“It was therefore natural that I should begin to reflect upon the step which I had taken with regard to Editha. I had sought and won the affections of a beautiful creature, who was possessed of a generous heart, an amiable disposition, and a loving soul; and I was shocked to think that such a being, in all the vigorous health of youthfulness, should be led to the altar by one whose constitution was shattered, whose vital energies were almost ruined, and who seemed to be hovering on the very verge of the tomb! Oh! how maddening were these thoughts! I looked upon myself as a villain—a deceiver; and often—often was I on the point of throwing myself at Mrs. Greville’s feet and exclaiming, ‘Pardon me, madam, for having dared to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage! I am but a phantom—a shadow: the finger of Death is upon me,—and if Editha should accompany me to the altar, it is probable that in less than a year she will have to follow me to the tomb!’—But when I thought of Editha’s matchless beauty, and pondered upon the immensity of the love that I experienced for her, I could not command the courage necessary to enable me to resign the hope of possessing such a treasure. Besides, in her society I could smile and be gay: her musical voice was more ravishing to my ears than the inspired strains of an improvisatrice;—her breath was more fragrant than the perfume of flowers—her lips more delicious than the honey-dew upon the blossoms! Oh! no—no: I could not resign my Editha! But no day had been as yet fixed for our marriage—and six weeks had already elapsed since I had proposed and was accepted. Shall I confess the truth? I dared not ask her mother to name the day: I shrank from the idea as if I were meditating a murder—had marked out my victim—but dreaded to settle in my own mind the night and the hour when the assassin-blow should be struck!
“I was lying in bed one morning, reflecting on all these things—for the dark fit of despondency was upon me—when my valet entered the room with the morning’s newspapers. I listlessly unfolded one of the journals, when my eyes suddenly caught sight of an advertisement, headed thus:—‘Manhood, the Reasons of its Early Decline; with Plain Hints for its Complete Resuscitation.’ This book was announced to be an emanation from the pen of T. L. Surtees and Co., Consulting Surgeons, residing in one of the streets leading out of Soho Square; and it appeared by certain quotations of notices from the leading newspapers, that the book was a medical treatise of great utility, merit, and importance. Hope now dawned in upon my soul. Perhaps my constitution was not irretrievably damaged? Perchance I might not be in a consumption, after all? Such were my thoughts, after perusing that advertisement over and over again; and I resolved to lose no time in calling upon the able practitioners who undertook the resuscitation of any constitution, no matter how hopeless the case might seem. Accordingly, having hastily dressed myself, I repaired in a street cab to the address indicated in the advertisement. The house was one of imposing appearance; and the words ‘Surtees and Co., Consulting Surgeons,’ were displayed in deep-black letters, on immense shining zinc-plates. The fawn-coloured Venetian blinds were drawn down; and I said to myself, as I alighted with a fluttering heart, ‘Doubtless these eminent practitioners have patients waiting in every room to consult them.’ Entering the passage, I found an inner door, with a bronze knocker and a ground-glass fan-light, on which were inscribed the same words as those that appeared on the polished zinc-plates. I was immediately admitted by a footman, and conducted up stairs to a drawing-room, every feature of which is at this moment as fresh in my memory as if I were seated and writing there now.
“This apartment at first sight impressed me with an idea of luxurious splendour; but a closer examination into its appointments showed me that the most vulgar taste had presided over its fitting-up. The paper was of crimson and gold; and to the walls were suspended several paintings set in magnificent frames, which only rendered the daubs the more miserably ludicrous. Two of them were covered with plate-glass, as if they were very valuable; whereas they were as wretched as the others. ‘Some unprincipled person,’ thought I, ‘must have imposed upon these worthy doctors, by recommending pictures to which I would not accord house-room. But men of philosophic minds and who are devoted to professional studies, are seldom good judges of works of art.’ Thus ruminating, I continued my examination of the apartment; and I was struck with surprise at the utter vulgarity and absence of taste which characterised the profusion of French porcelain ornaments scattered about. Here was a Chinese Joss, with a moveable head: and there was a pedlar mounted on a gigantic goat. At the corners of the fire-place were two paintings evidently cut out of a picture, and representing little charity-school girls. In the centre of the room stood a loo-table, upon which a writing-desk was placed; and this was surrounded by medical publications, bearing on their title-pages the magical names of those gentlemen whom I was so anxiously waiting to see. I had the curiosity to open one of the works: but I was disgusted with the obscenity of the coloured plates which it contained. A moment’s reflection, however, induced me to believe that there could be nothing indecent in the development of the divine art of surgery; and I felt ashamed of myself for having even for an instant entertained such scruples. As a concluding observation respecting the drawing-room itself, I must remark that its entire appearance indicated the taste of a vulgar upstart, rather than the refined elegance of a polished mind.
“Having waited nearly three quarters of an hour, a footman made his appearance, and, with many obsequious bows, conducted me down stairs into a dining-room most gaudily and extravagantly furnished. The same grovelling vulgarity of taste which I had noticed elsewhere was apparent in the crimson damask curtains with yellow fringes and tassels—the looking-glasses in ponderous frames—the showy daubs suspended to the walls—and the furniture arranged for the purpose of display. Folding-doors admitted me into an inner apartment, of equally vulgar appearance; and beyond was a little room, only a few feet square, and which the footman, as he ushered me in, denominated the surgery.
“I must confess that my heart beat violently as I traversed those two apartments leading to the sanctum where I expected to find myself in the presence of the eminent medical practitioners. I had pictured to myself a couple of old and venerable-looking gentlemen, with genius stamped upon their high bald foreheads, and their eyes expressing all the powers of vigorous intellects. I was therefore somewhat surprised when, on being introduced into the surgery, I beheld only one individual, who was the very reverse of the portraiture I had drawn by anticipation. His features were of the Jewish cast: his complexion was of that swarthy and greasy description peculiar to the lower order of the Hebrew race;—his hair was black and very thick; and his whiskers met beneath his chin. His eyes were dark, and one of them was larger than the other: his bottle-nose was rather on one side; and his countenance altogether was as ignoble, as vulgar, and as unintellectual as ever served as an index to a sordid, grovelling soul. His dress was of the flashy kind which belongs partly to the upstart or parvenu, and partly to the swell-mob’s-man. He wore a blue dress-coat, a gaudy waistcoat, and large loose trousers hollowed at the instep so as to be shaped to the polished leathern boot. A profusion of jewellery decorated his person;—a thick gold chain, with a large key, depended to his watch—his worked shirt was fastened with diamond and blue enamel studs;—and his dirty hands were covered with costly rings, which appeared as ill-placed upon the clumsy, grimy fingers as pearls would be round the neck of a pig.
“Such was the individual in whose presence I found myself; and had I not been at the time in such a desperate state of mind that I was eager to clutch at a straw, I should at once have seen through the man and his system. But I reassured myself with the adage which teaches that we should never judge by outward appearances; and it flashed to my mind that many men remarkable for the brilliancy of their intellect, were far from being prepossessing in either person, manners, or address. Moreover, I never had partaken in the shameful, unjust, and absurd prejudices which too many of my fellow-countrymen entertain in respect to the Jews; and therefore the mere fact of this Mr. Surtees being a member of the Hebrew race produced on my mind no unfavourable impression with regard to him.
“‘Pray be seated,’ said the medical gentleman, with a tone and manner which I at the time mistook for professional independence, but which I have since discovered to be the vulgar insolence of an ignorant, self-sufficient upstart. I took a chair in compliance with the invitation given; and when he had seated himself at his desk, he extended his dirty but jewel-bedizened paw, saying, ‘Vill you obleege me vith yer card?’—I did as requested; but not without a little hesitation, for I had hoped to avoid giving my name and address.—‘Ah! I see,’ said Mr. Surtees, in a musing tone, as he examined the card: ‘Mr. Macdonald,’ he continued, reading my name. ‘By the vay, air you any relation to the Markiss of Burlington? ’cos his family name is the same as your’n.’—I replied that I was not a relative of the nobleman mentioned.—‘Vell, it don’t sinnify,’ proceeded Mr. Surtees. ‘The Markiss is a hexcellent friend of mine. He lays under a sight of hobligations to me. He come to me in the first hinstance vith a constitootion so veared out and shattered that no medical carpenter in all Hingland could have mended it up except me. But in the course of a foo weeks I putt him as right as a trivet; and now he’d go through fire and vater to sarve me. It on’y cost him a couple of thousand pounds to get quite cured; and that was cheap enow, ’evvins knows! But how comed you to call upon me this mornin’? Were it in consekvence of having perooged von of my medical vorks? Ah! them sells vell, them does! Or were it ’cos you seed my adwertisement in the noospapers?’—I was so completely bewildered by this outpouring of execrable English and vile grammar, that for some moments I was utterly unable to answer the questions put to me. Was it possible that this coarse, ignorant, and self-sufficient vulgarian could be an eminent medical authority—the author of valuable publications—the celebrated surgeon whom the extracts from newspapers[21] quoted in his advertisement, spoke of so highly? I was astounded. But again did hope blind me to what the man really was: again did I reassure myself by the reflection that Mr. Surtees might be an excellent surgeon, although he was a miserable grammarian; and I accordingly recovered my self-possession sufficiently to inform him that I had called in consequence of reading his advertisement in the newspapers.
“The doctor seemed pleased at my answer, and immediately exclaimed, ‘Vell, sir, and vot a blessin’ it is that people do read adwertisements: ’cos vy? they gets at the knowledge of heminent medikle prektishoners, which has devoted their lives to the hart of ealing all kinds of diseases. You see before you, sir,’ he continued, in a pompous tone, and with arrogant air, ‘a man vot knows hevery hin and hout of the human constitootion. No von knows so vell as myself wot consumption raly is.’—‘Then you have made consumption your particular study, sir?’ I observed, seeing that he paused, in order to elicit some remark from me.—‘Rayther!’ was his laconic answer. ‘The fact is,’ he continued, ‘foo medikle men is aweer what consumption is, nor in vot part of the frame it begins. Vy, I vonce knowed a gentleman, sir, which had a rapid decline begin in the great toe of his left foot, and travel up’ards, till it spread itself over the hentire system. The doctors had all give him up, and the undertaker was actiwally thinking of the good job he should soon have putt into his hand, ven I vos consulted. I made him take seventeen bottles of my bootiful Balm of Zura, and he rekivered in less than a fortnit.’
“Weak, nervous, and attenuated as I was, this anecdote made a deep impression upon me. I forgot the bad grammar—I lost sight of the arrogance and self-sufficient vulgarity: I saw and heard only the man who solemnly assured me that he had redeemed a fellow-creature from the jaws of death, when all other members of the faculty had given up the case as hopeless. Mr. Surtees doubtless perceived that he had worked me up to the pitch suitable to his purposes; and he accordingly said, ‘Vell, my good sir, vill you be so good as to explain wot it is that you’ve come to consult me for?’ I then frankly and candidly confessed that I had expended four-fifths of a large fortune in a career of unbroken dissipation—that my constitution was grievously impaired, if not absolutely ruined—that since I had given up drinking and all other sources of unnatural excitement, I was subject to such frequent fits of despondency that the idea of suicide was almost constantly in my imagination—that I loved and was beloved by a beautiful girl who was possessed of property—but that I felt afraid to contract the matrimonial engagement, lest I should leave her an unprotected widow in the course of a short time. Mr. Surtees listened with great attention; and when I had concluded, he appeared to reflect profoundly. At length he said, ‘Vell, let’s feel yer pulse.’—I extended my hand towards him; and he applied his thumb to a part of my wrist where I did not suppose that a pulse lay: but I concluded at the time that his great proficiency in medicine had led him to discover a new pulse, and that the best mode to test it was with the thumb.—‘Wery veak pulse indeed!’ he said, shaking his head with as much solemnity as the Chinese Joss up in his drawing-room might have been expected to display. ‘But don’t go for to give vay to despair, my dear sir; the case is a bad ’un, I admit—a wery, wery bad ’un; and I can’t say as how that I ever knowed a wusser. Pray, who’s the young lady which you intends to marry? I’ve a motive in axing.’—I thought that as the learned gentleman was already acquainted with my name and address, there could be no harm in answering this new question, the more especially as even if I refused to reply, he could easily institute those enquiries that would lead to a knowledge of the fact: I accordingly satisfied him on that head. ‘Ah! I don’t know her,’ he observed, carelessly: then, after a few moments’ reflection, he said ‘Vell, I undertake to cure you; but the business vill be a hexpensive von. You must write me a cheque for a hundred guineas, my consultation fee; and then I’ll tell you wot you must do next.’—Reassured by the promises he thus held out, I unhesitatingly gave him a draft for the amount demanded. He then opened a drawer, and drew forth a small case containing six bottles. ‘This here is the rale elixir of life,’ he said, in a tone of solemn mystery: ‘it inwigorates the constitootion in no time, and puts a reglar stopper on the adwance of consumption. The Grand Turk has a case sent every veek to him through his Hambassador, and all the crowned heads in Europe is patients of mine, I may say. Take a bottle of this bootiful balm daily; and ven it’s all gone, come back again to me. The price of them six is fifteen guineas; and you can write me out another cheque at vonce.’—I hastened to comply with this demand; and Mr. Surtees bowed me out of the surgery.
“But here I must leave off writing; for I am wearied—my brain begins to grow confused—and my memory fails me. Oh! what a fool—what an idiot I was, not to have seen through the man and his quackery on the occasion of that visit, the particulars of which I have detailed at such length.