THE FAT OP THE LAND 



CHAPTER I 



MY EXCUSE 



MY sixtieth birthday is a thing of yesterday, 

 and I have, therefore, more than half descended 

 the western slope. I have no quarrel with life or 

 with time, for both have been polite to me ; and I 

 wish to give an account of the past seven years 

 to prove the politeness of life, and to show how 

 time has made amends to me for the forced res- 

 ignation of my professional ambitions. For 

 twenty-five years, up to 1895, I practised medi- 

 cine and surgery in a large city. I loved my 

 profession beyond the love of most men, and it 

 loved me ; at least, it gave me all that a reason- 

 able man could desire in the way of honors and 

 emoluments. The thought that I should ever 

 drop out of this attractive, satisfying life, never 

 seriously occurred to me, though I w r as conscious 

 of a strong and persistent force that urged me 

 toward the soil. By choice and by training I 

 was a physician, and I gloried in my work ; but 

 by instinct I was, am, and always shall be, a 

 farmer. All my life I have had visions of favnas 



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