PROLEGOMENON. 21 



not to speak of mere terrestrial results, in the form of 

 growth and development from discipline and tuition of the 

 conflict with adversity. Although it cannot be said that 

 village life was at all an approach to Paradise, it must be 

 admitted that it had much in it that sinners want on earth; 

 and much more than they deserve, even much more than 



A COUNTRY DOCTOR DESERVES, which of COUrse, FINALLY, from 



all sources of conviction and belief, must be that same 

 kingdom of everlasting blessedness. 



But there was a dream in that unhappily possessed 

 doctor's head, a monomaniacal thought, a demon idea, 

 which took final possession of the whole mind and heart of 

 its victim. The vision, with its accompanying prayer, 

 shaped itself in this form : Guardian spirits of the world ! 

 grant the power to construct on some mountain-top, some 

 tall " heaven-kissed hill," some Alpine height of the earth's 

 surface, above the plain of perpetual malaria, a hospital, a 

 sanitarium, a retreat for the sick, for those who struggle with 

 disease in the heated plains below, or in the poisoned valleys : 

 vouchsafe this power, and, with the remedial virtues of 

 change of air, climate, water, and exercise, and the instru- 

 mentality of the resources of the regular art of healing, there 

 shall be results in the sphere of physical regeneration yet 

 undreamed of in medical philosophies. Grant this power, 

 answer this prayer, and judge of the tree by its fruit. 



It will be easily discernible that in this enterprise there 

 w^ould be an enlarged sphere of professional power, a more 

 extensive range of observation and influence than a village 

 gave in the world of disease; with less expenditure of 

 animal force, less exhaustion of the animal man, in the pro- 

 cess of destroying space through the instrumentality of the 

 horse to get to his business, which makes the laborious life 

 and certain premature death of the country practitioner. 

 This scheme of course included incidentally (and it must 

 be acknowledged, with shame, that there was something of 

 selfishness and sin, something of earthliness and cowardice, 

 in this) an escape from the dismal array of tortures which 



