at ringing strain,
That clear celestial tone?

How poor these pallid phrases seem,
How weak this tinkling line,
As warbles through my waking dream
That angel voice of thine!

Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay;
It falters on my tongue;
For all we vainly strive to say,
Thou shouldst thyself have sung!

V

I fear that I have done injustice in my conversation and my report of it
to a most worthy and promising young man whom I should be very sorry to
injure in any way. Dr. Benjamin Franklin got hold of my account of my
visit to him, and complained that I had made too much of the expression
he used. He did not mean to say that he thought I was suffering from the
rare disease he mentioned, but only that the color reminded him of it.
It was true that he had shown me various instruments, among them one for
exploring the state of a part by means of a puncture, but he did not
propose to make use of it upon my person. In short, I had colored the
story so as to make him look ridiculous.

--I am afraid I did,--I said,--but was n't I colored myself so as to look
ridiculous? I've heard it said that people with the jaundice see
everything yellow; perhaps I saw things looking a little queerly, with
that black and blue spot I could n't account for threatening to make a
colored man and brother of me. But I am sorry if I have done you any
wrong. I hope you won't lose any patients by my making a little fun of
your meters and scopes and contrivances. They seem so odd to us outside
people. Then the idea of being bronzed all over was such an alarming
suggestion. But I did not mean to damage your business, which I trust is
now considerable, and I shall certainly come to you again if I have need
of the services of a physician. Only don't mention the names of any
diseases in English or Latin before me next time. I dreamed about cutis
oenea half the night after I came to see you.

Dr. Benjamin took my apology very pleasantly. He did not want to be
touchy about it, he said, but he had his way to make in the world, and
found it a little hard at first, as most young men did. People were
afraid to trust them, no matter how much they knew. One of the old
doctors asked him to come in and examine a patient's heart for him the
other day. He went with him accordingly, and when they stood by the
bedside, he offered his stethoscope to the old doctor. The old doctor
took it and put the wr