Auld lang syne

Auld lang syne

What are you to do when you are sent away by your doctor for three or four weeks of perfect rest? You are made to promise that you will lie perfectly fallow, take no books and allow no proofsheets to reach you. A very eminent German professor, the late Dr. Neander, the famous Church historian, solved the difficulty in his own way. He had faithfully promised his physician that he would take no books with him to Karlsbad, but had at last, as a great favour, obtained permission to take at least one work with him on his journey. On the morning of his departure the doctor wished to say good-bye to his patient, and calling at his door saw a cart laden with heavy folios. But, dear professor, he said, with considerable surprise and displeasure, you had promised me to take no books with you. Yes, doctor, the professor replied, but you allowed me one work, so I thought I might take the Fathers with me to Karlsbad. I might have done the same, if I had taken the Rig Veda only, or the Sacred Books of the East with vime, but my conscience would not allow it, so that I found myself in small lodgings at an English watering place with nothing to do all day long but to answer a number of accumulated letters and to read The Times, which always follows me. What was I to do? Doctors ought to know that to a man accustomed to work enforced rest is quite as irritating and depressing as travaux forcs. In self-defence I at last hit on a very simple expedient. I began to write what could be written without a single book, and taking paper, pen and inkthese I had never forswornI jotted down some recollections of former years. The fancy took me, and I said with Goethe: and after a day or two I was so absorbed in my work, if work it could be called, that I said again with Goethe: Of course I had to leave many a gap in my sketch of Auld Lang Syne. Dates, even names, would now and then leave me in the lurch, and as I had no means of verifying anything, I had to wait till I was settled again among my books and letters and papers at home. But though I corrected some glaring anachronisms and some mistaken names, I viicould leave my MS. very much as it had been written down in my temporary exile, and I can therefore vouch for its truth so far that it is an exact copy of the negative developed by long exposure in my memory. Whether it is accurate, who can tell? I know from sad experience that my memory is no longer what it was. All I can say is that the positive copy here published is as true and as exact as the rays of the evening sun of life, falling on the negative in my memory, could make it. Though I have suppressed whatever could possibly have given offence to any sensible person, however sensitive, I have not retouched the pictures of my friends or acquaintances, nor have I tried, as is now so much the fashion, to take out all the lines and wrinkles so that nothing remains but the washed-out faces of angels. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 68517
Author: Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Release Date: Jul 13, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: C. Scribner's Sons
Publication Date: 1898
Publisher Country: United States