Washington Square
Book Description
It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity. It was an element in Doctor Sloper sreputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a s...
MoreIt belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity. It was an element in Doctor Sloper sreputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his remedies he always ordered you to take something. Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he was not uncomfortably theoretic; and if he sometimes explained matters rather more minutely than might seem of use to the patient, he never went so far (like some practitioners one had heard of) as to trust to the explanation alone, but always left behind him an inscrutable prescription. There were some doctors that left the prescription without offering any explanation at all; and he did not belong to that class either, which was after all the most vulgar. It will be seen that I am describing a clever man; and this is really the reason why Doctor Sloper had become a local celebrity. At the time at which we are chiefly concerned with him he was some fifty years of age, and his popularity was at its height. He was very witty, and he passed in the best society of New York for a man of the world which, indeed, he was, in a very sufficient degree. I hasten to add, to anticipate possible misconception, that he was not the least of a charlatan.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.
Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made
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