arked
out for him. He should begin in the natural way, by taking care of poor
patients in one of the public charities, and work his way up to a better
kind of practice,--better, that is, in the vulgar, worldly sense. The
great and good Boerhaave used to say, as I remember very well, that the
poor were his best patients; for God was their paymaster. But everybody
is not as patient as Boerhaave, nor as deserving; so that the rich,
though not, perhaps, the best patients, are good enough for common
practitioners. I suppose Boerhaave put up with them when he could not
get poor ones, as he left his daughter two millions of florins when he
died.

Now if this young man once got into the wide streets, he would sweep
them clear of his rivals of the same standing; and as I was getting
indifferent to business, and old Dr. Kilham was growing careless, and
had once or twice prescribed morphine when he meant quinine, there would
soon be an opening into the Doctor's Paradise,--the streets with only
one side to them. Then I would have him strike a bold stroke,--set up a
nice little coach, and be driven round like a first-class London doctor,
instead of coasting about in a shabby one-horse concern and casting
anchor opposite his patients' doors like a Cape Ann fishing-smack. By
the time he was thirty, he would have knocked the social pawns out of
his way, and be ready to challenge a wife from the row of great pieces
in the background. I would not have a man marry above his level, so as
to become the appendage of a powerful family-connection; but I would not
have him marry until he knew his level,--that is, again, looking at the
matter in a purely worldly point of view, and not taking the sentiments
at all into consideration. But remember, that a young man, using large
endowments wisely and fortunately, may put himself on a level with
the highest in the land in ten brilliant years of spirited, unflagging
labor. And to stand at the very top of your calling in a great city is
something in itself,--that is, if you like money, and influence, and a
seat on the platform at public lectures, and gratuitous tickets to all
sorts of places where you don't want to go, and, what is a good deal
better than any of these things, a sense of power, limited, it may be,
but absolute in its range, so that all the Caesars and Napoleons would
have to stand aside, if they came between you and the exercise of your
special vocation.

That is what I thought this