He always carried two watches,--I
doubt if he told why, any more than Dr. Johnson told what he did with the
orange-peel,--but probably with reference to this virtue. He was as much
to be depended upon at the appointed time as the solstice or the equinox.
There was another point I have heard him speak of as an important rule
with him; to come at the hour when he was expected; if he had made his
visit for several days successively at ten o'clock, for instance, not to
put it off, if he could possibly help it, until eleven, and so keep a
nervous patient and an anxious family waiting for him through a long,
weary hour.
If I should attempt to characterize his teaching, I should say that while
it conveyed the best results of his sagacious and extended observation,
it was singularly modest, cautious, simple, sincere. Nothing was for
show, for self-love; there was no rhetoric, no declamation, no triumphant
"I told you so," but the plain statement of a clear-headed honest man,
who knows that he is handling one of the gravest subjects that interest
humanity. His positive instructions were full of value, but the spirit
in which he taught inspired that loyal love of truth which lies at the
bottom of all real excellence.
I will not say that, during his long career, Dr. Jackson never made an
enemy. I have heard him tell how, in his very early days, old Dr.
Danforth got into a towering passion with him about some professional
consultation, and exploded a monosyllable or two of the more energetic
kind on the occasion.
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