There would be no difficulty in multiplying anecdotes given to Abernethy; but there are some objections to such a course. In the first place, there are many told of him which never happened; others, which may probably have happened, you find it impossible to authenticate; and, lastly, there is a third class, which, if they happened to Abernethy, certainly happened to others before Abernethy was born. In fact, when a man once gets a reputation of doing or saying odd things, every story in which the chief person is unknown or unremembered is given to the man whose reputation in this way is most remarkable. We need not say how impossible it is, in a Memoir of this kind, to introduce, with propriety, matters thus apocryphal.
We have no doubt that, with a most benevolent disposition, Abernethy's manner, particularly as he advanced in years, evinced great irritability; and we believe that it was the result of two or three different causes, which, in their combined influence, got a mastery which the utmost resolution was not at all times able to control. It had formed the subject of numerous conversations between Abernethy and some of his most intimate friends, and we believe had arisen, and been unconsciously fostered by the following causes: "In early life, he had been," as he told Dr. Thomas Rees, "particularly disgusted with the manner in which he had seen patients caressed and 'humbugged' by smooth and flattering modes of proceeding, and that he had early resolved to 'avoid that at all events.'" He further observed: "I tried to learn my profession, and thinking I could teach it, I educated myself to do so; but as for private practice, of course I am obliged to do that too." We can easily understand how, in a sensitive mind, an anxiety to avoid an imputation of one kind might have led to an opposite extreme; and thus an occasional negligence of ordinary courtesy have taken the place of a disgusting assentation.
A temper naturally impulsive, would find in the perplexities which sometimes beset the practice of our profession, too many occasions on which the suggestions of ruffled temper, and of fear of improper assentation, would unfortunately coincide; and thus tend to intermix and confound the observance of a praiseworthy caution, with a yielding to an insidious habit. If to this were now added that increase of irritability which a disturbed and fidgetty state of physique never fails to furnish, and from which Abernethy greatly suffered, the habit would soon become dominant; and thus an originally good motive, left unguarded, be supplanted by an uncontrolled impulse. We believe this to have been the short explanation of Abernethy's manner; all we know of him seems to admit of this explanation. It was a habit, and required nothing but a check from his humanity or his good sense to correct it; but then this was just that which patients were not likely to know, and could have been still less expected to elicit.
Again, most men so celebrated are sure to be more or less spoiled. They become themselves insensibly influenced by that assentation which, when detected, they sincerely despised. The moral seems to be, that the impulses of the most benevolent heart may be obscured or frustrated by an irritable temper; that habits the most faulty may rise from motives which, in their origin, were pure or praiseworthy; that it is the character of Vice to tempt us by small beginnings; that, knowing her own deformity, she seldom fails to recommend herself as the representative, and too often to assume the garb, of Virtue; that the most just and benevolent are not safe, unless habitual self-government preside over the dictates of the intellect and the heart, and that the impulse to which assent is yielded to-day, may exert the influence of a command to-morrow; that, in fact, we must be masters or slaves.
"Rege animum qui nisi paret
Imperat."
The views which we have thus ventured on submitting, are verbatim those which appeared in the former editions of these Memoirs, and, consequently, were written long before we were favoured with the following letter. It was written to his daughter Anne, before her marriage with the late Dr. Warburton, dated Littlehampton, August 13, and is remarkably corroborative of some of the preceding remarks.
"My dear Anne,
"Lack of employment is, as I believe, the cause of your receiving this note in reply to the one I received from you by your mother. Certain I am that I never thought of writing an answer till just now, when it occurred to me that it would be polite to do so, which very phrase had nearly prevented the intention. Why have all the legitimate children of John Bull an aversion to politeness? 'Tis because it so commonly covereth a multitude of sins; because, with honest simplicity, they have often caught hold of the garb and found that it concealed deformity and malice. I frankly acknowledge that I may have carried my detestation too far, because it does not necessarily follow that our best friends should not wear becoming and fashionable apparel. I like to see them en deshabille, however. 'Tis the man, and not the dress, I am concerned about. I tell you, sincerely, that I take your note to be one of many evidences of your having both a good head and heart. Other young ladies would have spoken to mamma. Enough of this unprofitable chat.
"Yours ever,
"John Abernethy."Little Hampton, 13th August."
When the editors of the medical periodicals first began to publish the lectures given at the different hospitals, there was considerable discussion as to the propriety of so doing. The press, of course, defended its own views in a spirit which, though not always unwelcome to readers, is frequently "wormwood" to the parties to whom the press may be opposed.