XXIII.
THE DOCTOR AS POET, AUTHOR, AND MUSICIAN.
| “Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.” “To patient study, and unwearied thought, And wise and watchful nurture of his powers, Must the true poet consecrate his hours: Thus, and thus only, may the crown be bought Which his great brethren all their lives have sought; For not to careless wreathers of chance-flowers Openeth the Muse her amaranthine bowers, But to the few, who worthily have fought The toilsome fight, and won their way to fame. With such as these I may not cast my lot, With such as these I must not seek a name; Content to please a while and be forgot; Winning from daily toil—which irks me not— Rare and brief leisure my poor song to frame.” |
OUR PATRON, OUR PATTERN.—SOME WRITERS.—SOME BLUNDERS.—AN OLD SMOKER.—OLD GREEKS.—A DUKE ANSWERED BY A COUNTRY MISS.—THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS.—“LITTLE DAISY.”—“CASA WAPPA!”—FINE POETRY.—MORE SCHOOLMASTERS AND TAILORS.—NAPOLEON’S AND WASHINGTON’S PHYSICIANS.—A FRENCH “BUTCHER.”—A DIF. OF OPINION.—SOME EPITAPHS.—DR. HOLMES’ “ONE-HOSS SHAY.”—HEALTHFUL INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.—SAVED BY MUSIC.—A GERMAN TOUCH-UP.—MUSIC ON ANIMALS.—MUSIC AMONG THE MICE.—MUSIC AND HEALTH.
Apollo,—the father of Æsculapius, the “father of physicians”—was the god of poetry and of music, as well as the patron of physicians. He presented to Mercurius the famous caduceus, which has descended in the semblance of the shepherd’s crook—he being the protector of shepherds and the Muses—and the physician’s cane and surgeon’s pole. Apollo is represented with flowing hair,—which the Romans loved to imitate, with an effort also at his graces of person and mind. Students at this day who court the Muses begin by allowing, or coaxing their hair to grow long, forgetting, as they nurse a sickly goatee or mustache, assisting its show by an occasional dose of nitrate of silver, that their god was further represented as a tall, beardless youth, and instead of a bottle or cigar, he held a lyre in his hand and discoursed music.
AN EMBRYO APOLLO.
I think Dr. Apollo a very safe pattern for our students to imitate, those particularly who are “fast,” and who only think, with Bobby Burns,—
“Just now we’re living sound and hale;
Then top and maintop crowd the sail;
Heave care owre side!
And large, before enjoyment’s gale,
Let’s tak the tide.”
It is quite impossible to mention all, even of the most celebrated of our physicians, who have contributed to the literary and musical world. But I shall quote a sufficient number to disprove the assertion that “literary physicians have not, as a rule, prospered as medical practitioners.”