TJie Scientific Lecturer. 85 



Well, I have had a nap and a dream — a smash-up on the 

 railroad; fourteen killed, several wounded, I tried to get 

 admission to the place where the surgeons were operating. 

 Dr. Blake would not admit me. I persisted, and was at 

 length graciously permitted to enter the hospital room after 

 the operating was all done. The first object or "case" I 

 saw was the upper end of a negro, like a blackened bust of 

 Webster standing on a barrel. He was not dead, for he 

 had a pipe in his mouth, which he kept steady with one hand. 

 He was puffing away most leisurely, and seemed entirely 

 happified. How do you think his other hand was occupied ? 

 Why, his heart had been taken out by the accident, and the 

 surgeons had replaced it by a pair of small wooden boxes 

 containing valves and pistons, which the acardiac wretch 

 was working alternately and most satisfactorily. Whatever 

 may be said of innate ideas or the creative power of mind, 

 the probability is that I could never have dreamed this 

 dream until after Harvey and the railroad system. 



I approach the end of my sheet, but to what purpose 

 have I scribbled ? I have had nothing to say, and have 

 stuck to the formula. The Sunday is superb. I stay 

 within, and am blessedly let alone. Do you know, I have a 

 strange sort of feeling concerning this thing of where- 

 abouts. I have never before been so satisfied with drift- 

 ing, and I have a kind of vague dread of coming back to 

 New York. I have never before been in this sort of mood 

 of mind. I tolerate, I almost enjoy, I almost solicit ab- 

 sence. I have been solidly busy; that may perhaps par- 

 tially account for it. What mood the coming fortnight will 

 induce remains for determination. You say you don't know 

 if you are managiig just right. It makes no difference. 

 Only sleep it out ; all the time you spend in sleep is clear 

 gain. If there is any surplus life, draw it off in the direc- 

 tion of letters — sent to Chicago the rest of the time, I guess. 

 Your brother, loving and discouraged, ELY 



