alarm, in hopes he would eat it all, and end his
wicked career. After a while he held his hands to
his side and seemed surprised to find his health was
not what it used to be, or ought to be, or might

222
have been. The Count sat up with him all night,
and he (the monkey) nearly threw up his mortal,
wicked soul. Of course, he had a doctor. But alas,
he recovered — recovered from soap, and doctor
too. Even the druggist could not kiU him.
Another evening, the monkey sat in the chimney
studying, in a meditative way, the dying embers.
He was quiet and his face looked sad. He had read
a church tract, and was he going to reform, instead
of deform? No! He was not! The satanic light
came back to his eyes, and he caught up a piece of
charcoal, and commenced making the snow-white
marble-place black. Then the black getting on his
thighs, he stopped to consider, and then started in
to make a black monkey of himself, instead of one
partiaUy white and yeUow. He frescoed himself in
front, then lifted up his legs, to conscientiously have
them match. Then he scratched behind on his
back, evidently suffering in his mind because he
could not fully superintend the operation. He
looked pained, but only for a moment. He
chuckled as he looked down on himself to see that
he had turned himself into a son of Ham. I re
mained silent, in hopes he would catch afire in this
world. Then, evidently, a bright idea seized him,
and he started out to fresco us ; but his master inter
fered, and locked him up in his cage, where he
growled his dissatisfaction at so summary an end to
the entertainment. The world had seemed so large
and wide and pleasant a moment before to that
devilish monkey.

¦223
The priest muttered to himself over the " impious
beast," and said, " Count, for what you pay out for
the damage done by that satanic imp, you could
support several Christian orphans, and so do good,
instead of evil."
My Lord Count merely smiled a sardonic smile,
and said, " What is trumps. Monsieur I'Abbe," whUe
the monkey redoubled his growls. The orphan idea
did not suit him.
That monkey feared only one thing. Fortunately,
there was one thing! Ice-cold water! Baptism!
A servant, pursued by him, had turned with a
pitcher of cold water and deluged him. He never
lost the recollection. The monkey shivered for
days. Whenever this imp of darkness became too
demonstrative, I would stretch out my hand to
wards the water pitcher, and the monkey would
crouch and chatter, his teeth chattering in fear. No
hydropathy here. Nothing of the cold water lover
about him. His hair rose in horror at the sight of a
threatening water jug. Once he had a quarrel with
the house-cat, and she scratched him so that he held
her and bit off her front claws!
It was comical to watch this little monster sitting
still, evidently revolving something in his mind.
After he got through, something revolved, some
times pretty rapidly, too.
I do not advise invalids to have a monkey as pet.
Perhaps, instead of capital punishment, murderers
might be condemned to take care of monkeys.

224
Hume.
Among my friends, whUe teaching as a professor
in Europe, was the celebrated Hume, the great
spiritualist, author of " Light and Shadows of the
Spirit World," also other spiritualistic books.
I was fishing at Geneva, Switzerland, and he
walked up to me, holding out his hand, saying, " I
like your face. I am Hume." And so he intro
duced himself! I told him I agreed with him
about my face. It satisfied me, as I cmdd not change
it. He smiled, and brushed his red mustache
thoughtfully. We became friends, mild ones.
He fell in love with a Russian Countess, but the
Empress of all Russia refused her consent to mar
riage. Then, the story goes, a piano in a distant
part of the room commenced to play, by itself, an
air which the mother of the Empress played in days
of yore. He married the Russian Countess.
Hume was at one time a friend of the Empress
Eugenie, who had a great love of the marvelous.
On one occasion, when the Emperor Napoleon III
gave him an audience, the spiritualist Hume called
forth, according to court reports, a spirit hand of
Napoleon's dead father, Louis, King of Holland.
The hand, its way of touch, and aU, seemed to im
press Louis Napoleon as real. Hume became the
rage in Paris, and the pet of the aristocracy of
Europe. I found Hume once, reclining, American fashion,
heels up, in a sumptuous apartment which a great
and weathy nobleman had placed at his disposal, in

225
Nice, South France. Hume was an extraordinary
man, and wonderful tales were told of him in every
direction. Those who were prejudiced against
spiritualism would interview me (in Geneva,
Switzerland), and ask me how I could be seen with
such an uncanny man. In the " pension " where
he boarded, unearthly music was heard floating in
the air, at least, so the boarders affirmed to me.
One day I was standing at the door at the side of
the pension beside an invalid's wheel chair, when
Hume suddenly said, gazing vacantly into space,
" Young, you'll live longest of us three." I ap
peared at the time to have not the best chance of
life, but the prophecy came true.
I, at times, bought in Geneva, blasphemous little
pamphlets of the "French Commune" of 1871.
Hume saw me frequently with the author, and, one
day, said, impatiently, " People criticise you for be
ing seen in the company of such a man, and I warn
you." "Do you? Oh, thanks! He is dying of con
sumption. I buy his pamphlets for two reasons: to
tear them up, so they will do no harm, and also so
that the embittered man may get bread. Besides,
he has lost his right arm."
" Pity he had not lost his head instead. Well, I
warn you against being seen with him."
"Thanks! So kind in you! I have just been
warned not to be seen in your company, and it is so
nice to have one's friends regulate everything for
one." 10»

226

He laughed and never criticised my acquaintances
again. As he hobnobbed with dukes, counts, and
barons, he thought, perhaps, he was above criticism.
Hume's second wife, who, I believe, was of a
princely Russian house, seemed sad; but his son by
his first wife, the aforesaid Countess in Russia, was
one of the maddest prank-players, and a source of
delight to those who loved practical jokes.
On one occasion when we were wralking down
the Boulevard St. Michael (Paris) together, every
one seemed to turn and look at us. As Parisians
rarely stare, I pondered and looked in Sachy's face.
With imperturbable gravity, he had cocked an eye
glass, or monocle, on one eye, of which one-half the
glass was gone.
" Sachy, remove that broken window pane. Do
you think this looks nice for a professor's compan
ion? Then, too, take off that great, green glass
breast-pin on your cravat."
" Great Penobscot, boy," he ejaculated, " that is
an heirloom, and cost 5,000 francs."
As a teacher of languages, an episode occurs to
me at Nice, France. A friend, a professor, whose
English I corrected, gave over his pupils to me, as
he thought he could give a great lecture, with ex
periments, on Priessnitz's birthday, the discoverer
of oxygen. This professor was a good chemist, and
hired a large room as laboratory. One day the Herr
Prof. Chemist appeared, to tell me that the room he
had hired was in a house of ill-fame, unbeknown to
him. I comforted him, saying something would

227
turn up; to get out as soon as possible. He did, but
not in the way I expected!
That evening, in an experiment, he blew out the
side of the buUding. (The owner blew him up,
later.) As it was just before the lecture, it, in a
measure, discouraged people from buying tickets,
although the professor was still alive, and ready to
proceed. This professor wrote a book proving that English
was to be the universal language of the world, all
others to disappear. He talked and talked on the
subject. Besides this, he bored me to death. He
told me there was lots of money in that lecture. It
is still there — the money. The audience considered
him, the professor, too demonstrative, and did not
care to see, or, above all, feel his experiments. Per
haps they had read of the parrot at Aden, British for
tress, who was present when the soldiers were giving
theatricals. As the curtain went down the soldiers
would exclaim : " Wasn't that nice ! Wonder what
they'll do next." The door opened and a little fire-
rocket blew out and into the great powder magazine.
An explosion ! Later, the parrot was found feather-
less and bleeding in a neighboring field. He ejacu
lated: "Wasn't that nice. Wonder what they'U do
next." Among my pupUs I have had nearly aU nation
alities, including an Armenian lord, a captain of
Cossacks, a fine-mannered nobleman from Finland,
Helsingfors (the most northerly town in Europe), a
professor of the University of Dorpat, Russia, Aus-

228
trian officers, French, Spanish, and Italian doctors,
Egyptians, Roumanians, Turks, etc.
As a student of pure French, I attended the sit
tings of the French House of Deputies, uni^er the
second empire, to hear Adolph Thiers, the little man
in a brown Prince Albert coat, who, later, became
President of the third French republic, I think I
liked the cool, cold eloquence of conservatives best.
I enjoyed, too, the speeches of Gambetta, the great
est of French orators, Jules Simons, and Marquis
Henri de Rochefort, whom I saw later at Geneva,
after the Commune.
Then at Paris, too, at Notre Dame, where I went
for seven years, Sunday afternoons (attending Prot
estant service in the morning, to be fair), I heard the
great Catholic priest orators. I heard, too, among
others there, Pere Hyacinthe, whom, later, I heard
often at Geneva, Switzerland, when a student there.
As a professor of languages, I recommend to
those going to Paris, attendance at the Legislative
Chambers, at the Cathedrals, and at the theaters, to
learn French in an easy, kindergarten style. It is
not necessary to study hard to learn, but merely to
study attractively, easily, like a child. Kindergar
ten methods should be applied even to colleges.
As a professor, I would say, one is never too old
to study and improve. Study up to the hour of
your death. My best pupil in France was an old
gentleman of eighty-six years. I taught him Eng
lish in order that he might more thoroughly enjoy
Dickens' works, of which he was a deep student.

229
He was a wealthy proprietor, and could have died of
old age, and laziness, but he preferred to study Eng
lish carefully, and live.
That reminds me that he had an old parrot who
did not possess the same love of English. That par
rot evidently remembered Waterloo. He mani
fested a desire to get at the " sacre Anglais." He
would scream derisively, and clamber up and down
his cage in a delirium of rage. If we spoke French,
he would subside in a patriotic manner, and become
satisfied. He had to be carried out, fighting, each
lesson-time, before silence was secured. After the
lesson, a few words of French from me secured a ces
sation of hostilities, and a solemn ratification of
peace, sealed by a hand and claw shake.
As a student of languages, I would say that where
one thoroughly learns a language, like French, for
instance, one in that language reasons in a certain
degree like a Frenchman, and presents things so.
For instance, in teaching in French, as a professor,
I insensibly adopt the light, gay tones of a French
man. And yet I taught just as thoroughly. In
teaching Italian, I took the graver and more logical
tone and habit of the Italian language. In teaching
German, I instinctively taught in the heav}' and
pedantic way of the Vaterland. In teaching Eng
lish, too, the Anglo-Saxon line and manner of
thought prevailed — a combination between the
light Norman and the heavy Saxon.
In teaching languages, I recommend that the
teacher begins by insisting on the alphabet first,

230
then on the numbers up to lOO. That gives, so to
speak, a dictionary of reference in the mind, as to
pronunciation. Then the pupil should learn the
Lord's Prayer in the language to be learned. I
have a pupil, referred to in this book as the Princess
Alice, whom I taught in French, German, and Ital
ian, to whom I gave the Lord's Prayer in the three
languages, so that on retiring at night she said her
prayers in four languages. Then I use the New
Testament, with parallel columns in different lan
guages. Thus, if a pupil is learning French, one
buys for 25 cents, at the Bible Society in New York,
near Cooper Institute, a New Testament, with
French in one column and English in the other.
One hardly needs to refer, after a whUe, to the Eng
lish column.
This mode of mine, which I inaugurated many
years ago, gives one the purest style, as the Bible and
Shakespeare make scholars of their steady readers.
I think, too, I was the first to inaugurate current
event classes, teaching and reading from news
papers. Besides this high literary standard, the reader
becomes, as a rule, a Christian. Reading steadily
the Sermon on the Mount insures that.
So the teacher feels, both as a teacher and a man, or
Christian, that he is doing his duty in all directions.
Note. — Italian lessons soften the voice, so that
even English sounds better and sweeter from the
same mouth. German lessons, if long continued,
I found, rendered the voice more gruff. One of my

231
pupils, at my suggestion, gargled the throat each
evening on retiring with a pinch of borax in a glass
of water. That, with Italian, made a great change
in her voice, and did also in many others. Do not
zvaste your time on dead languages. Study the
four great living ones. Charles the Fifth, the great
Emperor, rightly said : " Vier sprachen, vier
menchen." (Four languages, four men.)

CHAPTER XII.
LIFE AS A MEDICAL REVIEWER.

Maternal Impressions.
A story told me on my travels.
As a medical reviewer for many years at Paris, I
have met with strange views, and strange cases.
I used to make light of what are called " maternal
impressions," regarding them as " tales of old
women." Just here I would like to say that I re
gard the tales of old women as generally better than
the tales of old men (more moral and veracious),
and I merely use the common, idiotic expression in
order to criticise its imbecUity and ungallantry.
One of the most peculiar cases that came under
my observation is the following, and I can vouch for
the truthfulness of the woman.
She had married when quite young, having been
left an orphan at an early age, to the care of a
guardian who did not guard; a man too occupied in
church affairs to do the duty nearest. Early mar
riages blast many lives. This girl had married when
only sixteen years old, or thereabouts, a society
man. (These early marriages are one of the great
est curses to the state, equal to intemperance, in
fact.)

233
She soon became a mother, one baby giving birth
to another baby. The husband was liable to sudden
fits of ill temper, and this tale is written in order to
show the lasting effects of such sudden and uncon
trollable outbursts of anger. It is told with no
other object than of warning my readers to exercise
self-control. Lives are marred by a word, a single
word; anger is often a fit of emotional insanity, an
habitual want of self-restraint. Lives are marred
by a blow, a single blow. In this case, not only
were the lives of the married couple marred, but
those of the unborn children. Ah! this suffering of
innocent babes for the faults of parents! "Unto
the third and fourth generation."
A German professor once said to me, " Perhaps
God himself will improve and then Plis methods! "
He did not mean to be' irreverent !
The husband in question, on learning unex
pectedly his wife's condition, and, I suppose, realiz
ing quickly the consequent disarrangement of his
society plans, grew intensely angry and struck her a
sudden blow with his open palm over the region
where the child lay.
He was beside himself; the blow was only heavy in
its significance. It left no bodily scar; it was in
reality a mental blow, and the scar was on the mind.
Said the wife, " It was not that it hurt me physi
cally very much; it was the contemptuous motion,
and applied over my unborn child, and my first born
to be; I was hurt in my mother's pride. I was hurt,
too, in my woman's pride. The blow sank deep

234
into my soul. It was a deep and ineffaceable scar."
It was the first and last blow that husband ever
gave his wife.
An apology was quickly offered, and the sin for
given, but not forgotten. Ah, no! That sunk
deep into the heart. The future mother brooded
over this blow.
In due time a daughter was born. She grew to
womanhood and was lovely, brave, and good, but
always complained of a dull pain over the womb.
Physicians said it was inexplicable, and that there
was no disease; yet the pain was there, and it was
real suffering. Plasters were frequently used to
relieve that ceaseless ache, over which she so much
wondered. A pain which by reflex action caused
vomiting, etc. This girl had grey hair in her teens.
She died without any knowledge of her mother's
grief. A second child was born to this couple. The
mother, when pregnant, was horrified to find her
thoughts, in spite of all her efforts, dwell so much
on the blow. Yet the mind flew back consciously,
and, probably, unconsciously — unconscious cere
bration. This child was born, but moaned unceasingly.
The nurse said it seemed heart-broken. It sobbed
and sobbed, and held its breath continually, night
and day, in a most heart-rending manner. " Just
as I did," said the mother. The nurse said she had
never seen such a baby, nor had others. It died.
Sobbed and moaned its life away.

235
The mother and father became sadder and wiser.
The chUdren of maturity are more calm and better
in eyery way.
A third time the mother became with child. She
made up her mind to forget that blow, to be cheer
ful, serene, and patient; to have a child that would
always smile and never cry. A relative invited the
mother to spend the period of gestation in his
family, away from the husband, and disturbing
thought. She went a thousand miles away, to new
and bright scenes, where she passed the happiest
months of her life. She was happy, calm, and
serene. Serenity is the best kind of happiness and
the highest. Serenity is self-poise.
This child proved to be of a happy disposition.
He was born happy. If he manifested any disposi
tion to cry so as to attain a coveted object, the
mother, who had promised herself a chUd that
should never cry, would put the object coveted
farther away. If he ceased to cry, she held it nearer,
and, as the smile grew stronger, he was rewarded
with that which he sought, and so the education con
tinued in the smile line; a smile bringing things
ever nearer, and a frown taking them farther away.
But through life the child frequently spoke of a
curious pain over the region of the bladder. (As to
the girl, over the pelvic region, there was a kind of
depression, as though caused by the palm of a
hand.) When this boy became an adult, he being of a
philosophical disposition, his mpther fold him of the

236
blow; her daughter being too sensitive and delicate
to bear the information.
The husband in question asked forgiveness for
that blow on his deathbed; repeatedly he asked it,
it being always granted. His repentance was sin
cere, but the consequence could not be averted.
The child of smiles was baptized on his father's
deathbed. Years elapsed, and the boy, then grown to be a
man, found a picture of his father, face downwards,
in an old moth-eaten trunk. It had merry, blue
eyes, and seemed tired of its resting-place. He took
it out and hung it up. When his mother saw it she
turned pale and shuddered, saying, " That should
not have been done." Then she sat down, silent
and sad. Her son said gently, " It was so long,
long ago, and you should forgive." " I have for
given, but I cannot forget. Forgiveness is one
thing, memory another."
Thirteen years elapsed. The son again hung up
the picture, his father's portrait, thinking, if his
mother could tolerate it, it would break the spell,
and render her happier to fully forgive and fully for
get, and perhaps give both pleasant remembrances.
But the picture was softly turned to the wall, and
was finaUy taken down and stored in darkness, untU
death, from repeated pulmonary and pleurisy at
tacks, released her to find and be reconciled to her
repentant husband. Her indignation and grief had
greatly consumed her physical life.
The world is just beginning to understand the
laws of birth, the subject of maternal impressions,

237
and the need of sympathy and consideration for
those about to become mothers.
The lady in these medical interviews said she had
shrunk from the marriage because, on one occasion,
while driving with him during her engagement, he
got out of temper with the horse, and broke the butt
end of the whip over the poor animal. " Frightened
at such an exhibition of ungovernable temper," she
said, " I returned home and told my aunt I should
never marry that man." The aristocratic and auto
cratic old lady was horrified, as the invitations were
out. The Bishop was to perform the ceremony, and
such a break would be an open disgrace to the
family; and putting the family honor before the
child's happiness, and yielding to the famUy pride,
while she disregarded the child's future, she locked
her in her room, on a diet of bread and water, until
perforce, she yielded. Both parties were too in
tense and immature to marry.
Of all the histories that have come under the
writer's attention, as a medical reviewer, the above
seemed the best calculated to do the most good, and
to contain a lesson of warning to the quick tem
pered, on account of consequences to others, as well
as to one's self, especially to unborn children.
A quick temper in a man is almost as much to be
feared as drunkenness. The death of this woman's
daughter was caused by the words of a woman in
violent anger, which were unjust, uncalled for, and
a great shock to her. Within five minutes after
the angry tirade, she had the first shock of apoplexy.

238
leaving no possible doubt as to the cause or effect
upon a gentle, sweet-tempered lady. Thereby carry
ing out the idea of cause and effect, from the original
shock to her mother from the blow, this young lady
was carried off in a few days by the tendency of a
natural law of mental transmission from a shock to
her mother. Her noble and beautiful life of selfr
sacrifice, the fact that she was sorely needed, noth
ing could prevent the shock of her father's passion
from aiding in destroying her earth life.
Nothing seems to be needed to emphasize the
need of self-restraint. An evil temper robs those '
around you. It is the most terrible of all robberies.
It robs people of their serenity, which is worse than
taking their worldly goods. Besides, angry words
soil the soul of the speaker. So, dear reader, strive
to control yourself, " In His Name." Strive for
your own sake, and for the sake of future genera
tions. Teach others to follow, then, your good ex
ample. Every means should be taken to teach a chUd
patience, serenity, calmness, and self-possession.
Every Christian should recognize this, since St.
Paul has told us what are the fruits of the Spirit.
All through life, self-control is of immense value.
What a shame to Christians that the Japanese, as a
race, are superior to us in that respect! " By their
fruits ye shall know them."
I can recall two opposite natures, both friends of
mine, one gentle, self-possessed; the other quick, ill
tempered. Both were stricken with apoplexy. Both

239
recovered to positively lose their minds. The gentle
one was soft and sweet, and easy to take care of; the
other was a terror to her attendants. Even in in
sanity our works pursue us! " As we sow, so shall
we reap." ,
In the account just written, of the woman in
pregnancy, it might be better to add that the child
who had been taught always to smile, and never to
cry, once, in a discussion with another child, re
ceived the answer, " Good reason why you don't get
mad and always smUe. Your mother says you were
born with a smile on your face, and that is the same
smile you have kept up ever since." Remember,
readers, that even a forced smile is better than none ;
it relaxes the system, and, if kept up, will eventually
bring a genuine smile; "an outward and visible
sign of an inward and spiritual " one. So smile
away. "Just listen for a moment.
And I'll tell you what to do ;
Just give a smile, you'll get a smile.
You'll find my words come true.
Smile sweetly, then, on others,
And they'll sweetly smile on you.
Thus better is life's journey,
AU our lifetime through."
Napoleon, called the Great, had not possession of
himself. " He that ruleth himself is greater than he
that taketh a city." Napoleon, the Prince of War,
kicked his sister in the stomach, having on cavalry
boots at the time. His work fell. His dynasty,
founded on himself, was built on the sand. He was

240
not a follower of the Prince of Peace. " They that
take the sword shall perish with the sword."
The divorce question is before the world to-day,
as never before. It is the marriage knot that should
first be deeply considered, and chiefly on account
of the children. Men and women are not mature
until long after twenty-one. Certain bones are not
fully formed until after twenty-one. Marriage be
fore thai age, zvith present knowledge, is a crime.
Early marriages are a curse to the state, to the na
tion, and to the couple who marry young. So, too,
the children brought forth by early marriages have
just and eternal cause of complaint, as the parents
are almost as murderers, since, being unripe them
selves, they bring forth, by their lust, unripe, un
healthy offspring, who suffer on through life, living
the life of invalids, or semi-invalids, or else dying
early (which is best).
A child has a right to be well born. A child not
desired by both parents is the result of lust, not love.
The organs of procreation are to be used only when
chUdren are desired; never otherwise. The state
should never allow anyone to marry_ under twenty-
one. The state ozves this law to its citizens. The
clergy who marry people under that age are doing,
perhaps, more to promote evil than the saloon-keep
ers. Guiteau was the son of a lustful clergyman.
His mother an insane invalid. They should study
Tolstoi's " Kreutzer Sonata." A United States
court decided that this work of the Russian Count
is of puritanical purity. It would be well if all

241
adults should read such pure works on marriage as
Cowto's " Science of a New Life," some of the
clergy included. In fact, especiaUy those ministers
with too many children and tired and worn-out wives
are misguided men who have ministered, perhaps,
to their own lust. " Increase and multiply," with
out regard to quality, is not to be applied to 1897,
A.D. A chUd has the right to be weU born, of
parents who believe in perfect equality in state,
church, home, and bed-chamber. Then we shall
have chUdren without anger and passion.
Amen. Ainsi soit il. So mochte es sein.

CHAPTER XIII.
LIFE AS A MEDICAL REVIEWER.

Colors — Red and
I think that invalids can be greatly helped by the
proper use of color. This may seem " cranky " to
the average strong -man or woman, but it is not.
Test my views. My own room is a poem in blue
and red, without mixture of other colors. In sum
mer I prefer pale blue to predominate, as cooling in
reality and appearance. In winter, red gives
warmth to appearance, and renders the room more
cheerful. If any object to a color, like red, as savagery, I
would refer them to the prince of art critics, Ruskin,
who says, in effect, that noble minds prefer these
colors, blue and red.
Too much red is irritating to some. One must
be as judicious in the choice of color as in the
choice of medicine.
A doctor once said to me, putting up his hands
to his eyes, "How irritating your red is; I could
not stand if." Nor could he. He was a quick, ener
getic, strong, hasty, impulsive man, and needed ton
ing down, even his hair being red.

243
But I needed prodding, needed a stimulant of
color. At times, in the old days, before I under
stood the use of color and music in the treatment of
disease, I, at times, would lie for an hour on awaken
ing in the morning, opening my eyes a moment at
first, and then closing them, dreading to meet the
Hght of another day — dreading to see the hours
go by, so slowly, so slowly.
Then I would pray, " O God let it be Thy will
to let me pass away." I would pray that my sister's
dead hand might touch me, to galvanize me into life
and hope, to give me patience to endure to the
end. Finally, insensibly, my mind ran on colors. I
remembered Naples, and the use of red there in
the hospital, red to energize and give hope and
strength. Gradually, I applied the use of red in wall and
ceiling decoration, and, as I found the effect cheer
ing, I continued increasing the amount of red, untU
I had received sufficient tonic effect. I am inclined
to think, unless the Great Spirit had turned my
thoughts in the right direction, that I could not have
endured the weeks, and months, and years of con
stant pain.
Outwardly, I may have been calm, and gentle,
and patient, and may not have presented a very
different aspect to my friends, but inwardly my ex
periments with color made a great and good dif
ference. People then, and now, have said to me, " You al
ways seem cheerful. Are you never cast down?"

244
It seems strange that any should seriously ask such
a question of another mortal.
If Christ was disheartened, and prayed that the
cup might pass from Him, would it not be so, and
more so, infinitely and incomparably more so, with
a simple, common mortal?
If Christ prayed on the cross, " My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me," will not the simple
mortal crucified in bed by hours of pain and suffer
ing, be apt to clasp the hands in agonized appeal?
Another version or translation I have seen gives
the words as " My God, My God, why hast Thou
so glorified Me? " That would seem the best trans
lation. I remember a very saintly Presbyterian clergy
man saying that there came days, dark and gloomy,
when suicide seemed a boon, and he claimed such
days came to all.
" For there are none perfect, no, not one." That
clergyman should have had a room in red.
To return to my colors, which are sacred ones,
as blue and red were so considered in the Saviour's
time. When, on opening my eyes mornings, they
beheld the energizing light, hopeful red, my eyes
no longer reclosed wearily. I have always thought
one could get more effect out of ten cents' worth of
red than out of a dollar's worth of any other color.
Try it.
In course of time I had placed around my room so
much red — red ornaments on wall, Venetian red
floor, and sideboard, etc. — that a winter had jjassed

245
comfortably, and warmer weather .coming around,
I discovered that red was too enlivening and warm
ing, and that I should have to use large quantities
of light blue, which has a cooling effect, and makes
one feel placid and peaceful.
One does not need to overdo the stimulating ef
fect of red. One should remember how even ani
mals get over-excited by red, and yet they are not
troubled by nervous systems.
I remember once saving my mother from an in
furiated bull at Greenwich, Conn., by pulling the
red shawl from her shoulder, and throwing it at a
bush to receive an angry charge of an hour. The
bull was satisfied, and we were more than satisfied
to get away. No, red is out of place at times. For
instance, it should not be placed in the rooms of the
excitable, nervous, and quick-tempered. Blue
should here be used — light blue. Angry argument
will hardly be heard in blue rooms. I should ad
vise blue in legislative halls, where Republicans and
Democrats argue. The blue-glass craze in this
country had considerable of good in it, but, being
carried to excess, through our national tempera
ment, the good has been forgotten. We are like
the French in this respect.
Music was recognized as a power in medical
treatment, even in the time of David, and we should
have reached by this time a high state of perfection
in its application to disease. Dis-ease means not-
at-ease. Music means harmony and will bring ease,
viz. : health. One age will sometimes bury the dis-

246
coveries of a preceding one! Later, they will be
taken up again, resurrected. It is to be hoped that
our nineteenth-century civilization, which aims at
bringing together and classifying and using the good
of all ages, for all classes, will give color and music
their true place in medicine and hygiene.
Professor Colville, the celebrated writer and lect
urer, honored me with a visit once. " Quite
oriental," he murmured. " Oh, very harmonious,
very harmonious; blue and red. Sacred colors."
On my asking him questions about the vibration of
color, for color is merely vibration, like music, he
said that my views were right about red being so
much more energizing than any other color, on ac
count of its many thousand vibrations. Blue has
far less vibrations. Red causes quick heart-beats;
blue color causes slower beats.
I expressed my ideas as concisely and as clearly
as I could, and he said " Right, quite right. You
will never get well, never get out of bed, but you will
write a book, and it will be of use to humanity."
God grant it. God grant the sick may find help
in my pages, and that one sick one may recommend
it to another.
As he did not know (as I did not know myself),
my capabUity of writing a book, it, in a measure,
cheered me on to do so. It has been written in
pain and tribulation, but with a good purpose.
The lady who brought him hinted, perhaps, that
my will was too strong (when people say that, they
mean, often, one is, at times, too obstinate). But

° 247
Colville, apparently taking in the whole room, and
yet not appearing to glance around, threw upward
his arm. He pointed at the yellow flag of the
" Hartford Equal Rights Club," waving over my
bed, and said, " Why no, his will cannot be too
strong, because it is -for right — for woman's suf
frage." Color and music will be two of the great curatives
of the future. If those who are blue when the sun
does not shine (and there seem to be many such)
had a room furnished in the brightest of yellow,
they would not then miss the golden orb so much.
As to music, as I write these lines, in 1897, I find an
account in the Journal of Hygiene of the establish
ment of an hospital at Munich (Bavaria), for the
cure of disease solely through music. It is under
the patronage of the Empress of Austria.
In our White House at Washington, we have a
Blue Room, a Red Room, and a Green Room. But
this, as a rule, is too expensive for ordinary mortals.
Those, however, who are rich, could experiment in
this line. The journals state that the present occu
pant of the house, calm, sweet-faced Mrs. McKinley,
has a bedroom all of blue.
Women, in their respective rooms, would do well
to remember what colors most become them, and
against what backgrounds they look best. Our
former President's wife, Mrs. Hayes, appreciated
this. Such things are not unimportant. On the con
trary, they are of the uttermost importance.

248
If the German professor who, on dying, regretted
that he had spent his entire life on one word, its
etymology, etc., as being too diffuse a subject, and
wished that he had spent his time on a single syl
lable — if such a learned and patient creature had
given his time to color, what discoveries would have
been made!
It has been long known in Austria, where I passed
a year, that red curtains at windows would prevent
pitting in smaUpox.
At Paris, my mother was taken with smallpox in
a hotel. As it was during the Exposition of 1878,
it was difficult to get rooms. A medical student
who vacated our rooms had left some bones under
the bed, which my mother pulled out with enquiries.
The rest of the skeleton was in the closet. Some
days after, my mother had signs of smallpox. I
inquired where the medical student had moved who
had occupied my mother's room. The concierge
hesitated, then said he was in the garret. Did he
have smallpox? I inquired in an indifferent way.
He had, why? Nothing! I did not say anything
about my mother's case, under the circumstances,
that they were responsible at the hotel. I locked
the door, entering her room from mine, etc. Then,
as we had red curtains, I had no fear of pits.
None came. I took care of the case myself by
the " Raspail system."
With red curtains no pustules can form. I be
lieve the red prevents the purple rays of the sun
entering, though I am not sure,

249
The same immunity from pits is made by dark
ness, but that is more inconvenient.
I suppose the reader may think that I carry the
point of color rather far. The fact is I have been
in the habit of having quilts made red one side, and
blue the other, so that when I felt too lively, and
needed toning down, needed calmness, I could have
the blue side up. And when I felt dispirited and
listless, I could have the red tonic effect immediately,
by reversing. Florence Nightingale, the great
nurse, advocated the use of red as strengthening
and energizing.
I am aware that many will hold up their hands
at this. But the more astonishment you feel, the
more I shall have impressed upon you the fact that
it will be well to investigate. So do so. Labore
mus ! Speaking of color, I would like here to add
my little protest against black at funerals.
Black is the symbol of despair, darkness, night.
We should die upwards, not downwards.
If religion means anything, it means a better
future, here and above, and, perhaps, below.
So give us no mournful raiments. The Chinese
mourn not in black. Let us mourn in light blue, say
ing, " Our friend is risen, gone higher." I wish no
black used when I leave my body behind me. We
go lower by putting on black. Let us go higher.

CHAPTER XIV.
LIFE AS A MEDICAL REVIEWER.
\_From the fournal of Hygiene and Herald of Healthy N. K., May., Z"^?-]
MUSIC FOR THE SICK,
by an invalid fourteen years in bed,
Prof. c. Howard young.
"The cage is narrow
And the bars strong."
The Invalid Poet {Hamilton).
Yes, dear Poet, but music will break the bars.
I am fully convinced that music can cure some
diseases, and help others. Herbert Spencer found
in music his chief recreation during the many years
of his writing the Synthetic PhUosophy, when he
was a nervous invalid. It is probable but for this
he might never have completed the greatest intel
lectual task of modern times.
Music is sedative.
Every nurse should be proficient on such sweet
instruments as the " phono-harp," " auto-harp," or
zither, or " guitar-zither." The first is, probably,
most sweet and plaintive, and, perhaps, as being the
most soothing, best for the sick.
The auto-harp is, at times, somewhat too grand
and solemn for the average invalid. If played
softly, however, it is wonderfully sweet and calming.

25 I
The pulse can often be lowered or increased, ac
cording as the time is slow or fast, grave or gay.
And this, with sick or well; this means control of
the circulation of the blood, the river of life.
I ofttimes fasten a looking-glass so that I can see
people walk as a band of music goes by. The mir
ror shows how completely young and old are under
the domination of music; the aged striking out their
feet in a comically youthful way, irrepressibly and
unconsciously. How completely and quietly the
street-band music chases away unhealthy thoughts,
worry, etc.; and if so with the average healthy per
son, how much more with the sick, who are most
susceptible. Personally, I have, and with great benefit to my
self, played hours at a time — forgotten myself, in
playing low tunes with one hand on the phono-
harp, or auto-harp, or guitar-zither, for my disease
of the heart has precluded much movement with the
arm during the last fourteen years in bed.
Music is more than medicine! It is to me spirit
ual food.
A little child who frequently comes to see me,
and whose pleasant smiles induce gifts of candy,
cream, and cakes from admirers, which ultimately
induce stomachache, is soothed and put to sleep,
even when groaning, A more rapid air wiU in
duce partial wakefulness, and rapid ones, like " Ta-
rara-boom-de-ra," fuU consciousness to pain. Then
slow, soothing, lullaby tunes wiU soothe back the
troubled child to sleep, and forgetfulness of its pro-

252
testing stomach. The air of the Lorelei (German)
is very soothing to her. I use it instead of Mrs.
Winslow's soothing syrup, or castoria.
Does not every mother, all over the world, soothe
her child thus? And, if so, why not ap)ply it to
adults who are but chUdren of a larger growth.
This kindergarten system of therapeutics is best,
where it can be applied. Apply it to the sick in
hospitals. The application of the maternal lullaby in the
sick room as a therapeutic agent of cure for the sick
adult, as well as for children who are ill, will come
in the future. Music versus Death.
I remember reading, in a medical article, of a
child given up to die by the doctors. It was un
conscious. The distracted mother, as a last resort,
sang and played old familiar tunes to her darling.
The music — vibrations — reached the conscious
ness of the child, when it opened its eyes and began
to live. Probably the old, familiar tune roused
memory, too, so that two shocks were felt.
Music is vibration, and I am convinced, by ex
perience, that many a pain and ache can be cured
by the invalid placing a phono-harp, or auto-harp,
or, perhaps, some other sweet stringed instrument,
in the immediate vicinity of the sick body, and play
ing it one's self, moving the instrument into more
close contact with the body, as it becomes more ac
customed to the vibrations. I have proven to my-

253
self that such vibrations will dispel many forms of
congestion. To dispel congestions, I prefer the
auto-harp, as the vibrations are greatest.
If the invalidism is chronic, and one is able to play
(it only takes a few hours to learn the phono-harp
or auto-harp, which is a modified, easy form of
zither), one can help to cure one's own ills; other
wise, the nurse can place the instrument far or near,
while playing, according to the patient's desires and
feelings, sensations, etc. The vibrations of the
auto-harp are so deep and full that, played oh the
sick body, it might, for some diseases excite too
much; for others it would be just right. It can be
learned very quickly by anyone.
While I was plajdng the auto-harp one day at its
loudest, placing it over my stomach, with the ob
ject of curing an attack of dyspepsia, a blind young
lady came in, and, seating herself near the bed,
placed her hand over the mattress. An expression
of wonder came over her most expressive face. In
a moment she said, " How extraordinary! How it
vibrates. I never knew anything to vibrate so! "
It does. Her own favorite instrument was the
zither, and her sweet music called me back to life
in August, 1896, This book is justly dedicated to
her. Music is far better than any drug from the drug
gist's. The drug drugs. The music soothes natur
ally. The 2,100 drugs in the U. S. Pharmacopea
show that medicine is " rattled " for a so-called cure
- — excuse the expression. The 2,100 drugs for the

254
6oo or 700 diseases, or modifications of diseases,
prove too much! Drug versus Music. O. W.
Holmes said all but six were best thrown into the
sea. But he pitied the fishes, as well he might.
Most diseases are, fortunately, self-limited; but,
unfortunately, the patient's strength, patience, and
purse are also limited. The sleep induced by a
narcotic is not sleep; it is stupor induced by the stupid
use of a drug. If one could examine the top of the
brain in sleep induced by a narcotic drug, he would
find it congested. The " London Lancet " says a
blow from a club on the head produces the same re
sult. Now if music, grave, soothing, and calming, can
be used as a soporific, why is it not an advantage
often over the drug or club process?
Again, if music, lively and gay, can quicken the
heart-beats, and so act as a stimulant and a tonic,
why use a poison like strychnine or quinine?
The trouble with music is that the patient is apt
to use a medley of tunes, grave and gay, quiet and
slow, quieting and exciting. But this would be the
fault of the patient, or nurse, nof the system.
Note. - — The blind young lady, above aUuded to,
played the zither most spirituaUy, played the soul
of music, and, for the relief afforded many times in
sickness by her zither playing, the writer is under a
deep debt of gratitude. More especially when one
reflects that the lady in question had a kindergarten
of her own at the Warburton Chapel, Hartford, so
that her time was occupied in doing good in dif-

255
ferent directions. Her physical sight was gone,
but her mental and spiritual sight were wonderful
and just. Many bless Miss Louise Lee.
Music can be misapplied, like any therapeutical
agent. A hypochondriacal patient would need gay
and cheerful tunes. A feverish patient would need
slow, calming, and soothing airs, played low, etc.
People, too, do not always choose what is best for
them. 'Sad people like sad airs, but they need gay,
enlivening ones. I look to the near future to see
a medical book on this subject, with accurate ad
vice. I think my friend, the great Dr. Ephraim
Cutler, of N. Y,, is competent to write one. He
told me he agreed with what I have written.
Anyone who has seen a battle will remember what
an exciting, encouraging effect the military music
has. Just so in the battle of every-day life, and,
above all, in hospital and home, in palace and tene
ment, good music should be used.
The writer is not a nervous subject, nor imagina
tive, yet, watch in hand, he can note the pulse rise
or fall, to a certain degree, in the measure that the
vibrations are fast or slow.
The wise Professor ColviUe, in his lecture, says,
" Vibrations govern everything — govern the
spheres." Music is not only the language of heaven,
but it should be that of earth, for health — to cure
disease. Music produces patience to bear many of
the Uls of Hfe. Every chUd would be better if it
had a little harp, say the " Ideal Harp," on which,
at an early age, it could easily learn many different
tunes.

256
Anyone who has watched on the face of a child
the amazed expression of joy which ripples over its
face, as it finds that by following a simple system of
numbered strings, it can " really and truly make
music," wUl be amply repaid by the small outlay
for such a musical instrument. I have spent a good
deal of time trying to calculate exactly the amount
of increased or decreased heart-beats in subjects, ac
cording as the music was fast or slow; the pulse, in
a measure, seems to follow the musical vibrations.
I had a number of musical boxes playing tunes
very fast, or very slow. One that played " St.
Patrick's Day " in a maddening way, increased my
heart beats about ten to the minute; also the tune,
" The Girl I Left Behind Me," played in the same
rollicking time.
It is curious how a tune, by quickening, seems to
totally change. For instance, take a phono-harp,
or auto-harp, and play upon it " Nearer My God to
Thee," in the usual grave manner; then play it as
fast as possible — it is no longer reverence-inducing.
Tunes played very, very slow seem to decrease the
normal pulse beats about ten per minute. Of course,
with different subjects, there would be varied re
sults. To those wiser and stronger I leave the sub
ject. In our hospitals the effect should be tried in the
wards. " Graphophones " cheer the sick.
I recommend those who have large hearts, and
large purses, to purchase and send to hospitals fine
musical boxes. They should have attachments tr

257
slower the music to suit the patient's needs. The
average music-box plays too fast. Try the " Regina."
A woman shrieking with delirium and fever does
not need quick music, with the blood flowing
through the vessels under the pressure of 120 beats
to the minute.
Of course, musical vibrations may be too much
for some invalids; the nurse can then play at a
distance, graduated to suit the case.
A music-box, 18 by 12, on my bed, had to be
placed, at first, in a neighboring room to be played ;
later, it was placed on a table near me. This par
ticular box was one used by the King's Daughters
of Hartford, " Good Samaritans." It was carried
from house to house to invalids, and left a week or
two, to the delight of many. It was bought by the
club immediately after reading aloud in a public
monthly meeting my article on music-boxes, in the
Hartford Post.
It was left in the Widows' Home for a while, and
delighted and cheered many a heart. When sad, in
my mattress grave, I play " Nearer My God to
Thee," and the clouds break. " Post nubila phoe-
bus," so may it be to the last.
In March, 1896, I had an experience of the power
of music in disease which is worth relating. My
nurse, an old lady, had been out for hours in a snow
storm, engaged in looking after the sick poor. She
had already undergone a shock of apoplexy in my
rooms a year previously, preceded by one in New-
Haven, where she spent a year in the hospital. At
9 p. M. she was taken ill and shrieked with pain.

258
In minor Uls I had always been able to quiet her
when in pain, putting her to sleep. I was alone in
the next room, having sent, at lo p. m., for a mes
senger boy to get some one to pass the night at
her bedside. I remembered that she often said that
if she were dying or in great pain, she wished some
one would play on an auto-harp, " Nearer My God
to Thee." I commenced pleying louder and louder
to drown her outcries. In a minute the cries
stopped, and she seemed resting. When I stopped
playing the terrific outcries recommenced. This
alternate crying and sUence continued for an hour,
until help arrived.
The next day, when unmanageable and in wild
delirium, the hymn, that grand old hymn, " Nearer
My God to Thee," played very loudly, yet slozvly, on
the auto-harp, had the same remarkable quieting
effect. I am convinced that music should be a study of
every nurse, and in use at every hospital ; it can often
take the place of opium in soothing, or of caffeine, in
exciting, according to the quick or slow time used
— that is, the vibrations.
God speed the day when music shall be regularly
employed to cure and soothe the sick.
To avoid or repress disease, keep your soul on top,
as the New Testament recommends, and one of the
best means, if not the best, is the right use of music.
Amen. Ainsi Soit il
So mochte es sein. Finis,

259
Note. — This article was first published in the
Herald of Health, of New York, and the writer has
since received a number of American and foreign
articles endorsing the views advocated.
I give an extract or two, clipping impartially:
Leipzig, Germany,
Vegetarische Warte, Juni 1897.
The Journal of Hygiene and Herald of Health:
Prof. C. H. Young behandelt den Einfluss der
Musik bei Krankenbehandlung. Er sagt, Musik
werde nicht genung gewiirdigt ais ein Mittel zur
Heilung und Linderung von Krankheiten, und er
empfiehlt daher deren Anwendung in grosserem
Maasse; besonders eigne sich dazu die Harfe,
(Zither*) und Guitar-Zither. Sanfte, langsame
Musik vermindere den Pulsschlag, wirke beruhi-
gend und schlaferzeugend, wahrend Marsche und
Tanze eine erregende Wirkung ausiiben. Es
komme natiirlich viel darauf an, die Starke der Tone
und die Entfernung des Instruments den Krank-
heitsfallen anzupassen; auch das Selbstspielen der
Kranken ist in manchen FaUen empfehlenswert.
Journal D'Hygiene, Paris, France :
Comme complement de cette etude, de musique
nous avons signale de meme I'installation a Hart
ford (Connecticut) — sur I'initiative de M. Howard
Young, — d'un club qui aurait pour mission d'en
voyer dans les hopitaux frequentes par la classe
pauvre A' excellentes boites a musique.
Notre devoue coUaborateur repartit I'influence
curative de la musique de la maniere suivante :
Les notes cal-mes et lentes pour les fievres et les
excitations mentales.
Les airs gais pour les etats de depression, de con
valescence, de melancoHe, de stupeur.

26o
Les airs religieux pour les natures lasses et
fatiguees (i).
Nous voUa done sur le terrain de I'observation
clinique: Go a head! Dr. de P. S.
Vegetarian Messenger, London, England :
The Journal of Hygiene and Herald of Health.
Published by Dr. M. L. Holbrook, 46 E. 21st St.,
New York. An important contribution, entitled
Music for the Sick, is by Prof. C. Howard Young.
and ought to be generally read.
Prof. C. Howard Young, in the Journal of Hy
giene, for the month, gives instances of the soothing
effect of music upon the sick, and asserts that nurses
should be proficient in " some sweet instrument,
like the zither or auto-harp." One feels that illness
may have another terror added to it. (New York, M.
L. Holbrook, 46 E. 21st St.)
The last criticism was by an editor (American,
light, and easy style) who edits a journal at Detroit,
Mich., formerly edited by my uncle. It shows there
are two ways of looking at music, as well as various
ways of hearing it.
The August number of the Journal of the Guild of
the Holy Cross, says (1897):
We have received from Professor Young a copy
of the Journal of Hygiene and Herald of Health, con
taining an interesting and exhaustive article on
" Music for the Sick." We think our friends in the
Guild wiU find pleasure in reading the article, and
we reprint it in full. Our thanks are due to Pro
fessor Young for his kindness in sending the journal.
Musical Note.
The writer believes in phrenology to a certain ex
tent. He has two excavations, so to speak, where

26l
the bumps of music shoidd be. He dwells with com
placence on the fact, in view of the foUowing:
Dr. Eben Tourgee of the Boston Musical Con
servatory, and now in heaven, years ago, in a slightly
sarcastic vein, wrote on a sort of musical diploma of
a child student, myself, that during twenty-five
years, he had never come across such a " perfect
musical idiot."
It gives me now the utmost pleasure to chronicle
the fact, as perfection is rarely reached.
My mother, in days of yore, when she fished up
that tell-tale diploma from the depths of my trunk,
ejaculated, " I thought you said the diploma was
marked ' perfect.' "
" It is," I returned, laying my finger triumphantly
and truthfully on the word " perfect."
I have had, I think, to rely on the bump of mem
ory to make up for the want of natural endowment
by nature — in point of music.
I mention all this so that no invalid may be dis
couraged relative to his or her musical capacity.
If / could learn to play, anyone could, short of a
confirmed lunatic.
This work has not been written in vain if it leads
any poor invalid into the consoling Temple of
Music. The Gilman Coat of Arms, of my mother's family,
shows that song was not a family trait.
Non Cantu sed actu.
From the Hartford Times, September 29, 1897:
The friends of Professor C. Howard Young of
this city will be pleased to learn that the book he has

262
written in regard to his own life is to be published.
He has quite a number of subscribers already,
among them the names of Frances Willard and
Susan B. Anthony, the latter writing that she wiU
not only subscribe for the book, but send him a copy
of her own autobiography, which she is now writ
ing. The name of Professor Young's book is " The
Sunny Life of an Invalid." He has been confined
to his bed for the last fourteen years, but in that time
he has been actively working with his pen for vari
ous reforms, woman suffrage being the principal
one. He is a member of about all the woman suf
frage societies, both at home and abroad, and is also
foreign correspondent for a number of organiza
tions. Professor Young is a linguist, and, before
taking to his bed, he had classes in languages —
French, German, and Italian, and some others; and
even now he receives a pupil or two at his bedside.
He has lived abroad quite a number of years.
Professor Young hks divided his book into three
parts: " Life as an Invalid," " Life as a Teacher,"
and " Life as a Reviewer." He was employed
seven years on a medical paper in Paris. He has
many original ideas in regard to living in bed, and
keeping cheerful and well as the circumstances will
permit. A bright young lady, who has been privi
leged to look over the pages of his book, says " It is
the most mirthful sad book " she ever saw.
Professor Young has recently been moved from
the room he has occupied so many years in the
Annuity BuUding, to a pleasant room in the front
of that buUding, where he can look out on Asylum
Street and get a glimpse of the world once more.
All who wish to help on the publication of this
unique book can send their addresses to Professor
C. H. Young, 230 Asylum Street, Hartford. The
money ($1) will not be called for till the book is de
livered.

263

CHAPTER XV.
LIFE AS A MEDICAL REVIEWER.
[Waverly Magazine, March 6, 1880. J
Original.
A DRAMA OF PARISIAN LIFE.
By Prof. C. Howard Young.
One evening in July, 1876, toward eight o'clock, I
returned from a walk in the Luxembourg Garden
to my hotel in the Latin Quarter, and was passing
up the stairs when the housemaid, Marie, came run
ning down, caught hold of my sleeve, and whis
pered, —
" Go quickly, sir, to the sixth story; a lady is dy
ing — perhaps of apoplexy — quick! quick!"
The maid accompanied me as far as the last story,
but I could not prevail on her to go further.
" Perhaps she is already dead! I am afraid! She
is so white; go down to the room at the end of the
haU." An old French lady, an acquaintance of mine —
perhaps I might say friend, as, living for a year or
more in the same house, we had opportunities for
almost daily intercourse - — came out of the room in
question. I stared, for I imagined her to be the
person ill. She signed to me to enter.
" I am so glad you have come ! I do not like be
ing alone with her, and I am becoming nervous."
I pushed the door softly open, and found myself

264
in a tiny, garret room, lit by a small skylight win
dow. It was twilight; still everything was dis
tinctly visible. You may, some of you, who have
been to the French capitol, remember a certain
painting in the little corridor of the Luxembourg
Gallery, representing vividly a poor mother and
child, overcome by privations and troubles, com
mitting suicide by means of charcoal in a small gar
ret room. The room there, as here, expressed utter
destitution; but the occupant!
I understood from Marie that I was to see an
elderly lady in an apoplectic fit. The corpse-like,
beautiful woman that lay on the bed was barely
twenty, and entirely in white, even to the tiny slip
pers; coquettish to the last, as many women are apt
to be, I imagine. She " was young and so fair,'' as
the poem says. I turned the girl softly to the light,
and drew up a chair to the bedside to consider. Ap
parently dying, the extreme blackness of her hair,
arranged like a halo around the face, only made
the terrible pallor seem deeper; the little hands, cold,
and clasped convulsively, seemed perfectly blood
less. I called the elderly dame from the neighboring
room, and asked a few questions. The pulse was
only thirty-five, but, at times, the breath came fast,
terribly so, and it was painful to see the girl strug
gling and gasping for air, while catching spasmodi
cally at her throat, as though suffocating; she did
not moan or give any signs of fear, repressing her
feelings like an Indian brave. During the war of
1870-71, I saw the German and French sick and

26s
wounded dying, but no sight struck me so sadly
perhaps because here such youth and beauty seemed
incompatible with death.
I asked but three or four indispensable questions,
on account of the girl's extreme weakness; her an
swers, perfectly inteUigible, but given in a very low
tone, wer§ contradictory.
I looked around the room; everything was in or
der — too much so. The very precision with which
the different objects were arranged made things
look more desolate, and somehow shocked me; the
whole struck me as French, dramatic, suspicious!
The symptoms seemed those of poison. Query : ac
cidental or — otherwise? Circumstantial evidence:
white dress, hair gracefully arranged, shoes neatly
placed in a corner, and, finally, last, but not least,
these tiny white slippers gave evidence of premedi
tation, suicide!
That was my supposition; ten minutes were lost
in arriving at it, and it turned out correct; but the
subject was rapidly traveling to the bourne from
whence no traveler returns. Daylight and this
young life were rapidly passing away.
" If death is but a sleep — Oh, could we know!
A peaceful sleep
Inlaid with dreams, who would not gladly go
Across the deep.
And pass to slumbers in its twilight glow?"
" One more unfortunate gone to her death "? Not
quite; that remained to be seen. Without hinting
my suspicions, I arose to go, and said —

266
" You wUl be better to-morrow when I call, made
moiselle." My opinion was based on the fact that there could
not be a change for the worse; I thought that in an
hour or so, unless speedy and efficient measures
were taken, she would be out of this world, if not in
a better. The girl held out her hand, aflad, with a
politeness almost equal to that of Charles II, when
he begged his courtiers to excuse him for taking
such an unconscionable time to die, "she tried to
thank me, gasping —
" Yes, doubtless, perhaps — I better — O my
God! I am suffocating! "
I raised her so that the breathing became easier;
she smiled a ghastly smile, and continued —
" I only mean I'd better thank you now for com
ing up to see me. Monsieur, adieu! "
" Mademoiselle, au revoir! "
" We wiU see," I said to myself, opening the door
with a jerk, for time was precious, " we wiU see
whether it's adieu or au revoir! "
The old dame was in the next room with her
daughter, who, having been sent for, had just ar
rived. " She is very ill? "
" Dying from the effects of poison."
Both gazed horrified at me, without a word. Fi
nally the younger spoke.
" Mother, she said once she would ! "
" A fire and make coffee! " screamed the madame.
" Quite right; and now to the pharmacy."

267
Two physicians arrived in less than five minutes;
fifteen minutes lost! So many die from chronic poi
soning at the hands of medical men that it is but fair
they should save the few who prefer poisoning them
selves acutely! If the young lady in question had
only been wiser on the subject of the Faculty, she
might have been treated for almost any disease, and
with success, that is from her standpoint; her de
mise would have been equally certain, and unat
tended with acute symptoms! (Excuse my jokes.)
They were energetic men, and did not confine
themselves to biting the tops of their canes, feeling
the patient's pulse, looking at the tongue, grasping
miraculously all thei points of the case (without
knowing anything about it), gazing at one another
with meaning (meaningless, I mean), looks, and,
afterward, when the final act is over and the curtain
down, going to the Commissary of Police, as the
French law requires, and describing the decease in
ambiguous terms. (Pardon! The noblest life is
the medical.)
The girl, evidently, did not expect to see us ; by a
supreme effort raising herself on one arm, she
opened her great black eyes to thd widest extent,
and gasped, triumphantly, " It is too late! I am dy
ing! " and fell back apparently lifeless.
She thought she was triumphant, but the physi
cians were obstinate; they may have been unwel
come visitors, but they certainly made themselves at
home. They gave mademoiselle various com
pounds, and pounds, too, as she persisted in trying
to drop off to sleep. They worried the poor child

268
back to life; among other performances their fair
patient was obliged to drink, or, rather, have poured
down her throat, nearly three quarts of strong, black
coffee. The doctors kept moving the girl all night,
as sleep would have been fatal.
I left the room after a while, although asked to
stay. 1 considered myself useless, refused, and re
turned to my apartment. I wished, for the girl's
sake, to keep the matter quiet.
At ten o'clock, or so, I passed out on the street
with friends, and, on my return, Marie came out of
the hotel bureau and called me, hoping I would
satisfy her curiosity about the girl's illness; but my
replies were not of a nature to enlighten her, al
though I took good care they should satisfy her.
The distinction is obvious.
I did not feel like sleep that night, but I managed
finally to half lose my senses; I did not dream, ex
actly, but I had an indefinite idea that half the world
had poisoned itself, and that the other half was busy
pouring barrels of black coffee dpwn one long, col
lective throat.
The next morning I found the physicians still
there — fortunately, the patient also, although far
from patient. Twelve hours before, I wondered if
the means used to keep the child awake, to prevent
her from falling into ' an eternal sleep, would be
successful, but this morning, after the little dose of
two or three quarts of strong coffee, the possibility
of her ever sleeping again seemed equally remote.
Mademoiselle was the picture of wakefulness; she

269
had a high fever, and her great black eyes, to use
the usual expression, were the size of saucers; the
ghastly pallor had given way to a glow extending
even to the hands, while the cheeks were literally
" on fire." The demoiselle, however, was in a melan
choly frame of mind generally at finding herself still
in this " valley of tears," but the reflection that she
had a high fever was evidently comforting. Made
moiselle, it was plain, did not agree with the poet
or actor buried in Westminster Abbey: —
"Life is a jest, and all things show it;
Once I thought so, but now I know it.''
After all, there is some difference between a good
joke and a sorry one.
The day after, Sunday afternoon, my mother
asked me to go up stairs and inquire about the girl,
but I felt like hearing vespers at Notre Dame; be
side, I feared being officious or disturbing the poor
child. Just at this moment, the elderly French dame
made her appearance, begging me to come and see
" La petite}' who was perverse, having taken ad
vantage that very morning of her new strength and
madame's absence, to reach her arm out of bed and
lock the door, " intending to starve herself, per
haps," as the old dame said.
" Mon Dieu! " she added, mournfully shaking her
head. " Perhaps she is more reasonable now; rea
son with her."
So I went and stayed, heaven knows how long,
and we talked about everything under the sun,
changing the subject as often as possible. There is

270
no language like the French so adjusted to conver
sation; and so the Parisians, of all French, pretend
to be monopolists in the conversational line, and my
fair conversationalist was no exception. I was care
ful to avoid a certain subject, but it came, neverthe
less. I mentioned that I was on my way to Notre
Dame, and we fell to talking about the grand old
cathedral, its architecture, and history, when sud
denly mademoiselle inquired, with a thoughtful air,
" Did you ever stand under the grand old organ
when it played? "
" Often."
" Yes — ^ ah ! if I could only have heard it that day,
I would not have — have tried — would not have
done what I did. One has not such ideas there —
one is too contented. There everything seems in
harmony — and suicide is discord, out of hajrmony
with God and nature."
" I hope you will never again have such ideas,"
I observed. But she did not apparently hear; her eyes flashed,
and, clenching the little hands, she murmured, —
" I did not take " (the quantity taken was suffi
cient to kUl a couple of able-bodied men) " enough
— or, rather, I was interfered with."
"And happily!"
" No; I had all the anxiety and trouble." (" Not
to mention white slippers," I added, mentally, but
without malice.) " It was almost over; now it is all
to be redone."
" Do you think of it? "

271
" Do I think of it? J think ofit often. I am tired
of life — thoroughly tired."
The poor, elderly French dame, at this point,
started up, looked at me piteously, covered her face
with her hands, and ejaculated, —
" She is horrible, Mon Dieu! "
" Did you have no fear, no remorse? "
" Fear! you saw me; was I afraid? To be sure, I
was too stupefied and weak when you came to feel
anything." " I understand ; to wish to die is all there is of
death." I reason for the moment like a philosopher.
" But remorse! Do you not know that in striving
to take your own life, you committed not only a
crime again God and nature, but one punished by
the law in France, and — "
At this .point madame, who had been indulging in
a series of approving nods, cried, —
"Yes, yes! Attend, little one! "
" Keep StUl, little mother."
" Little mother " is a general term of endearment
used in France to elderly women, as well as by chil
dren to the mother. The chUd put her little hand
softly in the bent and shrivelled hands of the old
dame, and, turning to me, continued, — -
" Against nature, yes ; against God, perhaps. But
I had already made my peace with God. He would
pardon me, I was so unhappy — so unhappy ! "
At this point, the girl, nearly sobbing, stopped a
moment, overcome by her feelings, while madame
gently drew her hands caressingly to her cheek ; in
a minute or so she went on, -^

272
" I spent the entire night Thursday crying and
praying on the floor, and I had resolved to live and
bear my troubles; but when day came, and I com
menced my usual duties, and went' out and saw
people hurrying back and forth over the great city,
I retumed home, came quickly up the stairs, faster
and faster, to escape thought, and when I reached
my room, I suddenly " — raising herself and shud
dering — "I suddenly swallowed the — Oh, yes,
yes, it was horrible, and after aU it is not finished! "
" Stop! you are getting too excited, and I ought
to go, it will 'hurt you."
" Do I tire you, then, already? "
Suppose I philosophize a little at this point.
There are natures you can dominate by fear. It
plays the same part in the moral world that the
bayonet does in the physical: subjugates. Arms
not to be used, according to some philanthropists
(" The punishment is too cruel," says Lamartine)
and philosophers; wrong, but necessary, say a mi
nority; right and necessary, is the judgment of the
multitude. With certain natures, however, fear is out of the
question; it has no influence. This girl stood not in
awe either of the temporal or the spiritual sword;
consequently, one may leave both in the sheath and
try the other system : lead, persuade.
" Why not go often, then, to Notre Dame, if you
are continually troubled with such ideas, and are not
worried by them there? Go in the afternoon when

273
the multitude has left; Hsten to the music. Stop
after the sermon to hear the Sunday-school class of
girls chant; softer and sweeter music I have never
heard ; and, after the children have all gone to their
homes, confide your troubles to the noble-looking
priest, with the soft, holy face, who has charge of
them. If he cannot give you peace, he may teach
you resignation."
" But, you see, monsieur, I do not want to be
taught resignation; men are brutal and women are
false — I am so tired — ¦ so tired! I wish to go now."
" I wish to go now." It sounded like a moan, a
wail; there were tears in the voice, but none in the
eyes; there was, too, such emphasis on the words
"tired, so tired!" The wish seemed so sad and
strange at her age! Tired of life at twenty, with
beauty and health! O woman!
I could not help involuntarily expressing what
was in my mind.
" You are so young and so — so — "
"So what — say!"
" So strong looking " (I was about to say so
pretty), " yet you are weak and cowardly in your
actions; you are like a soldier forsaking a battle;
you desert the battle of life."
" I am tired of that comparison, monsieur, having
heard it so often; we French do not mind commit
ting suicide. Every one says, ' unhappy man! ' or
' unhappy woman ! ' shrugs his shoulders, and for
gets. We have not the patience, we Parisians, to
wait — live on and bear. If a merchant feels that he
is dishonored, ' bang! ' It is over! Again, if a girl
13*

274
is lost, 'splash!' the Seine! It is finished. What
should hold them back? Religious faith? They
have but Httle or none. I was taught faith as a
child at home, but in Paris one easily forgets. Did
my religious training stop me? It held md back a
long time — but, finally — apropos, and you? You
can well talk, you who are, doubtless, happy! "
" You can well talk, you who are, doubtless,
happy! " That was, so to speak, turning the tables;
so, after a pause, I asked abruptly, whether she
would give me her solemn prpmise never to again
try to take her life, feeling sure of her acquiescence.
She smiled, bent over to me, and whispered, —
" No! "
It was but a single word, and whispered; but it
sounded loud, discordant, forcibly negative.
I arose suddenly and pushed back my chair; the
girl held out her hand, supposing I was going. The
old dame, horrified at the turn of the conversation,
had taken refuge in flight, and I heard her busy in
the neighboring room, relieving her mind by knock
ing ar'ound crockery and muttering. If the girl had
only made noisy protestations ! But that " no," soft
and low, gave evidence of resolution, and a determi
nation to carry it out.
I had no intention of going until I had obtained
a promise. I went to the tiny, half skylight win
dow, stepped up in the embrasure, and looked down
and up; it seemed so high, not near the sky, only
far away from earth. Then I looked back in the
little room; white walls, bare pine floor, plain table.

275
two cane-bottomed chairs! Certainly, it did not
look luxurious, yet women when young and fair
like to be surrounded by pretty things. I turned
and glanced at the girl; she had her face turned to
the wall, and the long, abundant, jet-black hair fell
back over the pillow, while one white, aristocratic,
little hand lay behind her on the coverlet. I have
seen the thin, bony, shrivelled hands of old dowagers
covered with' brilliants, and only rendered more
hideous, but on this tiny hand, which they would
have graced, there were none; it was unadorned.
If there had been but one, a tiny circle of gold, all
this would not have happened! There was an air
of refinement about the chUd, and her good breeding
gave evidence of her being a lady, while her con
versation manifested education.
I took another glance at the dismal room. There
are certain rooms in which, I believe, almost anyone
would consider life somewhat of a burden, and
which would be the turning point to certain minds
dwelling morbidly on real or imaginary wrongs. I
remember once at Florence (Italy) passing a couple
of nights in a dismal, dark, sinister little room, hav
ing a tiny window which opened on a dark, covered
gallery, remote from any sounds of Hfe. I was half
ill and impressionable, and grew more and more
sombre and misanthropic in my little den. I do not
mean to say I grew accustomed to caressing the
edge of my razor, but, like that old man of Cape
Horn, I wished I'd never been born; and if I sat
not on a chair tiU I died of despair, 'twas simply be
cause I didn't stay there!

276
Some months after, living in more pleasant quar
ters in the same city, I took up a daily journal, and,
under the heading. Suicide by Poison, I read that a
respectable business man, on account of embarrass
ment in his affairs, had taken his Hfe in this same
hotel, leaving a note to his wife, giving the above
explanation. I felt sufficient curiosity to find out
that we had occupied the same room.
Now I am convinced that the room was an impor
tant factor in that quiet drama. There are moments
in life, when, in a temporary fit of despair reaching
insanity (for such we may consider the state of the
self-murderer), certain natures are ready to toss up
a penny with the query, " Life or death? " During
such moments, the smallest factor is of significance
— a Word, even. I will cite a case that I knew about
while in Italy.
A young Italian, in despair, was just on the point
of pressing the muzzle of a revolver to his temple,
when a friend knocked at the door, calling cheer
fully, -
" Carlo, may I come in? "
The would-be self-murderer awakened to the
rightful consciousness of the frightful deed he was
about to commit. Murmuring, " Oh, how hor
rible! " throwing the instrument of destruction
hastily into a drawer and closing it, he ran to the
door, unbolted it, and fell in the outstretched arms of
his friend, saved! The moment of madness, the tem
porary derangement of the cerebral functions, was
at an end.

277
I do not care to enter here into a scientific, philo
sophical treatise on suicide, although I may be
posted up on the matter, I had a German student
friend, while at Munich, who wrote, or commenced
to write, a book on the subject, tending to demon
strate the necessity and excellence of self-destruc
tion from many points of view. He kindly initiated
me into its mysteries, and gave me some ideas which,
I am glad to say, I never possessed before. My
friend fell ill, and, after a long attack of typhoid
fever, found the subject somewhat depressing, and
so the work, fortunately, was lost to posterity.
Well, it was not at this precise moment that I
cared to demonstrate my old friend's peculiar views
to the fair, unhappy one. I pondered over our posi
tions, and thought sorrowfully how useless the whole
conversation had been; how I occupied the same
place as at the commencement (not quite), and yet
the girl was to give me her solemn promise, by what
ever she held sacred (and I knew what) to live on,
bear and suffer — endure unto the end !
The system of philosophy which would lead that
child back to life, antt later to resignation, if not to
hope, was the right one; Catholicism, protestantism,
rationalism, materialism, or whatever other ism one
chooses to mention. A certain doctrine of presby
terianism is as apt, perhaps, to drive one to despair
as the maxim of a certain school of materialists, or
the fatalism of the Turk. We have all seen dogma
tic, narrow-minded sectarianists of protestanism
wonderfuUy engrossed in what they term their " sal-

278
vation," Christian iii word, but not in deed, egotisti-
caUy occupied in saving their souls, somewhat at the
expense, often, of the bodies of others; to these a
change to absolute rationalism would not be a
change for the worse. I have seen, too, Protestants
who might have been improved by going over to the
Catholics (unless one admits that everything lies in
the individual and nothing or but little in the system
of religion or phUosophy), and vice versa. This
child was to be won from materialism to Catholicism,
the religion of her childhood.
There are noble and grand materialists in all coun
tries whose lives are modelled after that of the great
Master; their phUosophy seems to be the correct one
for them, but not for the masses. To the last, ap
parently, must be held out the hope of reward; the
idea of being good for the sake of being good cannot
be taught at all times with impunity, and often tends
to evil. To many philosophers the course of numer
ous Christians, in view of the incentive, would seem
merely a kind of barter. The noblest of Christians
and the best of materialists could, however, meet on
common ground. By their fruits ye shall know
them, not by their words, so that the CathoHc, the
Protestant, the Jew, and the free-thinker, may freely
give one another the right hand of brotherly friend
ship and love, if their motives and actions are alike
good. Perharps the best and most self-sacrificing men I
have seen, during many years passed in different
parts of Europe, were Catholic priests. In Catholic

279
viUages in Upper Bavaria, the " Herr Pfarrer " and
his work were ever objects of my admiration; with
out family, he was ideally father to the entire village.
To show his exceUent influence, even in small mat
ters, I will only say that I have seen there the soli
tary schoolboy pick up from the roadside apples for
which, to use the American expression, his mouth
watered, and yet place them inside the proprietor's
fence. I have seen, too, troops of schoolboys pass
stoically through orchards without stooping.
American schoolboys will understand! I often
went to the village churches, and managed to retain
in my memory what these good old priests taught
about faith, hope, and charity; suppose what I thus
borrowed I gave away again.
It was evident that in this girl's life faith was to be
infused, or, rather, revived. I might have been a
Catholic Jesuit for the next half-hour; certainly, I
was not a Protestant Jesuit. The latter, by the way,
are as numerous as the former, and it is a mistake to
suppose the first Jesuit was Loyola; St. Paul was
the founder. " It is not meet that we should be the
same unto all men." This role — if you choose to
call it so — came natural enough to me. In Tyrol,
the stronghold of Catholicism, living a year or more
among the peasantry, I often heard the little ones
in the family where I resided recite their prayers to
the Virgin, and I saw that they recited them cor
rectly, more catholic than the pope for the time be
ing, a priest without a gown and without a belief.
I had good reason, this time, to be eloquent,

28o

pleading for a life, and, fortunately, my eloquence
was aU borrowed, nothing original, otherwise, I
should have failed. The cause, finally, was gained;
the girl promised solemnly never to again attempt
self-murder, saying repeatedly, • —
" Oh, no, I will never again do so! I promise; I
swear! "
To give additional weight and witness to the
promise, I called in the old dame, and it was re
newed in her presence.
On my rising to go, the fair penitent held out both
hands instinctively and impulsively, and, as I never
expected to see her again, except in passing, I took
both for a moment in mine, and then left her in the
twilight to her own reflections.
Weeks later, meeting mademoiselle on the stairs,
she held out a hot little hand to me. I found her
pale and sad-looking, and feared she was converted
back to life, but not to resignation, a prisoner and
not a guest in this world (how many of us are!), so
I inquired, —
"Are you better now — more contented?"
" Oh, yes! I am better, I thank God."
" Are you sorry you gave me the promise? "
" Oh, no, not now; in any case I shaU always keep
it rehgiously — you have confidence in me, have you
not? "
" Perfect,"
Did I do wrong to teach what I did not believe?
I should have done still more so in teaching what I

28 I

did believe. What a consolation ! Finally, if I had
departed without this promise, convinced as I was
that in that case life was merely an affair of hours —
solely an affair of opportunity — I should have been
utterly conscience-stricken.
The end justifies the means. The means justify
the end. Neither are utterly true; both are, per
haps, partly so. " All roads that lead to Rome are
good," says the proverb. Teach what is expedient,
believe the best you can, act according to your con
science. Many of us would be sorry to teach what we
secretly may hold to be truth; for instance, the
most blase and worldly-wise hesitate, and with rea
son, to disturb the iUusions (if indeed they are that)
and generous impulses of youth. Again, if your
faith is better than my philosophy, why not let me
teach your faith — or vice versa? Every one arro
gantly supposes his or her opinions to be just right,
hence intolerance; when we all get a dim suspicion
that our neighbor may possibly be right, and we our
selves actually wrong, there will be less earnestness,
perhaps, but more charity. Finally, there are those
among us who do not know what we believe, hardly
what we hope, while, perhaps, the majority — it is
much the safest way — simply inherit ideas without
ever taking the trouble to examine them.
The truth must be told under all circumstances.
That is a vexed question to-day, as it was eighteen
centuries ago, and will be eighteen centuries hence,
in all probabUity.
Not long ago, a number of American coUegians

282
were gathered around a table in an apartment in the
Latin Quarter, at Paris. The conversation turned
on all subjects, and I took the occasion to put this
same question in the form of a story taken from the
French Revolution. The tale is not new:
A political fugitive, chased, by French soldiers,
ran over the roofs of houses and, finally, jumped into
the room of a nun, called " Truthful Agnes." He
hurriedly explained, and she hid him in the room; a
minute later, the officer commanding the detach
ment in pursuit knocked and entered. Saluting re
spectfully, he said, —
" Madame, we are in pursuit of a fugitive who
passed this way and took refuge; we know your
lifelong reputation for truthfulness, and, if you sol
emnly give me your word that the man is not here,
we will immediately retire without searching."
The woman answered that he was not there, and
the officer retired.
The story ended, my friends did not need to delib
erate, but, unhesitatingly, pronounced the woman's
conduct wrong, unanimously deciding that she
should have sacrificed the man. Perhaps the nun
did wrong, but in life we have often to choose of two
wrongs the lesser. There are those who believe
that aU the truths that woman told during a lifetime
were not as admirable as the one lie — just as there
are many who hold that the one falsehood marred
the entire life.
" Tell the truth and shame the devil," observes
sententiously one of my friends, so that I am obliged

283
to give to this saying my own interpretation and re
tort, —
" That Satan himself would blush to hear or tell
certain truths."
I may add that proposing the same question and
story years ago to a circle of German students, at
Munich, the members mostly agreed to the opposite
view, broadly advocating even that in certain cases
we may do evil that good may come of it. This was
quite natural, as they were disciples of Hegel and
other German casuists. Probably, but few of us
would rightly appreciate a friend who would sacri
fice our life rather than tell one falsehood; we
should, perhaps, feel that there was such a thing as
being too good — an excess even in virtue !
All is well that ends well. I can assure you, then,
before closing, that mademoiselle is to-day the hap
piest of mortals, and thankfully aclcnowledges with
a shudder that but for her " promise " she would now
lie in unconsecrated ground, that mournful, deso
late spot reserved to those who have committed self-
murder, the disinherited, indeed, of this world.

284

NICE.
THE BEAUTIFUL WINTER METROPOLIS OF THE
WORLD.
LIFE AS A MEDICAL REVIEWER.
[Waverly Magazine.]
As a participator in several carnivals at Rome
and Venice, I may affirm that the Nice carnival is
superior to both, although it is a generally accepted
fact that Rome in the carnival order stands first in
Europe, Venice the second (the last is more artistic),
and Nice third. The carnival elsewhere is a mere
humbug, except among the youthful followers of
Minerva, in the Latin Quarter at Paris, where King
Carnival's reign is undisputed.
During the last four days of the carnival at Nice,
the trains bring about sixty thousand visitors. (The
population of the city is about sixty-seven thousand.)
Many come from Italy to see the masqueraders, also
to compete for the prizes given to maskers, prizes
varying from fifty dollars to one thousand dollars.
The eighty-four great hotels (certain ones contain
ing five hundred rooms) are full. Trains de Plaisir,
pleasure trains, expressly organized for the purpose,
bring from Paris, forty hours' ride per rail, fourteen
hundred persons at half-price. There are also pleas
ure trains from Italy, and an especial boat service
from Corsica.

285
Balconies on the corso, or principal street, where
the procession of maskers passes, and where the
battles with confetti take place, are rented for five
hundred francs or more for three afternoons. This
is the price of the entire apartment for a year, as at
this lovely city on the baie des Anges one may have
for this sum a nice, unfurnished apartment of four
or five rooms.
The battles with confetti are certainly as animated
as at Rome. There is one feature about this mimic
warfare that is not altogether pleasant to all parties.
Besiegers and besieged unite in deluging with con
fetti the unhappy possessors of cylinder hats, stove
pipes. The ruins of Carthage pale before the fright
ful wrecks one beholds of this hideous, but neces
sary emblem of civilization. Umbrellas, too, are
dangerous to their owners, as balcony occupants
discharge on them pails full of ammunition, which
rattle like musketry. An umbrella or parasol, after
a promenade through the corso, is a decidedly pict
uresque object.
There is one day during the carnival when con
fetti (plaster of Paris) is banished and flowers take
their place. Elegant bouquets are thrown, as well
as simple bunches of violets. One pays but a cent
for a large bunch of violets at Nice in midwinter!
As these lovely missiles fly from balcony, carriage,
and crowd, they are accompanied often by glances
as sweet as Parma violets.
The number of maskers in the street is far greater
than at Rome, and there is more originality and fun.
But Nice is not only celebrated for its carnival.

286
It possesses the finest winter climate of any city in
Europe. A bachelor can live very cheaply at Nice. One
may hire two well-furnished rooms, southern ex
posure, for sixteen dollars per month during the
season. One pays one dollar extra per month for
the service of rooms, and one goes, continental fash
ion, to restaurants for meals. At pensions, one pays
from a doUar and a half to two per day, and less by
the week.
Nice has the character of dearness because hotel-
keepers strive to make a fortune in a season, en
deavoring to clear in three or four months forty
thousand francs, an immense sum in France, where
a judge receives but six thousand francs a year.
The fact is that Americans who are tired of living
in a country where taxfes eat up rent, where the costs
of living are the highest in the world and the com
forts the least (for the money, expended), are justi
fied in quitting their changeable climate for that of
la belle France, whose daily life is a science, and not
an undertaking and a failure, as in America.
Let me say a few words about the worldwide, cele
brated climate of Nice. It has the softest and best
of sea climates. At Nice the winter is far milder
than at Naples; it is pardy due to the fact that the
cUy is open only toward the Mediterranean (the
south), and wholly closed to the north, east, and
west, by the Maritime Alps. The country around
Nice is of volcanic formation, and it is claimed that
this is a great factor in producing the peculiarly

287
warm climate. It is six degrees Centigrade warmer
in winter than Paris. The mean yearly tempera
ture is fifty-nine Fah. There are more clear, sunny
days in Nice than anywhere in Europe. It enjoys
forty-six entirely clear days in winter, and two hun
dred and twenty-five during the year! Cairo, the
famous winter resort, has fifty-two and one hundred
and seven, respectively, whereas Naples has but
ninety clear days in the year. In spite of the lovely
climate at Nice, one-seventh of the mortality is due
to consumption. (At London one-fourth, and at
Paris one-fifth.) The fact is, this disease causes
almost as much havoc in warm countries as in cold ;
in Algeria men and cattle succumb with fearful
rapidit}' to galloping consumption.
People do not live to be so old at Nice as in the
extreme north, but they enjoy life more while they
live. Beautiful peasant women are a product of
the Nice climate. One sees a great many invalids
at Nice wheeled around in chairs pushed by attend
ants. The warmth of the sun permits outdoor ex
ercise in winter to the most delicate invalid from lo
in the morning to 4 in the afternoon.
But Nice is not only a great climatological place;
it is the winter rendezvous of continental high life.
Pleasure-seekers from every clime are here. On the
lovely Promenade des Anglais, on the seashore, at
the pretty skating rink, or at the grand balls in the
Casino, one hears as much English as in Regent
Street, and guttural German is as universal as in the
Unter den Linden. Nice is also a great favorite with

288
Russians, partly on account of its proximity to
Monaco, the famous gaming town. The old Rus
sian countesses, formerly to be found at rouge et noir
tables at Wiesbaden and Hombourg, are now here.
The shops at Nice are wonderful, and fashion reigns
more undisputably than at Paris itself. The aristo
cracy of all lands strive to win fashionable laurels,
and Russian princess battles with English peeress
on the battle-ground of fashion. I am afraid the
battle rests with the strong — Britain's dames —
and yet — those ankles !
I suggest to those going to Europe for a year to
pass the winter at Nice, where there is always the
bluest of skies and seas, and where one's eyes may
ever feast on vegetation as luxuriant and extraordi
nary as that of Africa. This city is often called the
City of Palms ; palm trees, cactuses, and aloes are to
be seen on the promenades and in every garden.
Orange orchards are visible in all directions, and
oranges are a drug in the market at four or five cents
the dozen.
Those loving society will find themselves in a
whirl of gayety. The richest and most aristocratic
families of Europe meet here to pass the winter
agreeably. At the public garden, every day, from
3 to 5, a military band discourses the sweetest of
music, and, standing or sitting near the Kiosque,
one sees the millionaire counts and princes of Eu
rope — men whose preoccupation and care consists
in wondering what they shall do next for amuse
ment. Adventurers, too, bootless barons and por
tionless princes, flock here from all climes to barter

289
their titles with moneyed women. Here and there
in the crowd, inspecting the briUiant toUettes, is an
American naval officer from the small American
fleet, eternally anchored at VUlefranche, near the
city. The common sailors, coquettishly attired in
Jack Tar style, man-of-war's men, are occasionally
to be seen reeling around the streets at Nice, indulg
ing in Irish brogue and offering liberally to break
heads on the slightest encouragement. They are
favorites with the Nice people, as they spend their
monthly allowance of eighty francs in remarkably
short time. I met a party of them one day rolling,
seaman-like, from one side of the Quai Massina to
the other. They met an invalid wheeled in a chair
by an attendant. All stopped to stare. One
hitched up his trowsers, broke out into a loud laugh,
and roared, —
" WeU, I'll be d-d! That's a job 'd suit me; be
toted around like that old toad! "
The invalid was an American, and heard dis
tinctly. It is a funny sight to~ see these seamen riding.
The ridiculous motions of an inexperienced trans
atlantic passenger, affected with what Mark Twain
calls the "Oh, My!" gives one but a faint con
ception of the violent gymnastics indulged in on
horseback by these foUowers of Neptune. Horse
marines! The mad antics of these jumping-jacks
on horseback are watched with anxiety by prome-
naders. One instant the rider appears to be jerked
over the equine's head, the next he appears to be
gliding over his taU, and at the same time his body
13

290
sways sideways to such an extent that the universe
seems too narrow.
The American naval officers are great favorites in
Nice society, as they deserve to be. Their pleasant
manners, and gentlemanly, dark-blue uniforms
grace Nice drawing-rooms, and no party is com
plete without them.
Those coming- to Nice for health should arrive
about the first of October, remaining through the
carnival, and leave before the mistral and local winds
blow. Consumptive patients of a nervous tempera
ment, with hectic cheeks and fever, should avoid the
place, and go to Pan in the Pyrenees ; lymphatic con
sumptives derive great benefit from a sojourn at
Nice. Relative to the expenses of living at Nice, one can
Hve on six francs a day sufficiently well, but one
must live like a native — not like an American
famUy I knew, whose expense amounted to nearly
two hundred francs a day.
Americans abroad, in their desire " to do up
everything in first-class style," generally see noth
ing of the natives and the native way of living. Ap
parently, the only advantage gained to the average
traveling American is the refrain, " When I was in
Paris." At Nice, to live on the six francs specified,
one rents a room at forty-five francs per month,
with service, and eats at a restaurant a la carte — for
instance, the restaurant Duval on the Cours (a mina-
ture copy of the grand Duvals at Paris). Prices of
portions: beefsteak, twelve cents; roast, ten and
twelve; vegetables, five and eight; soup, five; bread.

291
two; wine, one-fourth quart, five cents. (Ladies
may go there.) Thus, a good dinner, composed of
a soup, a steak, roast, vegetables, bread, and wine,
costs about forty cents. Napkins are a sou extra,
as at the twenty or more Grand Establishments de
Bouillon of Paris, the cleanest and finest restau
rants in the universe, where all classes dine, and
where prices are the same as above.
The reader smiles at the idea of napkins being
extra. It is only an exaggeration of the European
principle, pay for what you have, instead of the
American, " Pay for what you do not have! " The
two principles are carried out respectively in both
countries in everything.
Gentlemen who wish to see France, the people,
live well (like a Frenchman, in fact), on coming to
Paris, wUl do weU to hire a room by the month in
a private house (forty-five to seventy francs per
month, including five francs for service), or maison
meuble, furnished lodging house, and eat at one of
the above restaurants, of which there is one in each
of the twenty-two arrondissements of Paris. Ex
penses of room, food, light, and service, if the
traveler is not extravagant, ought not to exceed six
francs. The Latin Quarter is cheapest and health
iest, near the Luxembourg Garden and palace.
My advice, if one desires paradise on earth, is to
pass winters at Nice, springs and falls at Paris, and
summers at Boulogne.
C. HOWARD YOUNG,
Staff Journal d'Hygiene,
Paris, France.

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