Not long before his death I had another letter from him, short, as all his communications were, but always long enough to include the gracefully drawn compliment which, one fears, has died out of the art of letter-writing as now practised:
“Dear Madam,
“I received your obliging gift and letter yesterday. I consider Finland a singularly interesting country, singularly little known; and I am reading your work in earnest and with great interest.
“Your very faithful
“W. E. Gladstone.
“Jul. 13, ’97.”
The mention of Mr. Gladstone in connection with Harley Street brings to mind his famous physician, Sir Andrew Clarke, who was a great personal friend of my father.
At one time Sir Andrew Clarke had the largest practice in London, besides holding the proud position of President of the Royal College of Physicians. Thanks chiefly to a charming personality, he was one of the most successful and most beloved of all the London medical men, and to him is doubtless due the widespread discovery that a careful diet is a better means to health than promiscuous floods of medicine.
These were some of the friendships and associations that surrounded my childhood: such was the soil that nourished my infant roots in kindliness and encouraged my green idea-buds to put forth into leaf.