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CHAPTER VII.

SHORT, IF

NOT SWEET.-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND RABELAIS, AND SOME OTHER CELEBRATED WRITERS.

THE curious reader is doubtless now expecting me to go on, and give him the personal history of the Doctor and his family; because that is the next thing in order, according to the virtuous resolution of going straight backward to the beginning, which I recorded in the chapter before the last.

I have not, I confess, a very high respect for that inquisitive eagerness to get at the personal history of everybody they see, which is so marked a trait in the character of some of my acquaint

ances.

There is, however, one direction of this curiosity which I have a very cordial sympathy with. It is natural we should take a lively interest in knowing every thing relating to the personal history and character of those writers that have greatly delight

ed us and done us good-those benefactors to our minds and hearts to whom we owe great debts of acknowledgment, we can never pay here below; whose names "breed in us perpetual benediction." The impulse to gather up every incident of their earthly lives, every trait and trace of their habits and ways, is spontaneous, and it is as creditable to the heart as it is natural.

A feeling similar to this, will, I have no doubt, be very strong in regard to Doctor Oldham, in the hearts of a multitude of the readers of this book, long before they come to the end of it, if ever it come to an end. But at present it can hardly have begun to spring up. It seems to me it would be time enough to gratify it when it has grown fervent-when the sense of delight and benefit received from the many wise and beautiful utterances of his, which it will be my duty to record, shall have raised their love and admiration to the proper pitch. It would seem to me then a most laudable curiosity, which I should find pleasure in gratifying so far as I could do it with propriety.

There are limits to such things. The Doctor is yet alive, and would never permit me to make this book the pretext and means of thrusting before the public the trivialities of his daily life-chronicling

the names and ages of his cats and dogs and horses, and their ways and doings-unless there was something really remarkable in them; opening the doors of his dressing-room, and displaying his shavings and washings, the sort of soap and towels he prefers, his dentrifice, tooth-brushes, and back-scratcher, and other intimacies of his private ways-such as Rabelais, in his great unconscious simplicity and plainness of speech, might disclose to all the world, but which the Doctor would no more consent to have done than I should be willing to do. and then a celebrated writer of our

There is now

days, who is

willing to do this for himself, and for other celebrities too, if he gets a chance. But let the Doctor's privacy be sacred until he is dead. Then let any foolish Boswell (not me) disclose what he will, so it be true it will not impair the venerableness of the Doctor in good men's thoughts. For myself, I shall present the Doctor to the public only in such guise as he shows himself to all who may chance to be at his house. As to the rest, I shall not withhold any thing that may happen to fall from his lips relating to his past life, which I may have reason to think he would be willing to communicate to any inquiring friend. I make no doubt the reader,

if he be a judicious and not over-curious one, will be able to put together enough for his satisfaction.

I may as well say here that the Doctor is a man a little above the middle height-well built, though stout, and now somewhat inclining to fulness of habit. His large head is covered with a profusion of soft, curling hair, once light brown, but now turned nearly white. He has large, clear, light blue eyes; but he is quite near-sighted, and always wears glasses. His complexion is fair and ruddy, and his countenance has an expression at once thoughtful and benignant-betokening a man of good sense and good humor, of a joyous and genial social temper-which is eminently the quality of the Doctor's nature; though he is apt to fall into fits of absent-mindedness, particularly when the speculative cast of his mind and the peculiar associations of his thoughts lead him off in some odd out of the way track. This it is which makes him so prone to dissertate rather than converse.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DOCTOR VISITS MRS. ROSSVILLE'S SCHOOL.-AND TELLS HIS WIFE WHAT HE SAID TO THE LITTLE FOLKS THERE. MR. GRIM.HOW GOD TAKES CARE THE CHILDREN SHALL NOT BE HURT BY BAD CATECHISMS.

"I HAVE been up to Mrs. Rossville's school," said the Doctor to his wife one evening. "It was a sort of anniversary, when the children get each a present of some nice book suitable to their age and intelligence. Why, Mrs. Rossville and the other ladies have gathered together more than sixty children, in that outlying district, who would otherwise be very poorly off for needful instruction."

"Yes," said the Doctor's wife, "Mrs. Rossville's heart is full of love and kindness towards everybody, and especially those who need any thing she can do for their welfare. That neighborhood has reason to be glad she is so rich, and has so much in her power."

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