XIX.
ECCENTRICITIES.
| “They’ll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.” “Democritus, dear droll, revisit earth, And with our follies glut thy heightened mirth.”—Prior. |
A ONE-EYED DOCTOR AND HIS HORSE.—A NEW EDIBLE.—“HAVE THEM BOILED.”—“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.”—A LOVELY STAMPEDE.—AN ECCENTRIC PHILADELPHIAN.—THE POODLES, DRS. HUNTER AND SCIPIO.—SILENT ELOQUENCE.—CONSISTENT TO THE END.—WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.—FOUR BLIND MEN.—DIET AND SLEEP.—SAXE AND SANCHO PANZA.—MOTHER GOOSE AS A DOCTOR’S BOOK.—THE TABLES TURNED ON THE DOCTORS.
We love to see an eccentric individual—something out of the common routine of every-day, humdrum life. But what is often taken for an eccentricity is sometimes put on for an advertisement.
Nearly all great men have their oddities or peculiarities. I might give many little interesting sketches of some physicians’ oddities right among us, but for too great personality. I may, however, work in a few.
The eccentricities of some doctors lie in their dress. Of this, I shall speak under the head of “Dress and Address.” Others lie in personal acts, in their walk, manners, and conversation.
I know of one physician who delights in the worst looking old horse he can obtain. The doctor himself has but one eye. His old donkey-like beast corresponded. Report said that he cut out the left eye of the horse to gain that desired end, which, however, is discredited. The beast was also lame, which defect the doctor would never admit.
“What you ignorantly term ‘limping’ is only an expression of good breeding—which I cannot attach to all whom I meet on the road. It’s bowing,—merely bowing. You never see him do it unless somebody is in sight. Gid-dap!” And so delivering himself, the old doctor would drive on, chuckling softly to himself. When his old horse died, he was presented with a fine young beast, which he declined to accept, but scoured the country till he found a high-boned, rib-bared, foundered, and half-blind old roadster.