J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY
 
 J.WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 By AGNES REPPLIER 
 
 With Portraits 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 iTs0 CambriDge 
 
 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY AGNES RKFPLII 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 341
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFO 
 SAIVTA BARBARA 
 
 'A surgeon should be tender to the sick, 
 honourable to his fellow surgeons, wise in 
 his predictions, chaste, sober, pitiful, not 
 covetous or extortionate. Rather should he 
 take his wages in moderation, according to 
 his work, and the wealth of his patient, and 
 the issue of the disease, and his own worth." 
 
 GUY DE CHAULIAC 
 
 Grand Chirurgie, 1363
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. EARLY YEARS 1 
 
 II. THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER .... 9 
 
 III. BLOCKLEY AND THE PENITENTIARY ... 29 
 
 IV. SURGEON AND TROOPER 35 
 
 V. MILESTONES 47 
 
 VI. THE YEARS THAT COUNT 64 
 
 VII. LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 90 
 
 VIII. A CRISIS PAST 139 
 
 IX. FOUR BUSY YEARS 160 
 
 X. FREEDOM 192 
 
 XI. THE GREAT WAR . 226 
 
 XII. THE END . . . 254 
 
 INDEX . 277
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 J. WILLIAM WHITE Frontispiece 
 
 From a photograph (inscribed by the artist) of the portrait by 
 John S. Sargent 
 
 DR. AGNEW AT HIS CLINIC : DR. WHITE ASSISTING . 40 
 
 From the painting by Thomas Eakins. Reproduced by the 
 courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania from a copyright 
 photograph by the Chappel Studio, Philadelphia 
 
 J. WILLIAM WHITE 160 
 
 From a photograph
 
 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EARLY YEARS 
 
 JAMES WILLIAM WHITE was born in Phila- 
 delphia on the 2d of November, 1850. He was 
 of English ancestry, the family dating back to one 
 Henry White, who in 1649 left England, and came 
 to Virginia. Four generations of Henry White's de- 
 scendants lived in, or near, Albemarle, North Caro- 
 lina. One of the fifth generation, James White, moved 
 to Burlington, New Jersey. His son, William Rose 
 White, married Mary Stockton, a descendant of 
 Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence. Their son, James William White, senior, 
 practised medicine for many years in Philadelphia. 
 He was a keen diagnostician, much sought in con- 
 sultations, and he was also an able man of affairs, 
 first president of the S. S. White Dental Manufactur- 
 ing Company, whose products had as wide a market 
 in Europe as in the United States. His strong and 
 advanced opinions brought him both friends and 
 foes. A firm abolitionist, he fought a lifelong and un- 
 yielding battle against slavery. A broad-minded phi- 
 lanthropist, he helped to found the Maternity Hos-
 
 2 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D 
 
 pital at a time when, as has been well observed, 
 " the existence of such an institution was considered 
 an endorsement and encouragement of vice." His 
 wife, Mary Ann McClaranan, was of New England 
 parentage, and ably seconded a line of conduct more 
 in accord with the prevailing sentiments of Massa- 
 chusetts than of Pennsylvania. From both parents 
 their distinguished son inherited those sharply defined 
 and unyielding traits of character, which, buttressed 
 with energy, ability, and resolution, made him so 
 valuable a colleague and so dauntless an opponent. 
 
 The boy was educated hi the public schools of 
 Philadelphia. He was a quick-tempered, warm- 
 hearted, rough, impetuous child, as devoted to play 
 as if the alphabet had never been invented, and to 
 reading as if hockey and base-ball were unknown. 
 The four beloved books which he read and re-read 
 with ever renewed delight were the "Arabian Nights," 
 "Pilgrim's Progress," "Don Quixote," and "Robin- 
 son Crusoe," a heroic selection, but a natural one in 
 those happy days, before a flood of inane juvenile 
 stories had become the blight of the nursery and 
 school-room. Certain chapters in these books gave 
 the boy such intense pleasure that he confesses he 
 approached them at each fresh perusal "with secret 
 and exhilarating excitement." This seems to me one 
 of the most illuminating statements I have ever 
 heard upon the much discussed subject of children's
 
 EARLY YEARS 3 
 
 reading. There is no doubt that only the book which 
 is read many times, and which is read many times 
 because it is worth many readings, has any place in a 
 child's intellectual or emotional life; and no child who 
 has ever responded to the stirring appeal of a great 
 masterpiece has failed to experience the "secret and 
 exhilarating excitement" with which he returns, 
 step by step, cautious yet unafraid, to the Valley of 
 Diamonds, or the Castle of Giant Despair, or the 
 shining sands marked with the impress of a savage 
 foot. 
 
 When I was young, all well-brought-up little girls, 
 and doubtless all well-brought-up little boys, who 
 were permitted to visit their playmates, were cau- 
 tioned by careful mothers that they must on no 
 account open a book. To sit in a corner and read, 
 instead of joining decorously in games, was held to 
 be unpardonably rude. If Mrs. White gave this part- 
 ing counsel to her son, it was of no avail. The temp- 
 tation was too strong to be resisted. Little Bill would 
 even improvise a game of hide-and-seek in order that 
 he might slip away from his small cousins and com- 
 panions, and, hidden behind a curtain, or on the 
 back stairs, or in a closet, snatch a brief, uneasy 
 joy from some hitherto unread story, which he was 
 destined never to finish. The quickness of his obser- 
 vation was marred by his extreme near-sightedness. 
 If Mrs. Barbauld's old-fashioned tale, "Eyes and No
 
 4 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Eyes," ever came his way, he must have sympathized 
 with the little boy who passed by all the wonderful 
 things which his comrade saw and commented upon. 
 When he stumbled and blundered about, it was put 
 down to the natural awkwardness of boyhood. It was 
 only after he went to school that his fashion of hold- 
 ing his book betrayed his imperfect vision. Once 
 fitted with glasses, his strong eyes bore heavy and 
 continuous strain until he died. 
 
 In one regard the boy's life was a stormy one. A 
 tendency to quarrel, and a still more fatal readiness 
 to uphold his dispute by force, tried the patience of 
 his teachers beyond endurance. He delighted in war- 
 fare, and paid scant heed to causes or to consequences. 
 Again and again they asked why such a little fire- 
 eater should be retained in the ranks, and again and 
 again the child's truthfulness, integrity, and stead- 
 fast application to his studies pleaded for pardon. If, 
 on a Monday morning, Mrs. White was seen accom- 
 panying her abashed son to school, the neighbours 
 said, "There goes Bill White's mother to make peace 
 with his teachers. She has her hands full anyway." 
 
 At thirteen the boy was ready for the High School, 
 but was held to be too young, and obliged to wait a 
 year for admittance. He was always a close student, 
 partly because his quick intelligence detected some 
 interest even in the routine of class-work, and partly 
 because all studies were to him an obstacle to be
 
 EARLY YEARS 5 
 
 overcome, a barrier at which he rode hard like a 
 steeple-chaser. Why and how his high-school themes, 
 or, as they were then humbly called, compositions, 
 were preserved from the scrap-basket, it is impossi- 
 ble to say. Perhaps his parents kept them, as little 
 Tom Macaulay's parents kept their precious in- 
 fant's hymns, and epics, and "Epitome of Univer- 
 sal History." Perhaps Dr. White's noticeable and in- 
 explicable distaste for destroying any scrap of paper 
 dated from his boyhood, and he himself cherished 
 these unloved and laborious productions. 
 
 Be this as it may, the compositions were found in- 
 tact among more important documents, very neatly 
 copied, and as correct in spelling as in sentiment. 
 They are like the compositions of school-boys all the 
 world over, save that they do not suggest the hope- 
 less boredom, the slurring haste, common to such 
 tasks, and that they have a refreshing tendency to 
 abandon the abstract for the concrete. The lad starts 
 out to write about "Peace," and having expressed 
 some stainlessly virtuous sentiments regarding its 
 blessings and benefits, he branches joyously off to 
 occasions which imperatively demand war. He inti- 
 mates his disapproval of the Quaker attitude, and 
 says in redundant school-boy language what Mr. 
 Roosevelt has said in a few vigorous words, that 
 *'a class of professional non-combatants is, in the 
 long run, as hurtful to a community as a class of
 
 6 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 professional wrong-doers." In another paper he com- 
 ments with regret upon the preponderance of study 
 over athletics in the education of boys (which shows 
 how long ago he went to school), and prophesies that 
 a reign of dyspepsia will result from this mistaken 
 attitude of teachers. Most characteristic of all is a 
 composition on "Justice," in which he sweeps aside 
 generalities to dwell feelingly on the case of a con- 
 temporary murderer a murderer long forgotten 
 by the world who killed eight people, and real- 
 ized only eighteen dollars by the job. This man was 
 hanged, which is duly pointed out as a triumph of 
 justice (the boy entertained no sentimental theories 
 on the subject of capital punishment); but what 
 really absorbs his youthful mind is the disproportion 
 between the means and the end. Eight murders, and 
 eighteen dollars! He is stunned by this unpractical 
 aspect of crime. 
 
 When young White left the High School, his father 
 sought to make his clever son a chemist; but this the 
 lad opposed with all the determination of his char- 
 acter. He took a year's course in chemistry with 
 Hance Brothers and White; but a chemist he reso- 
 lutely declined to be. His heart was set on medicine, 
 and on surgery, as his chosen field of medicine. In 
 vain the arguments old as civilization of slow 
 progress and crowded professions were urged upon 
 him. Peter the Great doubtless considered that the
 
 EARLY YEARS 7 
 
 two lawyers whom he permitted to practise in his 
 empire overcrowded it, and so hanged one of them. 
 To his father's cautious counsels, the son had but 
 one reply: "There is plenty of room where I intend 
 to be." Inevitably he carried his point, and entered 
 the Medical School of the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania, a school then situated at Ninth and Chestnut 
 Streets. Here, working con a/more and with all his 
 might, he spent three vigorous years, and spent them 
 to such good effect that hi 1871 he received the two 
 degrees of Ph.D. and M.D., obtaining a full vote for 
 both, and standing at the head of his class after a 
 competitive examination. 
 
 All this time his interest in athletics had kept pace 
 with his interest hi laboratory work and the lecture- 
 room. His superb health, which he never spared, 
 permitted him increasing physical and mental exer- 
 tion. He could fill up every hour of the day, and 
 study half the night, without fatigue, and without 
 apparent strain. It was through the friendship of his 
 preceptor, Dr. Horatio C. Wood, always keenly in- 
 terested in so brilliant a student, that the young 
 physician received at the outset of his career an ap- 
 pointment which, lasting less than twelve months, 
 influenced him for life, and was of far greater ad- 
 vantage to him than he was then able to under- 
 stand. 
 
 Professor Benjamin Peirce, Superintendent of the
 
 8 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 United States Coast Survey, had fitted out a small 
 steamer, the Hassler, for scientific explorations in 
 the waters of the South Atlantic. He invited Profes- 
 sor Agassiz to head the expedition, and Agassiz, al- 
 though in failing health, eagerly accepted the post. 
 Dr. Thomas Hill, former President of Harvard Col- 
 lege, a man of seemingly limitless information, and 
 Count Pourtales, of the Coast Survey, accompanied 
 him on the voyage. To Dr. White, then just twenty- 
 one, was offered a berth as hydrographic draughts- 
 man, and it may be conceived with what enthusiasm 
 he snatched this golden opportunity. "Agassiz says 
 he can and will teach me more comparative anatomy 
 in a month than I should ever learn in a year at 
 college," he writes joyously to his father; adding 
 with a canniness which was as natural to him as 
 courage: "The Professor is down on the Darwinian 
 theory, so, although I believe in it at present, I think 
 I'll renounce it for a year. He is going to buy me a 
 shot-gun, or rather let me buy it, and send him the 
 bill. Which is the most expensive kind?" 
 
 The last line is illustrative. There never was a time 
 when Dr. White did not stand ready to take all that 
 life and opportunity had to offer; but there never 
 was a time when he was not equally ready to give 
 the best that was in him in return.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 
 
 THERE are few things in this life so good as we 
 think they are going to be, or so good as we 
 think they have been. Our enjoyment is either an- 
 ticipatory or reminiscent, because we cannot foresee 
 the disagreeable possibilities of the future, and we 
 remember with grateful distinctness the pleasures of 
 the past. It is natural that Dr. White should have 
 keenly relished the prospect of a most unusual voy- 
 age, and that he should have looked back upon the 
 nine months on the Hassler as a remarkably and 
 exclusively happy period of his career. He did enjoy 
 it with all the freshness of youth, and with all the 
 appreciation of sense and intelligence. But the trip 
 brought him, as it brought more important members 
 of the party, a full measure of vexation and disap- 
 pointment. In the first place, the expedition, which 
 was to have started in August, 1871, did not get off 
 until December. Apparently it went then, only be- 
 cause the money appropriated for the work would 
 have been returned to the treasury if the Hassler 
 had not sailed within the fiscal year. Dr. White spent 
 the month of November in Boston, hoping every day 
 to be off the next, and fretting over the delay which
 
 10 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 eventually curtailed the voyage, compelling Agassiz 
 to relinquish the Falkland Islands, and the Rio Ne- 
 gro and Santa Cruz Rivers, to his inextinguishable 
 regret. Moreover, the deep-sea dredging, from which 
 he hoped to obtain important results, failed because 
 of defective apparatus. The hauls from the greatest 
 depths were invariably lost. 
 
 Mrs. Agassiz, who accompanied her husband, kept, 
 under his direction, a diary, descriptive and scientific, 
 which was published after his death, and made dull 
 reading. Dr. Hill wrote a series of letters to the "New 
 York Tribune." Dr. White, with characteristic self- 
 confidence, invaded, before sailing, the office of the 
 "New York Herald," and actually persuaded the 
 managing editor, Mr. Cannery, not only to accept 
 him as a special correspondent, but to pay him 
 twenty dollars a column, instead of the modest 
 ten which was the paper's customary rate. These 
 "Herald" letters became a heavy burden as the 
 young physician's duties on the Hassler grew more 
 and more imperative. Often he had no time to write, 
 and oftener still he had nothing to write about. Al- 
 ways he found it hard to tell enough to satisfy the 
 paper, without telling more than Agassiz wished told. 
 He confesses in his diary that he envies Dr. Hill (who 
 received thirty dollars a column from the "Tribune") 
 the ease and intentness with which he scribbled his 
 interminable pages. "He does not have to consult
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 11 
 
 any geographical dictionaries, encyclopedias, or other 
 useful abominations. He just sits down, takes his port- 
 folio on his knee, and draws out of his antiquated, 
 perverse, crotchety, obstinate, but well-filled head all 
 that he wants, and more too. I have n't seen any of 
 his letters, but I know they are so much better than 
 anything I can write, that the very thought dis- 
 courages me." 
 
 Nevertheless, the correspondence with the "Her- 
 ald" was continued until the end of the voyage. It 
 would no more have occurred to Dr. White to vol- 
 untarily relinquish a job he had undertaken to do 
 than to voluntarily relinquish existence. The letters 
 which have been preserved are sober, intelli- 
 gent narratives, written in the forceful, vigorous 
 style he retained through life, and marked, it must 
 be confessed, by that reluctance to leave anything 
 untold which characterized all he ever wrote. They 
 were printed by the "Herald" in type so ruinously 
 fine as to suggest collusion with the oculists and 
 opticians of New York, and provided with fantas- 
 tic and sensational headlines, calculated to attract 
 readers who would not have known Agassiz from 
 Audubon. "Millions of Skeletons at the Bottom of 
 the Sea." "Beautiful Tempest-Defying Creatures 
 Dancing on the Crests of the Waves." "Oysters a 
 Foot in Diameter." "Hydroids, the Socialists of the 
 Sea." This is the way a valiant newspaper strove to
 
 12 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 arouse the intellectual curiosity of the public. Even 
 solid paragraphs were broken up to admit such head- 
 ings as "Never before seen by Human Eyes." "The 
 Skeletons." "Perished by Thousands." "Died a 
 Heretic." Naturally the most apathetic old gentle- 
 man droning over his newspaper wondered a bit who 
 died a heretic, who perished by thousands, and what 
 on earth the expedition was about. 
 
 It is amusing to note that many years later, Dr. 
 White, addressing the Harvard Club, dwelt feelingly 
 upon the anguish of spirit which the "Herald's" 
 headlines had caused his sensitive youth. He had 
 aspired to be weighty and scientific, and the paper 
 had presented him to its readers as a second Jules 
 Verne. All his life, notwithstanding certain stormy 
 episodes, he remained on fairly good terms with 
 newspapers. No man was less inclined to the stupid 
 and vulgar error of censuring the press. No man bet- 
 ter understood its difficulties, or recognized more 
 clearly its incontestable merits. His dedication a 
 year before he died of the "Text-Book of the War 
 for Americans" to the press of the United States, 
 proved that he rightly regarded our best newspapers 
 as intelligent leaders of the nation's thought, and 
 upright guardians of the nation's honour. He winced 
 under the "Herald's" sensationalism, but he grasped 
 its motives, and forgave. 
 
 Once launched on its voyage, the Hassler became
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 13 
 
 a scene of incessant activity, and the hydrographic 
 draughtsman a title which might have been roughly 
 interpreted as man-of -all- work was kept busily em- 
 ployed. How he ever found time to do all the jobs 
 which Agassiz gave him to do, and most of the jobs 
 which should have been done by older and less stren- 
 uous men, write the interminable letters to the 
 "Herald," keep up an energetic correspondence with 
 his family to say nothing of a diary and study 
 French and Spanish with zest, remains a mystery. 
 His days always seemed to hold more than the twen- 
 ty-four hours allotted to ordinary mortals. 
 
 Every calm morning, Agassiz gave a lecture on 
 deck, using a rubber blanket stretched on four sticks 
 as a blackboard. These lectures Dr. White copied 
 "smoothly," and he also undertook, before they had 
 been out a week, to copy the log. When the ship was 
 quarantined in Montevideo Harbour, he had himself 
 awakened every three hours in the night, to make his 
 observations on surface water, Agassiz being eager to 
 test the influence of winds and tides upon the admix- 
 ture of fresh water in the bay. The incessant dredg- 
 ings kept him hard at work, examining the specimens, 
 and dropping everything of value into alcohol. Three 
 thousand five hundred gallons of alcohol were used 
 during the voyage. Agassiz's curiosity was so in- 
 satiable, and his delight over a good haul was so 
 radiant, that his young assistant could not forbear
 
 14 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 a joke (a variant of Cleopatra's famous trick), and 
 slipped one day a polished chicken bone into the 
 dredging net before it was cast. Up in time came the 
 net, and up came the bone. A sailor grasped it, and 
 carried it to Agassiz, who rejected the strange speci- 
 men with a smile, divining the jest, and asking no 
 questions. 
 
 Sunday brought scant respite from labour. Dr. 
 White writes to his father that Agassiz was "very 
 religious," but would dredge seven days in the week, 
 deeming it a work of necessity, and expected others 
 to do the same. An average Sunday was spent in 
 dredging until noon, photographing the specimens 
 until dusk, and listening in the evening to a lecture 
 on "Positivism" from the omniscient Dr. Hill, whose 
 custom it was to interpret metaphysics in the terms 
 of a mathematician, somewhat to the disgust of 
 Agassiz, who hated mathematics, and who was nat- 
 urally disposed to disagree with what he did not 
 understand. 
 
 It must be remembered that Dr. White was not a 
 marine biologist, and that he had none of the noble 
 but somewhat overwhelming enthusiasm common to 
 this department of science. He threw his whole soul 
 into his work because slackness was impossible to 
 his nature, and he tried to share Agassiz's wild delight 
 when off the coast of Patagonia they caught 
 some uncommonly ugly little fishes which could swim
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER i5 
 
 head first or tail first, "as a matter of indifference." 
 "There was once a folio volume written on a single 
 imperfect specimen of these fish," he reports proudly, 
 "and they are still very rare; so the Professor's 
 pleasure is unbounded." It was another red-letter 
 day which showed them their first steamer-duck pad- 
 dling expertly on the rough water, and very often 
 the fossils secured were of inestimable value. When 
 in ill-luck, their ropes broke, their hauls were lost, 
 the bathometer let down for deep-sea sounding never 
 came up again, and the result of four hours' dredg- 
 ing in six hundred and eighty fathoms of water 
 in Panama Bay was "a few worms and some blue 
 mud." If there was an element of monotony in their 
 labour, there was a glorious diversity in its reward. 
 
 Photographing the specimens was every whit as 
 difficult as securing them. The art of photography 
 was then, if not in its infancy, at least in its early 
 and untrammelled youth. Dr. White was not an 
 expert at the work, but Dr. Hill gradually resigned 
 it into his hands, hating its messiness, and heart- 
 broken over its results. To photograph live Ascidians 
 in a basin of water on the heaving deck of a small 
 ship would be no facile task to-day; but with the 
 imperfect apparatus of 1872, wet plates, time ex- 
 posure, and a persevering but inexperienced photog- 
 rapher, the percentage of failures was ruinous. 
 Nevertheless, Dr. White went steadily on with this
 
 16 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 unloved task until he might be said to have con- 
 quered it. Twelve hours out of the twenty-four were 
 sometimes consumed taking the photographs, de- 
 veloping them, and packing them away. At Rio de 
 Janeiro he carried his negatives to the laboratory of 
 Signer Leuzinger, where Conditions were exception- 
 ally good, and worked there in the heavy heat for 
 ten hours, without intermission, and without food. 
 It was a heroic test of endurance. Zealotry could 
 have done no more. 
 
 Besides photographing specimens, it was Dr. 
 White's more difficult duty to take pictures of the 
 coast, and of all objects of beauty and interest which 
 might be desirable for stereopticon slides. This in- 
 volved such diverting experiences that I quote a long 
 extract from the diary, partly because it is really 
 funny, and partly because it might have been written 
 at fifty instead of at twenty-one. Those who knew 
 Dr. White only in later life can recognize the familiar 
 turns of speech, the ease and sharpness of expression. 
 
 "At Sea. Off the Island of Chiloe. Sunday, April 
 7th, 1872. This morning I had an instance of what has 
 been one of my great troubles hi photography, the 
 fact that it is impossible to make some people under- 
 stand what can and what can't be done with a camera. 
 It would be amusing if it were not annoying. I wak- 
 ened between six and seven o'clock, looked out of my 
 port-hole, saw that we were at some distance from
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 17 
 
 shore, pulled off a leaf from my calendar, disclosing 
 
 * Domingo, April 7th,' said a word of good morning to 
 you all by looking over the photographic album, and 
 then settled myself comfortably to read a new novel 
 (new when we started) which Mrs. Agassiz had re- 
 quested me to pronounce upon before beginning it 
 herself. 
 
 "I hadn't enjoyed this very long when my cur- 
 tains were pulled aside, and the Professor's face was 
 visible. He made a movement to retire, saying some- 
 thing about having thought that * perhaps the pho- 
 tographic apparatus was ready.' I told him that 
 it would be ready in exactly ten minutes if it were 
 necessary, but that I did n't believe there was any- 
 thing to photograph. 'Oh, yes, something of the 
 greatest interest, if it would not be too much trouble.' 
 I turned out, dressed, and was on deck with my 
 camera and a coated and sensitized plate in about 
 the time I mentioned. Then I found that the nearest 
 objects were hills several miles off, which hills had, 
 on the focusing glass, an elevation of about the 
 tenth of an inch; and that the intensely interesting 
 
 * something' consisted of white spots on those hills, 
 barely discernible without the aid of the glass. I might 
 as well have been called upon to photograph a fly- 
 speck on Girard College from the State House steeple. 
 
 "I did n't say much. The old gentleman had been 
 greatly disappointed at our not going up to the
 
 18 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 island, as he thereby missed an opportunity of hav- 
 ing a slap at Darwin on the Glacial Theory, and I 
 did n't want to worry him any more. So I went 
 through the motions, exposed three plates, and told 
 him I did n't believe I had secured what he wanted, 
 but that I had done all that was possible. I then 
 stowed away the apparatus. In fifteen minutes he 
 saw a volcanic range on the other side, and at about 
 twice the distance, of which he wanted a picture. I 
 unpacked, repeated the process, made a couple of 
 plates on which the hills would have to be looked for 
 with a compound microscope, and stowed away the 
 things. In half an hour he discovered two peaks, 
 snow-covered, and almost exactly the same colour as 
 the sky behind them, so that it was difficult to make 
 out their line of demarcation, even with strong 
 glasses. I told him they would both take the same 
 colour, that the mountains would n't show, and that, 
 in addition, the vessel was beginning to make con- 
 siderable motion. He did n't seem persuaded, how- 
 ever, that it was impossible, so I again unpacked, 
 and demonstrated it to him. I caught all the ripples 
 on the waves without a sign of the peaks. Then I 
 packed up, and registered a vow which I kept 
 not to take the things out again unless we were in 
 smooth water, within a hundred yards of shore." 
 
 In what odd moments of his crowded day, Dr. 
 White snatched the leisure to write the diary which
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 19 
 
 he kept for his family, as well as letters of amazing 
 length and minuteness, no one will ever know. There 
 is no sign of haste or scrimping in his voluminous 
 pages. He tells his mother that the washerwoman at 
 St. Thomas starched his handkerchiefs and towels, 
 and left his collars and cuffs limp. He tells his grand- 
 mother everything he had to eat at a dinner party at 
 Talcahuano, because that was what she liked best to 
 hear. If, at the close of the trip, he omits the menu 
 of a dinner given by Mr. Leland Stanford, then Gov- 
 ernor of California, he pleads hi excuse that the en- 
 tertainment lasted from six to nine, and that he was 
 too torpid when he left the table to remember any- 
 thing about it. He makes careful notes throughout 
 the voyage of all that might interest his little brother, 
 Louis, then six years old. He writes to this child 
 about the island of Juan Fernandez and Alexander 
 Selkirk; and about a big flying fish which leaped with 
 such violence to the deck of the Hassler that it 
 knocked over a cabin boy; and about the trained 
 canaries he saw at Rio de Janeiro, which obstinately 
 refused to tell his fortune, though they told the for- 
 tunes of the Rio de Janeirans all day long. He gives 
 him the kind of good advice which a little boy rejects 
 from his parents, but receives docilely from a big 
 brother. Louis is not to fight for the sake of fighting. 
 "If the other boy is smaller than you are, it is a 
 mean thing to do, and if he is bigger, he might make
 
 20 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 you wish you had n't.*' The whole duty of little boy- 
 hood is compressed into this one golden sentence: "I 
 want you to be a good boy, and mind father and 
 mother and grandmother, and keep your feet dry, 
 and keep off the car-tracks, and not eat pie-crust or 
 pork." 
 
 In his clamorous demand for home letters, Dr. 
 White does not exempt even the six-year-old. It 
 appears that Louis can write a little; therefore he 
 should write, though the forgiving brother makes 
 allowance for his ineptitude, and answers an unsent 
 baby scrawl in this really charming fashion. 
 
 DEAR Louis: 
 
 Although I have n't yet received that letter which 
 Mother told me you had written, I thought I had 
 better answer it just the same as if I had got it. I 
 guess I know what was in it. You told me how you 
 and Waltie played, and how Maltie not Waltie 
 had fits, and how you were a bad boy sometimes, 
 and a good boy nearly always, and how Grand- 
 mother fed the pigeons, and the cats, and the rats, 
 and everything else that would eat, and how much 
 money you got when you were sick, and how you 
 dirtied your new suit, and how you ran to fires, 
 played hi the mud, rode with the milkman, plagued 
 Grandmother, teased Rosie, worried Mother, and 
 behaved yourself when Father was around. If you
 
 THE VOYAGE OP THE HASSLER 21 
 
 did n't write all this, I am sure you might have done 
 so without telling a great many stories. 
 
 One fact is evidenced by the Hassler diary. It is 
 never divulged, but may be read between every line. 
 The diarist is horribly homesick. This is his first 
 journey, and the familiar scenes and figures he has 
 left tug at his heart-strings. He is maddened by the 
 irregularity of the South American mails, and ap- 
 pears to have spent hours at Rio de Janeiro trying 
 to worry the hot and exasperated post-office clerks 
 into giving him letters which were not there to give. 
 When one does come, it has two fifteen-cent stamps 
 on it, and he has to pay twenty-four cents more; but, 
 although habitually careful of money, he declares 
 joyfully that it is worth fifty dollars. Later on, he 
 records without a tremor that the Chilean Govern- 
 ment asks twenty-five cents for every letter which 
 passes through its post-office, and that his are always 
 double weight. Whenever the ship's provisions run 
 low, his homesickness is augmented by the cravings 
 of his youthful appetite for the good Philadelphia 
 fare, so long untasted, so ardently recalled. For a 
 week in Otter Bay, scientists and sailors were alike 
 reduced to pork and beans, pork and beans for 
 breakfast, dinner, and supper. At this period the 
 young doctor's letters resemble nothing so much as 
 the "Homesick Glutton's Dream." In vain he tries
 
 22 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 to solace a free and hungry hour with "Aurora 
 Leigh." His soul rejects this fare as unmistakably as 
 his stomach rejects the pork and beans. In vain Mrs. 
 Agassiz recommends Browning's "Dramatic Poems." 
 "I don't think much of them," is his uncritical, but 
 not unnatural, verdict. The Hassler library seems 
 to have been a somewhat haphazard collection of 
 books, and Dr. White a swift and omnivorous 
 reader skimmed over its fiction in the first few 
 weeks, tossed aside its poetry, lingered appreciatively 
 over Dr. Holmes's "Autocrat," and Macaulay's 
 "Essays," and finally settled down to "Gray's 
 Anatomy,'* and a Spanish grammar. He knew what 
 promise they held. 
 
 The grammar, indeed, bore fruit a hundredfold, 
 for, whenever the Hassler was in port, its earnest 
 student found himself fit for conversation, lively if 
 limited, with all the pretty girls he met. He never 
 suffered his courage to be daunted by an imperfect 
 vocabulary; but eked out his Spanish with French, 
 and his French with English, and his English with 
 the universal language of youth; making himself 
 invariably understood, and enjoying the abundant 
 hospitality of the South. His pleasure in being on 
 shore was just as keen, whether he were climbing a 
 mountain peak at Tijucas, or eating a highly civilized 
 dinner at Talcahuano, or listening to the chanting of 
 a tobacco-begging Fuegian chief, or hunting iguanas
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 23 
 
 for Agassiz on Charles Island, or shooting, or fishing, 
 or collecting butterflies, or photographing a glacier. 
 "Agassiz knows all about fishes, except the way to 
 catch them," is a record in the diary. "He gives 
 directions concerning hooks, and bait, and nets, and 
 drawing seines, which are listened to respectfully, 
 but never followed." 
 
 At Panama, Dr. White accompanied Agassiz on 
 a specimen-collecting expedition which lasted three 
 days. They went by rail to San Pablo, and the diary 
 gives a minute account of the trip, dwelling especially 
 on the hospitality of the San Pablo station-master, 
 a Mr. Lesley from Bangor, Maine, and a vastly 
 important official. This young man had married a 
 school-teacher from Belfast, Maine, and had made 
 her a home in the wilderness. Their shining house 
 and neat garden were like a bit of New England 
 transferred to the Isthmus. Mrs. Lesley's good cook- 
 ing, her raised biscuits and excellent coffee, are 
 feelingly described. A cribbage board and a five- 
 months-old baby complete the picture, which is 
 bright with comfort and contentment. Yet at the 
 foot of the pretty garden flowed the Chagres River, 
 with alligators basking in the mud; and before the 
 front door stretched a tropical forest, full of ana- 
 condas, and wild hogs, and tarantulas, and vampire 
 bats, evil neighbours for the little household. The 
 snakes did sometimes eat her young chickens, Mrs.
 
 24 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Lesley confessed ruefully, but had no other word of 
 dissatisfaction with her lonely and perilous life. 
 
 Throughout the nine months' voyage, Dr. White 
 remained on cordial terms with all his associates. If 
 he were sometimes irritated by Dr. Hill's dogmatism, 
 he respected his wide and accurate knowledge. Count 
 Pourtales and Dr. Steindachner he liked. Captain 
 Johnson he pronounced a "good sailor, an honest 
 gentleman, and a kind friend." To Mrs. Johnson 
 and to Mrs. Agassiz he became increasingly attached, 
 finding that their presence on the Hassler added 
 materially to his pleasure and well-being. Mrs. 
 Agassiz he commended strongly, because she was a 
 lady without nerves, who did not scream when in- 
 cidents of a mildly terrifying order disturbed the 
 usual tranquillity. Of Agassiz he has given us, both 
 in his diary and in an admirable paper written after 
 the Professor's death, a consistently charming and 
 sympathetic picture. He can find no words keen 
 enough to describe this great scientist's noble de- 
 mocracy, which was like the democracy of Scott, 
 whom men called a feudalist, his kindness, his fluent 
 English, the simplicity and readiness with which he 
 imparted his knowledge (to those who sought it only), 
 his noble generosity and wise economy. "Agassiz," he 
 wrote, "is just as free from any pretence or assump- 
 tion of superiority as if he were a cabin boy." 
 
 Toward the close of the voyage, some one pro-
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 25 
 
 posed to teach the Professor the beguiling and irritat- 
 ing game of solitaire. Agassiz, who had never touched 
 a card in his life, fell a victim to the spell. "He spent 
 hours glued to the cabin table, dealing and sorting 
 the cards, ejaculating in three or four languages, and 
 becoming as much excited over the turns as over a 
 new tadpole." From solitaire an easy descent to 
 Avernus Agassiz fell to playing poker for gun- 
 wads; and Heaven knows what further temptations 
 lay in wait for this straight-living scientific gentle- 
 man, if the harbour of San Francisco had not put an 
 end to the sport. The last record made of him in the 
 diary is a testimony to his generous good-nature. 
 Tired and ill, he consented to give a lecture at the 
 Sacramento Literary Institute, and his gratified 
 audience presented him with a gold-headed stick. 
 The Hassler reached San Francisco on the 24th of 
 August, 1872. Fifteen months later, Agassiz died. 
 
 One eventful dispute roughened the smooth friend- 
 liness of the expedition, and lent to Dr. White at 
 least an added interest in the trip. It was no part 
 of his duty to look after the Hassler's sick. Dr. Pit- 
 kin was the ship's surgeon. But Dr. Pitkin was 
 sometimes ill himself, and, when this happened, 
 Dr. White dosed the crew, and mended their broken 
 heads. Their manifest preference for his services was 
 due probably to his friendliness, to his open and easy 
 manner, and to the confidence which his abrupt
 
 26 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 decisiveness seldom failed to inspire. The boatswain 
 told him that the sailors waited their chance to con- 
 sult him; and, as he had himself no great belief in 
 Dr. Pitkin's remedies, this seemed to him a sensible 
 precaution on the sailors' part. Dr. Pitkin thought 
 otherwise; and the disagreement between the two 
 physicians was brought to a head when Paymaster 
 Dee, hunting for shells on the wet sands of Mag- 
 dalena Bay, came back with his feet and legs badly 
 blistered by sunburn. Dr. Pitkin applied glycerine 
 and carbolic acid. Dr. White urged the use of phenol. 
 Dr. Pitkin scouted phenol. Dr. White contemned in 
 forceful language glycerine and carbolic acid. The 
 contest reminds us of the ever memorable battle 
 waged by Dr. Benjamin Rush, in the Yellow Fever 
 summer of 1793, in behalf of mercury and jalap, 
 against bark and wine. Finally the contestants 
 agreed upon a compromise, or rather upon an experi- 
 ment. Each took possession of one of the paymaster's 
 legs, and treated it in his own fashion, the patient 
 acquiescing because he was not consulted. The result 
 was a triumph for Dr. WTiite. In twenty-four hours 
 the phenol leg was healed, while the glycerine leg 
 remained swollen and inflamed. Whether the pay- 
 master then decided which treatment he preferred, 
 or whether Dr. Pitkin continued to have his own 
 way with his appointed leg, the diary does not say. 
 In San Francisco came the final separation. Dr.
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 27 
 
 White parted from friends whom he had learned to 
 value, and made his own way home. With his cus- 
 tomary good fortune, he reached Salt Lake City at 
 the time of a great Mormon conference, and heard 
 Brigham Young and other eminent saints preach to 
 huge congregations. The prophet was authoritative, 
 censorious, omniscient. He protested against his fol- 
 lowers seeking legal or medical advice, instead of 
 asking counsel of those who were divinely appointed 
 to direct them. "Lawyers," he said, "are very good 
 in their place, but I've never been able to discover 
 where the devil their place is, unless it's in Hell." 
 Doctors were little more in favour. Young vehe- 
 mently reproached his female flock for their obstinacy 
 in employing obstetricians, assuring them that they 
 and their babies would be just as well off if they 
 would dispense entirely with medical service. He 
 gave the offending ladies a great many sound and 
 intimate exhortations on the subject of their health. 
 He inveighed against the extravagance and immod- 
 esty of their dress, declaring he could see their garters 
 when they walked. (Can it be possible that these dis- 
 ciplined wives wore tilters!) He accused the men of 
 withholding their tithes. And he clamoured furiously 
 for money. 
 
 The robust sanctimoniousness of Salt Lake City 
 was evidenced in the petty details of life. Dr. White, 
 staring at the strange medley of stuff in a shop win-
 
 28 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 dow, heard the shopman urging a customer to buy a 
 fifty-cent shell, on which was engraved the Lord's 
 Prayer. "It will be a moral power in your family," 
 he said unctuously. "Your children will be eager to 
 learn from it. And you know" (patronizingly) "it 
 really is a beautiful prayer." 
 
 We cannot overestimate the value of a nine months' 
 voyage with distinguished associates to a man of Dr. 
 White's deeply impressionable mind. The scientific 
 knowledge he acquired counted for much. The 
 glimpses of Latin civilization, broadening as they did 
 the strictly local standards of the home-bred youth, 
 counted for more. The daily intercourse with scholars 
 counted for most of all. If, throughout his life, Dr. 
 Wftiite loved success, he had also the finer qualities 
 which enabled him to revere achievement. His per- 
 sonal ambitions remained unchanged; but he under- 
 stood and appreciated the higher aspirations of men 
 who pursue truth for truth's sake, expecting no com- 
 mon rewards, and receiving none. This is illustrated 
 by a page of the diary in which he notes down the fact 
 that Agassiz's salary at Harvard was for sixteen years 
 $1500; that it never rose above $3500; and that he 
 had working under him twenty-five assistants, some 
 of them men of fair scientific attainments, whose 
 aggregate salaries came to $14,000, an average of 
 $560. "Methinks," the young physician comments 
 dryly, "that science is not my vocation."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 BLOCKLEY AND THE PENITENTIARY 
 
 ABSORPTION in the present never meant for 
 Dr. White indifference to the future. He knew 
 very well what a hard climb lay before him, and 
 how much depended on the start. He knew also the 
 avenues to advancement, and who controlled the 
 right of way. While yet on board the Hassler, we 
 find him making strenuous efforts to obtain an ap- 
 pointment as resident physician in the Philadelphia 
 Hospital at Blockley. This post he received imme- 
 diately after his return, and held for a year, resigning 
 it in 1873 for the more important and far more inter- 
 esting position of resident physician in the Eastern 
 Penitentiary. He continued, however, to visit Block- 
 ley, and for three years laboured in this double field, 
 acquiring a wide experience of men and things, of 
 pauperism and criminology, of trustees and council- 
 men, of disease and death. His road was not an easy 
 one, and was made no easier by the breadth of his 
 views, the quickness of his temper, and the unyielding 
 character of his professional conscience. The Board 
 of Inspectors of the Penitentiary was a conservative 
 body, and its members were not in the habit of hav- 
 ing their duties expounded to them by an impetuous,
 
 30 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 impatient, and singularly clear-headed young doctor. 
 They did not like it, and Dr. White did not like 
 indifference and distrust. His connection with the 
 prison might have been abruptly terminated, and 
 his career injured, had it not been for the president 
 of the Board, Richard Vaux, formerly Mayor of 
 Philadelphia, and the treasurer, John M. Maris. 
 These two men gave him their steadfast support. Mr. 
 Vaux was himself an ultra conservative, and many 
 of the resident's views were distasteful to him; but, 
 being an able man, he liked ability, and, being a fear- 
 less man, he liked fearlessness. If he did not believe 
 in Dr. White's opinions, he believed sincerely and 
 wisely in Dr. WHbite; and men, not systems, counted 
 in his scale. 
 
 There are few records of these strenuous years, but 
 there is a startling reminder of them in a story 
 written long afterwards by Dr. White, and entitled 
 "Some Terminal Episodes hi the History of a Crim- 
 inal Family." It was never printed, being no more 
 than a hurried and roughly put together sketch, 
 meant to be read at a Christmas party, and at once 
 too crude and too gruesome for publication. But it is 
 a vivid picture of Philadelphia in 1874, and of con- 
 ditions which we would just as soon forget. Prison 
 reform was then in its timid infancy. Nobody called 
 a criminal a patient, or crime a malady. Pageants 
 and plays were unknown within the Penitentiary
 
 BLOCKLEY AND THE PENITENTIARY 31 
 
 walls. The appeal to honour and reason had not yet 
 revealed these qualities surviving in the felon's soul. 
 Fewer convicts became honest men; but, on the other 
 hand, no convict went out blackberrying, and forgot 
 to return. The city's politics disgraced its civilization. 
 The justly celebrated "Board of Buzzards" stole the 
 roof off the almshouse, a theft famous in the annals 
 of corruption. The paupers' bodies were dug up from 
 the Potter's Field, and sold to the medical schools 
 for dissection. When the* supply ran short, the stu- 
 dents performed this task for themselves, and drove 
 in triumph through the streets with the stolen corpse 
 propped up stiffly beside them. A snow-storm stopped 
 the traffic of the city. Decent citizens jested at the 
 shameful improbity it was their business to correct. 
 Mr. Thomas Lawson observed many years later that 
 it would be easier to float down Hell on a wax wafer 
 than to clean up Philadelphia politics. Had he been 
 contemplating conditions in the reign of the "Buz- 
 zards," he would have used or would have en- 
 deavoured to use a more vigorous expression. 
 
 The incidents in Dr. White's grisly little tale were 
 borrowed, for the most part, from his experience in 
 the Penitentiary. There he found the woman who 
 had kept a baby farm, and who had closed out the 
 business by killing all its inmates, including two of 
 her own offspring. There he found the man who had 
 smothered his mother-in-law, and buried her, with
 
 82 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 his wife's assistance, under the kitchen hearth. The 
 couple had gone on living amicably in the room, 
 cooking and eating in undismayed proximity to the 
 corpse. There he found the Baptist negro who, after 
 a heated argument with his cell-mate, a Methodist 
 negro, had ended the controversy by murdering the 
 offending heretic. The crowded condition of the Pen- 
 itentiary compelled the housing of two prisoners hi 
 one cell. The Methodist may have been the keener 
 doctrinaire, but the Baptist was the stronger man. 
 He vindicated his beliefs with the help of his shoe- 
 maker's knife, and slept composedly by his victim's 
 side for the remainder of the night. Through all this 
 dreadful narrative runs the vigorous spirit of youth. 
 The writer is not faint at heart over the spectacle of 
 vice, and crime, and wretchedness. He moves from 
 the Penitentiary to Blockley, from Blockley to the 
 dissecting-room, from the dissecting-room back to 
 the Penitentiary; fronting the wretched sights, and 
 sounds, and smells, as he fronts the snowdrifts piled 
 to his knee, and the absence of breakfast and dinner. 
 It was all in the day's work. 
 
 With Edward Townsend, the warden of the Peni- 
 tentiary, and with Michael Cassidy, the principal 
 overseer, Dr. White was always on good terms. 
 Cassidy, who became warden in 1881, and held the 
 post for many years, was a strict disciplinarian, 
 devoid of sentiment, and possibly of sympathetic
 
 BLOCKLEY AND THE PENITENTIARY 33 
 
 understanding; but he was humane, rational, and 
 immaculately just. If the prison he ruled offered no 
 attraction to criminals, neither was it a place where 
 hearts were cowed, and hope was lost. The young 
 resident took a friendly interest in many of the con- 
 victs, and was on terms of intimacy with at least 
 one, the famous "Irish giant," Ned Baldwin, who 
 stood six feet seven, and who was serving a sentence 
 for assault and battery committed when he was 
 drunk. From this man Dr. White took sparring 
 lessons, asking no mercy, and receiving none. The 
 course of instruction gave him many a bruised and 
 broken hour, but he profited by it all his life. 
 
 A less agreeable experience was an encounter with 
 an ex-bruiser, to whom he gave bitter offence by re- 
 fusing to allow him a sick diet. The man swore hide- 
 ously that as soon as he was released from prison he 
 would celebrate his freedom by cutting out the resi- 
 dent's heart, a threat which left Dr. White wholly un- 
 ruffled, but which he was destined to remember. A few 
 years later he was exercising with Indian clubs at the 
 gymnasium of " Professor " Billy McLean when the 
 door opened, and the ex-bruiser silently entered. The 
 doctor held fast to his clubs (wishing heartily they 
 were dumb-bells), and waited. The man stared for an 
 instant, then recognized his companion, and smiled 
 broadly. "Hallo, Doctor, glad to see you," he said 
 with democratic cordiality, and went about his busi-
 
 84 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 ness. Had he been a Sicilian! But Americans are ill- 
 disposed to rancour or revenge. 
 
 When Dr. White left the prison, and set up house- 
 keeping for himself on Sixteenth Street, he gave a 
 released convict his "chance." The man was an in- 
 telligent negro who had served a twelve years' sen- 
 tence for killing his wife. Dr. White took him for 
 a servant, trusted him, and slept alone in the house 
 with him for months. Could the unfortunate creature 
 have remained sober, he might have repaid this 
 trust with fidelity; but he drank, and, under the in- 
 fluence of liquor, stole. His master caught him in the 
 act, kicked him downstairs, found to his infinite 
 relief that this vigorous treatment had sobered with- 
 out injuring him, and turned the rogue out of doors, 
 thus severing what he thought was his last connec- 
 tion with the Penitentiary. The fates ruled other- 
 wise. Nine years later he was appointed by Governor 
 Pattison to be one of the Inspectors of the institution 
 he knew so well, and had so faithfully served.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 
 
 IN 1876 Dr. White spread his sails to a favouring 
 wind, and started upon his long, brilliant, and 
 arduous career as a practising surgeon in Phila- 
 delphia. He was at this time Assistant Demonstrator 
 of Practical Surgery in the Medical School of the 
 University of Pennsylvania, and also Assistant to the 
 Surgical Dispensary Service. Within two years he 
 received two posts, differing widely in their scope, in 
 the surroundings they involved, and in the duties 
 they entailed; but equally welcome to his keen and 
 many-sided ambition. In 1877 he was elected sur- 
 geon to the First City Troop, and in 1878 he was 
 given the lectureship on Venereal Diseases in the 
 University's Spring Session. The lectureship was in 
 line with his professional advancement, with his 
 sober studies; and reasonable aspirations. The posi- 
 tion in the City Troop was a daring venture, upon 
 which relatives and friends (cautious rather than 
 sympathetic) were disposed to look askance. It 
 meant entrance upon a career more gay than useful, 
 more vivid than strenuous, more pleasant than prof- 
 itable. Dr. White was only twenty-seven years old, 
 little known in his profession, and utterly unknown
 
 36 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 outside of it, without backing, and without fortune. 
 He gave great promise as a surgeon, but he was still 
 on the lowest rung of the ladder. Every step depended 
 upon his own discretion, no less than upon his own 
 ability. It seemed to many that he was imperilling 
 an honourable future for the sake of a very agreeable 
 present. 
 
 The temptation was irresistible. The golden chance 
 which fortune flung in his way was a challenge to 
 temerity, and the young, soberly bred doctor was the 
 last man in Christendom to reckon dangers too closely. 
 "The threat which runs through all the winning 
 music of the world'* was to him a lure rather than a 
 menace. His zest for the feast of life was to the end 
 undimmed and unvitiated. I cannot do better than 
 quote here a paragraph from the thoughtful and ad- 
 mirable paper of Thomas Robins, which aptly illus- 
 trates this phase of his friend's advancement: 
 
 "There were always two Whites. One was the man 
 who burned the midnight oil, the man ambitious for 
 professional success, the man whose wide reading and 
 studious turn of mind made him an effective teacher, 
 and a master of the intricacies of a difficult science. 
 That was the White of the profession. The other 
 White was a light-hearted boy, loving out-door life, 
 gay companionship, the society of men of the world, 
 the sports of the country gentleman, the midnight 
 chimes. That was the White who quickly acquired
 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 37 
 
 the wide acquaintance, and bound to himself, as with 
 hooks of steel, the affections of many men, and the 
 absolute devotion of a group who cared nothing for 
 his professional attainments, but who were willing to 
 trust any man who rode a steeplechase as fearlessly 
 as did the spectacled young surgeon. To his last hour, 
 White never knew which of the two lives he liked 
 the better, the one which threw him with scien- 
 tific men, or the other which allied him with the 
 votaries of Pan." 
 
 Forty years ago the passion for athletics was less 
 common, and far less glorified, than it is to-day. Dr. 
 White's prowess in this field was held to be, at best, 
 an eccentricity; at worst, a danger signal. A physician 
 was then expected to amble around from patient to 
 patient, from office to lecture room or dispensary; to 
 drive when he could afford it a covered buggy 
 with a negro boy to hold the horse; to grow round- 
 shouldered stooping over his desk; to have a good 
 bedside manner, and a list of acceptable stories. He 
 laboured under the disadvantage of not being able 
 to acquire a family practice until he was married, 
 and of not being able to marry until he had a practice. 
 He was held to book almost as rigidly as a clergyman. 
 Dr. White presented a sharp contrast to this recog- 
 nized and familiar type. He was just beginning to 
 "make good"; yet he spent his spare hours with 
 young, gay, light-hearted men, sparred with pugilists,
 
 38 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 rode hard and well, and swam from the Atlantic City 
 lighthouse to the "elephant," nine miles along the 
 coast. Perhaps if he had possessed the lazy good- 
 humour which so often accompanies great physical 
 strength, these feats might have been more easily 
 forgiven; but his irascible temper was imperfectly 
 controlled, his anger flared like a resinous torch, he 
 was as impatient of folly as if it were not the ap- 
 pointed portion of mankind, and he had not a gram 
 of meekness hi his spiritual constitution. Exaggera- 
 tion was foreign to his mind and speech. He was more 
 prone to under-statements than to over-statements 
 all his life. But he never understood the staying 
 power of patience; he never knew that the soul armed 
 with this weapon can fight against heavy odds. 
 
 If, as Mr. Robins says, young men in contra- 
 distinction to old ones were disposed to trust im- 
 plicitly in a doctor who shared their sports and 
 excelled in them, they did not trust in vain. Dr. 
 White repaid their confidence with kindness and wise 
 counsel. He understood the spirit of youth because 
 it throbbed exultantly in his own veins; but he had 
 always a clear insight into values. He knew that, in 
 the final analysis, it is character, and character only, 
 that counts. Excess was distasteful to him, weakness 
 unknown. M ens sana in corpore sano was the creed 
 he preached, the rule he lived by. There were gaps 
 in his philosophy, and far horizons which he never
 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 39 
 
 scanned; but he was a friend of all who faced life 
 bravely, and a tonic to the morally debilitated. 
 
 There was but one break for many years in his 
 professional life. In November, 1879, he went to 
 Europe for the first time, having in his charge his 
 uncle, Dr. S. S. White, who had been seriously ill. It 
 was a brief and tragic experience. The patient had 
 hardly reached France when he grew rapidly worse, 
 and died in Paris on December 30. His nephew re- 
 turned with the body, and never again crossed the 
 Atlantic until after his marriage in 1888. 
 
 As early as 1878 we find Dr. White in consultation 
 with the famous Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. D. Hayes 
 Agnew, who was to play so important a part in his 
 life. Dr. Agnew was then Professor of Surgery in the 
 University of Pennsylvania, a man of great ability, 
 of quiet wisdom, and of unbounded kindness; mod- 
 erate in the acquirement of wealth, generous with 
 his time and talents. He had taken for his model 
 the great French military surgeon, Jean Dominique, 
 Baron Larrey, whom Napoleon pronounced to be 
 the best man he had ever known, and whose versa- 
 tility equalled his virtues. Larrey was doctor and 
 nurse as well as surgeon. He invented the ambu- 
 lance volante for transporting wounded soldiers. He 
 amputated General Silly's leg on the battle-field 
 at Aboukir, under the enemy's fire, then took his 
 patient on his back, and carried him safely to the
 
 40 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 French lines. Dr. Agnew's sympathetic study of this 
 remarkable man was nearly as well known as were 
 his three volumes on "The Principles and Practice of 
 Surgery," a work used as a textbook in the United 
 States, Great Britain, and Japan. The years that Dr. 
 White served as assistant to Dr. Agnew were of in- 
 estimable value to him. In 1882 he was made Demon- 
 strator of Surgery; but his connection with the older 
 surgeon was never broken until the latter's retire- 
 ment from active work in 1889. He figures promi- 
 nently in Thomas Eakins's interesting painting of 
 Dr. Agnew at his Clinic, which was presented to the 
 University on the first of May, 1889, by the under- 
 graduate classes of the Medical Department. 
 
 Meanwhile two incidents had occurred which 
 brought Dr. White into the limelight of public no- 
 tice, earning for him angry abuse, and a fair share of 
 ridicule. In March, 1880, while he was on the surgi- 
 cal staff of the Philadelphia Hospital, some women 
 students who attended his Blockley clinics com- 
 plained that he showed distaste for their presence, 
 and that he sought to drive them away by unwar- 
 ranted freedom of speech. They presented their 
 grievance to Mr. James S. Chambers, President of 
 the Board of Guardians of the Poor. They also pre- 
 sented it to the public through the medium of the 
 daily press, greatly to the annoyance of the Dean of 
 the Women's Medical College, Dr. Rachel L. Bodley,
 
 Dr. Agnew at his Clinic: Dr. White Assisting 
 
 From the painting by Thomas Eakins (Copyright)
 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 41 
 
 who held stern views on the propriety of silence, 
 whose students seldom went to the Blockley clinics, 
 and who had never found occasion for complaint. 
 Dr. White explained curtly to the Board of Guardians 
 that like Dr. Agnew he did not wish to have 
 women at his clinics, because the nature of the dis- 
 eases with which they dealt, and the condition of the 
 patients treated at them, made the presence of fe- 
 male students undesirable. If, however, they thought 
 it well to come (this being their privilege), the only 
 course open to him was to conduct his clinics as if 
 they were young men. It seemed to him less decent 
 to emphasize the presence of women on such occa- 
 sions than to ignore it. The Board was at liberty to 
 ask for his resignation; but as long as he conducted 
 the clinics, he must do so in the way which seemed to 
 him most fitting. 
 
 The men students offered an earnest and indignant 
 defence of their instructor. Even the poor derelicts 
 whom he treated were eager to testify to his con- 
 sideration. The Hospital Committee investigated 
 the charges, exonerated him completely, and asked 
 the Board of Guardians for a vote of confidence, a 
 vote which should express absolute satisfaction with 
 his performance of his duties. There the matter 
 ended. The vindication strengthened Dr. White's 
 position, and gave deep satisfaction to his friends. 
 They knew that, although no perfected miracle of
 
 42 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 seemliness, he could no more have offered offence 
 to a modest woman than he could have struck a 
 child. 
 
 The second episode was of a non-professional char- 
 acter, and more far-reaching in its results. Forty 
 years ago, duelling was as obsolete in the United 
 States as it is to-day. It was, or men thought it 
 was, as extinct as the dodo. Yet Dr. White, dis- 
 regarding both custom and consequence, fought a 
 duel; a bloodless one, it is true, but none the less a 
 duel, with pistols, at fifteen paces, after the approved 
 fashion of other lands and centuries. His antagonist 
 was Robert Adams, Jr., and the simple subject of 
 dispute was the proper dress to be worn by a sur- 
 geon of the City Troop. Hitherto the gentlemen 
 holding this post had been content with a nonde- 
 script but obligatory costume, which included white 
 trousers and a blue frockcoat. Dr. White asked to be 
 permitted to wear the uniform of the Troop. Objec- 
 tions were raised by certain troopers, and voiced 
 with more force than courtesy by Mr. Adams. A 
 quarrel, a blow (given by Dr. White), a challenge 
 (sent by Mr. Adams), ensued. The duellists met 
 on the Maryland-Delaware border-line, Charles H. 
 Townsend acting as second for Dr. White, and 
 Alexander Wood for Mr. Adams. Dr. R. William 
 Ashbridge accompanied the party as surgeon. Shots 
 were exchanged, Dr. White being seen to fire in the
 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 43 
 
 air, the principals shook hands, and the five gentle- 
 men returned to Philadelphia. 
 
 Such an event could not possibly be held a secret. 
 Publicity was inevitable. To say that the newspapers 
 snatched their chance would be to faintly express 
 their satisfaction over this unusual and exciting 
 scandal. Had the Philadelphia press offered a vote of 
 thanks to the duellists for affording such priceless 
 subject-matter for comment and criticism, it would 
 have shown no more than decent gratitude. Instead 
 of this, the journals united in a chorus of dispraise. 
 They told the plain story over and over again with a 
 wealth of varying detail. They printed grave edito- 
 rials on the lawlessness of duelling. They demanded 
 that the law-breakers should be brought to justice. 
 They made merry over the casus belli. They heaped 
 ridicule upon the "callow youths" (Dr. White was 
 thirty years old), the fretful quarrel, the bloodless 
 contest. Even the New York papers dropped their 
 languid indifference to quiet Philadelphia, and took 
 notice of the two unquiet Philadelphians. The "Her- 
 ald" offered the gratuitous fiction that a lady, 
 "whose name has been suppressed out of respect 
 for the family," occasioned the duel. The "Sun" 
 opined that "unearned money and idleness do not 
 seem to agree any better with the young men of Phil- 
 adelphia than with the young men of New York," 
 a harmless shaft to aim at the self-supporting surgeon,
 
 44 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 who for ten years had not known or desired a respite 
 from hard work. 
 
 Amid all this buzz and hum, Dr. White went his 
 usual rounds, gave his lectures, visited his patients, 
 and kept his own counsel. His only recorded comment 
 (made to a persevering reporter) was to the effect 
 that he looked upon duelling "as a relic of a past age, 
 with which the present generation has nothing to do"; 
 a sensible generalization, but not under the cir- 
 cumstances enlightening. He let the newspapers 
 have their fling, recognizing it as their prerogative; 
 but he permitted no personal gibes or criticism, and 
 he was not the kind of man whom people lightly 
 offended. "The possession of great physical strength 
 is no mean assistance to a straightforward life," says 
 Augustine Birrell, commenting upon Dr. Johnson. 
 When Johnson was insulted by a rapacious book- 
 seller, he promptly knocked the fellow down. When 
 Foote proposed to caricature him on the stage, the 
 great "Christian lexicographer" replied that he 
 would, hi that event, thrash the caricaturist on the 
 street, and Foote prudently forbore. If Dr. Johnson 
 cherished few rancours, it was largely because he tol- 
 erated no liberties. In the same unaccommodating 
 spirit, Dr. White refused all his life to suffer any in- 
 jurious word or deed. When an irritable pedestrian 
 swore at him on the Philadelphia streets, he took the 
 trouble (and it involved a great deal of trouble) to
 
 SURGEON AND TROOPER 45 
 
 get out of his carriage, demand an apology, and 
 not receiving it knock the offender into the gutter. 
 A prompt arrest followed. Dr. White told Magistrate 
 Lennon that it was not his habit to permit insulting 
 language. The young man who had been bowled 
 over explained in his turn that a fracas was the last 
 thing he had anticipated or desired. "I had no idea 
 he" (Dr. White) "meant to fight," he said simply; 
 "and I told him to go to Hell, just as any other 
 gentleman would do under the circumstances." 
 
 The breach of law involved in the duel did no 
 great harm to Mr. Adams; but there is little doubt 
 that Dr. White suffered professionally. Nothing 
 could hold back his private practice, which was in- 
 creasing rapidly in volume and importance. Nothing 
 could shake the confidence which Dr. Agnew and 
 other surgeons reposed in his skill. But there was at 
 least one institution which would have none of him 
 because he had been a duellist. For years the inci- 
 dent was remembered against him. For years men 
 shook their heads as if they expected him to run 
 amuck through society. On the other hand, he 
 gained (for as much as it was worth) the point under 
 dispute, and more. He received his commission in the 
 City Troop, wore his uniform, and, after his faithful 
 fashion, remained for years deeply interested in its 
 work and welfare. 
 
 There came a day when the duellists nominally
 
 46 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 friends after the engagement sank all shadow of 
 animosity, and talked the matter over with good- 
 humoured unconcern. "You fired in the air, did n't 
 you?" asked Mr. Adams. "Yes, I did," answered 
 Dr. White. "I did n't," said Mr. Adams, "I fired at 
 you." 
 
 There were those who held that to this fortunate 
 circumstance Dr. White owed his life.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 MILESTONES 
 
 r ll-tUb; Chinese have a saying, as true as it is old, 
 JL that if a man is not tall when he is twenty, 
 strong when he is thirty, and wise when he is forty, 
 he will never be tall, nor strong, nor wise. After 1880, 
 Dr. White, having passed his thirtieth year, tall 
 enough for any eye, strong enough for any venture, 
 began seriously to qualify for wisdom. An able man 
 may enjoy the headlong pleasures of youth as simply 
 and as avidly as does a fool. His advantage lies in his 
 being able to enjoy other things as well. Ambition 
 strengthens with the first chilling of high spirits; the 
 overpowering interest of successful work weakens 
 the love of play; increasing obligations leave little 
 time for folly. A great deal has been said about the 
 dullness of duty; but the dullness of irresponsibility 
 is a more appalling article. It is poor fun to live in 
 the tree-tops with Peter Pan, when, down in the city 
 streets, men are battling for the worth of life. If Dr. 
 White never closed his heart to the memory of old 
 days, or to the associates who had lent them gaiety, 
 he turned his mind resolutely to the new order of 
 purpose and achievement. The annals of the Uni- 
 versity show him filling year by year positions of
 
 48 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 increased responsibility, Demonstrator of Surgery, 
 Lecturer, Assistant Surgeon on the Hospital Staff. 
 His profession engrossed his tune and interests. He 
 worked harder and harder as his will concentrated 
 itself upon the tasks of every day. If he kept a 
 quarrel or two on hand, it was only for the sake of 
 an occasional and needed distraction. 
 
 One gift was his throughout life. He was always 
 able to express his convictions and impart his knowl- 
 edge in terms which were intelligible to his chosen 
 audience. When he spoke to students, he bore in 
 mind their intellectual limitations, and made his 
 meaning clear as daylight to then* not very receptive 
 minds. When he gave his emergency lectures at 
 Blockley, his language was so simple, his demonstra- 
 tions so well chosen and so well executed, that no 
 one could fail to understand him. The laity was then 
 just beginning to realize the comprehensive nature 
 of its ignorance, its inability to give "first aid" to 
 the sick and injured. Dr. White's lectures became 
 enormously popular, and so fashionable that atten- 
 tive newspapers printed lists of names, headed 
 "Among those present," as if the sober audience 
 which gathered, notebook in hand, had been dancing 
 at an Assembly. 
 
 This was the time when the English nurse, Miss 
 Alice Fisher, was head of the Blockley training- 
 school, and had accomplished many needed reforms.
 
 MILESTONES 49 
 
 She was a woman who presented the rare combina- 
 tion of unusual intelligence, a pleasing address, and 
 heroic devotion to a purpose. The daughter of a 
 clergyman, the granddaughter of a head-master of 
 Eton, she had received admirable instruction in the 
 General Hospital, Birmingham. She brought with 
 her to this country a young and very handsome as- 
 sistant, Miss Edith Horner, who subsequently mar- 
 ried Senator Hawley of Connecticut. The two women 
 revolutionized the Philadelphia Hospital, which 
 could well "thole a mend"; and Dr. White lent them 
 his vigorous support. When in 1885 the typhoid epi- 
 demic broke out in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, Miss 
 Fisher asked for a two months' holiday, which she 
 spent organizing a hospital in the stricken town. The 
 conditions were appalling, relief came slowly, the 
 work to be done was beyond a woman's strength. But 
 her courage never failed, her tenacity toughened 
 under the weight of difficulties, and willing hands 
 carried out her measures as well as the disastrous 
 circumstances permitted. How many victims were 
 saved by her heroism none will ever know. Her own 
 life paid the forfeit. She returned to Philadelphia, 
 and took up her old work with her old interest and 
 vigour; but never with her old endurance. Her heart, 
 which had been weakened by an attack of inflam- 
 matory rheumatism fifteen years earlier, was se- 
 riously affected by the strain of those two bitter
 
 50 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 months. She died in June, 1888. Dr. White, who had 
 been from the first her friend and ally, was her de- 
 voted physician and her executor. Her memory was 
 long cherished by the Blockley nurses, who went in 
 procession every year to decorate her grave. It will 
 never, I trust, be wholly forgotten by the city which 
 she served. 
 
 Another remarkable illustration of Dr. WThite's 
 ability to reach his audience was the success which 
 attended his emergency lectures to the Philadelphia 
 police. The incident which occasioned them was com- 
 mon enough in the eighties, and is not altogether 
 uncommon to-day. A sick man, thought to be drunk, 
 was picked up on the streets, and locked in a station 
 cell to die. He did die, no other course being open to 
 him; and the evidence offered at the inquest of his 
 decent life lent weight -to the indignation aroused 
 by his lonely and pitiful death. Everybody said the 
 police ought to know illness from drunkenness, and 
 one man, Dr. WTiite, proposed to teach them the 
 difference. His suggestion was gladly adopted by 
 Mayor King. The lectures were given in the Police 
 Headquarters, in Horticultural Hall, in Association 
 Hall, and in the Medical Department of the Uni- 
 versity. An alert and attentive audience of from 
 seventy to five hundred men attended every one. 
 They were told how to treat accident cases, how to 
 relieve sunstroke and heat exhaustion, how to use a
 
 MILESTONES 51 
 
 stretcher, how to recognize symptoms of heart failure 
 and apoplexy. No man living could have conveyed 
 this information more clearly than did Dr. White, 
 or have riveted more closely the attention of his 
 hearers. The only danger lay in the excessive zeal of 
 the police, who showed a disposition to test their 
 freshly acquired proficiency by acting on their own 
 initiative in cases which might with propriety have 
 been confided to a doctor. 
 
 In December, 1884, a new and eminently sympa- 
 thetic field of work was opened to the busy surgeon, 
 who hailed it as rapturously as if his days were not 
 already full to overflowing. The University of Penn- 
 sylvania resolved to found a Department of Physical 
 Education, along the lines established by Harvard 
 College, and Dr. White was chosen to be its first 
 director. Nothing could have been more to his liking. 
 Since the days when he had lamented in his high 
 school theme that boys had too many lessons and 
 too little play, he had never ceased to urge the im- 
 portance of athletics. He knew the perils of a seden- 
 tary life, and the perils of violent and undirected ex- 
 ercise. He knew that a royal road to learning is no 
 harder to find than a royal road to health. The need 
 of a University Gymnasium had been ever present 
 in his mind. The position offered him was one of 
 dignity and importance. It made him a member of 
 the Faculty, it enabled him to advance a cause which
 
 52 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 he had deeply at heart, and it brought him into new 
 contact with the student body. 
 
 For three years he laboured unceasingly, and with- 
 out salary, to raise the standard of athletics. He 
 offered a cup for competition; he reorganized the 
 annual Bowl Fight, making it less of a scrimmage 
 and more of a contest; he began to raise money and 
 to consider plans for the Gymnasium. In November, 
 1886, we find him warmly seconding Dr. Sargent of 
 Harvard in a defence of college football. When his 
 election to the newly created chair of Genito-Urinary 
 Surgery at the University made it sheerly impossible 
 for him to continue to hold the directorship of Phys- 
 ical Education, he resigned it in 1887, with infinite 
 regret, and without any slackening of interest in its 
 work. His enthusiasm rose to fever pitch when, in 
 the same year, William Byrd Page, son of S. Davis 
 Page of Philadelphia, Assistant United States Treas- 
 urer, broke his own record, and, incidentally, the 
 world's record, by clearing the bar at six feet four 
 inches in a running jump on the University Athletic 
 Association grounds. That the English athletes, 
 Clarke and Ray, should have been present on this 
 memorable occasion added to the general satisfac- 
 tion. Philadelphia found herself, and was well pleased 
 to find herself, "respected like the lave." 
 
 In June, 1888, Dr. White married Letitia, daughter 
 of Mr. Benjamin H. Brown, and sailed with his bride
 
 MILESTONES 53 
 
 for England. From this year date the voluminous 
 diaries which he never failed to keep of his summer 
 wanderings; but, which, alas! always came to an end 
 when he returned home, and took up the really 
 interesting things of life. All records of travel are 
 curiously alike. Mr. Brownell says that, beside Haw- 
 thorne's "Note-Books," "Baedeker reads like Gib- 
 bon"; and where Hawthorne succumbed, who is 
 strong enough to resist? Good letter- writers grow 
 monumentally dull when they take a journey, and 
 tell us what they have seen, James Ho well being 
 the only notable exception to this rule. Dr. White's 
 diaries are full of minute detail, because, as in the old 
 Hassler days, he could not bear to leave anything 
 untold. That he should have had the time and the 
 patience to write them is one of the many marvels of 
 his life. He travelled hard and fast, he saw every- 
 thing that was to be seen; yet if he had his greatcoat 
 cleaned, or Mrs. White left her ulster to be shortened, 
 he made a leisurely entry of the fact. 
 
 In London he met the famous surgeon, Mr. Treves, 
 afterwards Sir Frederick Treves, and laid the foun- 
 dation of a singularly happy friendship. He also met 
 Sir Joseph Lister, afterwards Lord Lister, for whom 
 he entertained the deepest reverence, and with whom 
 he spent "the most interesting evening of my life," 
 talking antiseptic surgery until midnight. His own 
 lectures on antiseptics had crowded the University
 
 54 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 lecture room during the previous winter, and it was 
 with enthusiasm that he listened to the man whose 
 power of observation had revolutionized the treat- 
 ment of wounds, and saved so many lives. It was 
 significant of Dr. White's sane and robust attitude 
 to his profession that the saving of life was for him 
 the aim and end of surgery. Research, demonstration, 
 scientific principles, interested him less than the pa- 
 tient he had on hand, and who sometimes betrayed 
 a lamentable and unsportsmanlike disposition to die. 
 " E f aut beaucoup pardonner a la nature," said Fagon, 
 the famous physician of Louis the Fourteenth. Dr. 
 White forgave nothing. He entertained a deep and 
 well-warranted suspicion that what nature is after 
 is to kill, and he fought this purpose with all the 
 energy of his soul. Being asked once if the skill of a 
 surgeon lay in his knowledge of anatomy, in the sure- 
 ness of his diagnosis, or in the delicacy of his touch, 
 he said simply that, to his mind, the skill of a sur- 
 geon lay in his ability to keep his patient alive after 
 an operation. Otherwise, cui bono ? 
 
 It was perhaps inevitable that, in this first foreign 
 summer, Dr. WHhite should have behaved as if nothing 
 in Europe was going to last another year. Not sat- 
 isfied with Paris hospitals, and German rivers, and 
 Swiss glaciers, and Flemish pictures, the dauntless 
 pair went buoyantly to Italy in August, and have 
 left it ota record that, on the fifteenth of that in-
 
 MILESTONES 55 
 
 auspicious month, they saw Pompeii and climbed 
 Vesuvius. Pompeii and Vesuvius on one day, and 
 that day the 15th of August! "Few women could 
 have accomplished it," writes the diarist proudly; 
 and, of a certainty, not many would have tried. 
 " For five successive summers the programme of Eu- 
 ropean travel was repeated, but never at the same 
 impetuous speed, and never with the same heavy 
 sense of responsibility. By the following June the 
 doctor had grown so lax that he could write hi his 
 diary, "It is hardly worth while to attempt a de- 
 scription of the Elgin marbles." Twelve months be- 
 fore he would not have turned idly from this task. 
 He can also accuse his friend and companion, Hart- 
 man Kuhn, of making up his diary with an open 
 Baedeker for inspiration. Baedekers and tourist 
 diaries are as inseparable as the Siamese twins. The 
 correctness with which Dr. White packs the conso- 
 nants into the names of his Welsh villages proves the 
 benign presence of a guide-book. 
 
 The summer of 1890 contained three memorable 
 experiences. A lazy little trip with Treves and his 
 family in a house-boat on the Broads, a tour of the 
 Berlin hospitals hi company with Sir Joseph Lis- 
 ter, and a visit to Count Pappenheim (who had 
 married Miss Mary Wheeler of Philadelphia) in his 
 Bavarian home. The first occurrence was the most 
 enjoyable. The carefully planned idleness of an Eng-
 
 56 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 lish holiday was a revelation to the busy American 
 tourists. The boat, like the famous Mississippi 
 steamer, was warranted to float "wherever the 
 ground was a little damp." Its occupants were con- 
 genial companions. "I consider it great good luck," 
 notes the doctor hi his diary, "that Treves should 
 turn out to be the sort of fellow he is; as fond of 
 bathing and swimming as I am" (which meant that 
 he was semi-amphibious), "and ready for any kind 
 of fun." The Bavarian visit involved meeting a great 
 many Germans, new in type, and therefore pro- 
 foundly interesting to Dr. White, who, all his life, 
 approached men of every rank and condition with 
 mental ease. It was this distinguishing characteristic, 
 coupled with the tenacity of his friendships, which 
 made human intercourse so sweet. 
 
 As for the Berlin hospitals, the diary must speak 
 for itself. There are several entries, but one will suf- 
 fice. The doctor went with Lister to see Dr. Von 
 Bergmann, who had the most important surgical 
 practice in the Empire, demonstrate in the Royal 
 Clinic his method of dressing wounds. A number of 
 women, whose breasts had been excised for cancer, 
 were shown to the students. "The scars were ugly, 
 pigmented, irregular and irritable," writes the Amer- 
 ican surgeon. "The dressings stank. Pus ran out of 
 the wounds. I have helped Agnew with hundreds of 
 these cases, and have operated on dozens of them,
 
 MILESTONES 67 
 
 and I can truthfully say that we have never had 
 such wretched results. Other cases brought in were 
 not much better, and I left the Clinic, disgusted with 
 this first glimpse of German surgery. Lister shared 
 my view, and expressed himself strongly to me on 
 the subject." 
 
 In the summer of 1891, Dr. and Mrs. White went 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Harrison on their yacht, 
 Speranza, to Norway and the North Cape, to Stock- 
 holm and to Russia. It was a life of comparative 
 leisure (save for a breathless rush to Moscow), and 
 of superlative luxury. Eating and drinking play a 
 heavy part in the yachtman's monotonous existence 
 (there were days when the bill of fare was apparently 
 the only thing to be noted); and one wonders if, in 
 this welter of menus, the doctor ever recalled the 
 long, long week of pork and beans and hard work on 
 the heaving decks of the Hassler. He plunged deeply 
 into Russian history by way of preparing for St. 
 Petersburg, and was a bit dumbfounded by this first 
 introduction to the annals of the Romanoffs. "The 
 only thing I know to compare with it in the way of 
 family history," he writes, "is one of those that we 
 made in our reports at the Eastern Penitentiary, to 
 show how criminality may be inherited." 
 
 It was at the close of this varied tour that a new 
 light broke upon Dr. White's mind, a new resolve 
 entered his soul. Europe attracted him as powerfully
 
 58 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 as ever, but Europe did not necessarily imply per- 
 petual motion. If Treves could stay in one place 
 (and that place usually remote from civilization), 
 and be happy, why should not he? The English sur- 
 geon's simple conception of surroundings was like 
 that of Thomas a Kempis: "What canst thou see 
 elsewhere that thou dost not see here? Behold the 
 heavens, and the earth, and all the elements; for out 
 of these are all things made." The American surgeon, 
 town-bred, and with the restlessness of his race, 
 could never attain that serene hold upon nature, 
 that closeness to mother earth, which gives the 
 Briton, as it gave Antaeus, his mighty staying-power. 
 But he was well equipped for an ordinary outdoor 
 life. A strong swimmer, a tireless walker, an admir- 
 able horseman, a devoted cyclist, a persevering fish- 
 erman, he could always make sure of occupation and 
 fatigue. In every one of these fields Mrs. White 
 played her heroic part, vaulting ambition making 
 up for any lack of physical endurance. A determi- 
 nation to "travel less and rest more" is recorded in 
 the diary, and it bore fruit in two successive English 
 holidays, one spent in West Lulworth, and one in the 
 Scillies, and both filled to the brim with the simple 
 happenings common to English country life. 
 
 Now and then a very uncommon happening va- 
 ried the pleasant monotony. A little Lulworth girl, 
 twelve years old, the daughter of Captain Lecky of
 
 MILESTONES 59 
 
 the coast guard, slipped over a cliff three hundred 
 and eighty feet high, falling on a rough pebbly shore, 
 and sustaining no other injury than a broken ankle. 
 The two surgeons attended the child who was so hard 
 to kill, and vouched for her recovery. Sometimes the 
 exigencies of British decorum bore heavily on the 
 roving American. Dr. White was not wont to go to 
 church, and his laxness in this regard startled Mr. 
 Treves's little daughters, who had attached them- 
 selves ardently to their father's friend. For weeks 
 they asked no questions, and then curiosity and 
 desire got the better of politeness. "Why don't you 
 ever come to church with us?" said the younger and 
 bolder child. "Because, my dear," was the sober 
 answer, " I promised my mother that I never would." 
 The summer of 1894 stands out from the rolling 
 years because it was actually spent "at home," if 
 a hunter's camp in the Rockies can be so described. 
 Lured by the seductive narratives of Dr. Charles B. 
 Penrose, and dazzled by his exploits, Dr. and Mrs. 
 White forswore civilization for three months, and 
 fled to the wilderness with a train of five saddle- 
 horses, eleven pack-horses, two admirable guides, 
 and a bad cook. Their first camp was pitched by 
 Hell Roaring Creek, whose headlong falls were not 
 then coveted by contending industries; their second, 
 on Snake River above Jackson's Lake. A tepee or 
 Indian lodge, fifteen feet in diameter and fifteen
 
 60 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 feet high, with three feet of door and a hole to let 
 out the smoke, made them a dry and comfortable 
 habitation. A cooking tent, a dining tent, and sleep- 
 ing tents for the men completed then* quarters. Their 
 principal avocations were fishing for reluctant trout 
 (even the hungry and credulous lake trout scorned 
 their advances), and pursuing the trail of deer and 
 elk which seldom or never materialized. In the happy 
 absence of letters and newspapers, they were able to 
 concentrate then* attention upon matters at hand, 
 upon those few and bleak essentials which are alike 
 for the savage and the civilized man. 
 
 The abundant entries in the diary (there was time 
 and to spare for writing) reveal, not so much enjoy- 
 ment, as a heroic determination to enjoy. Dr. White 
 loved the long rough rides, the exhilarating altitude, 
 seven thousand feet above the sea, the splen- 
 dour of his surroundings. For a happy man, he was 
 always singularly sensitive to natural scenery, which, 
 to many of us, is a solace reserved for old age and 
 disappointments. He was content with the whole- 
 some simplicities of a hunter's life, bread and ba- 
 con and cheese for a noonday meal, elk steaks and 
 onions at night. When the butter grew strong enough 
 to "walk alone," he contentedly resigned this be- 
 loved article of diet. He began by bathing gingerly 
 and by sections in the ice-cold mountain streams, 
 and he ended, like a good mountaineer, by narrowing
 
 MILESTONES 61 
 
 the sections until they reached "the nearest thing to 
 nothing." He slept soundly in his warm bag, and 
 he endured, though not with equanimity, the on- 
 slaughts of mosquitoes. He let his beard grow, "the 
 ugliest thing of its age ever seen," and he looked 
 to the dispassionate eyes of his wife "like a cross 
 between Bill Sikes and the Wandering Jew." 
 
 But he had a not unreasonable conviction that 
 the compensation of a hunter's life is hunting; and 
 the scarcity of game, combined with his own in- 
 expertness, caused him many disappointments. He 
 records proudly, but soberly, that Mrs. White sur- 
 passed him as a rifle shot; and, indeed, she brought 
 down her first bull elk fifteen days, and her second 
 eight days, before he shot his one and only but 
 very handsome specimen. Her amazing pluck, 
 energy, and fortitude enabled her to bear endless 
 fatigue and exposure. When they changed camps, 
 she rode twelve hours, climbing rough trails, wading 
 deep fords, and coming in at nightfall "quite chip- 
 per." When I add that she learned to cook their 
 simple fare Dr. White "couldn't boil a quart of 
 water without burning it" and to wash their 
 scanty outfit, it must be admitted that she was the 
 better backwoodsman of the two. 
 
 In the Penrose camp, all was different. Dr. Penrose 
 was an old hand at the sport. The game, which so 
 gleefully eluded Dr. White, fell easy victims to his
 
 62 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 practised hand. The fish, when he cast his fly, recog- 
 nized their appointed destiny, and rose briskly to 
 fulfil it. Moreover, he could cook, and dearly loved 
 this noble and civilizing art. He permitted Mrs. 
 Penrose to make the coffee, and one of the guides 
 to bake the bread and biscuits; but "soups, meats 
 and fancy dishes" he took under his own care. His 
 chowders and stews were so savoury that his hungry 
 friends offered him five dollars a day to come over to 
 then* camp and cook. The mere sight of him flour- 
 ishing ladles and basting-forks, and wiping these in- 
 struments on his buckskin breeches, filled the on- 
 lookers with admiration and with appetite. "If we 
 should run out of provisions before the end of the 
 summer," comments Dr. White musingly, "those 
 buckskins would make rich nutritious soup which 
 would keep us all alive for a week." 
 
 To the Penrose camp came hunters and trappers, 
 friends of other seasons, who told strange tales of 
 then* rude, adventurous lives. The one who most 
 deeply interested the Whites was an Englishman, 
 Richard Lee, known as "Beaver Dick," who had 
 been brought to this country a child of eight, and 
 reared hi the woods like a young savage. He had 
 married two Indian wives, and he told his sympa- 
 thetic listeners how he and his first wife and six 
 children had unwittingly moved into a cabin where 
 there had been a case of smallpox; in consequence
 
 MILESTONES 63 
 
 of which mishap he had, as he feelingly expressed it, 
 "lost the whole damn outfit in a week." His second 
 wife, "Suse," was a capable treasure of a woman, a 
 true helpmate, with all the useful arts of savagery 
 and civilization at her finger-ends. 
 
 On the whole, the camping summer was a satis- 
 factory one, an interesting thing to have done. 
 Dr. White never regretted the experience, and never 
 repeated it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 
 
 WHILE the summers sped smoothly by, the 
 winters in Philadelphia were rough, tumul- 
 tuous, and triumphant. In February, 1889, Dr. White 
 was elected to the chair of Clinical Surgery hi the 
 University of Pennsylvania. His eminence in his 
 profession was undisputed, and it was with the voice 
 of authority that he upheld two great and sorely 
 needed reforms, the Medical Examiners' Bill, and 
 the four years' course for medical students. The bill, 
 which aimed at protecting the public from ignorant 
 practitioners, was warmly supported by Dr. Agnew 
 and Dr. Pepper. It is amazing to reflect upon the 
 indifference of the general public thirty years ago as 
 to the fitness of the young men turned out from 
 cheap schools, and permitted to practise upon the 
 public. Sir Walter Scott once found a Scottish black- 
 smith parading as a doctor in an English village. 
 When he remonstrated with the man upon his in- 
 iquitous conduct, and asked him if he did not some- 
 times kill his patients, the loyal Caledonian answered 
 composedly: "Oh, aye, maybe sae. Whiles they die, 
 and whiles no; but it's the will o' Providence. Ony 
 how, your Honour, it wad be lang before it makes
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 65 
 
 up for Flodden." In much the same spirit, a host of 
 stalwart young blunderers gave to an American pub- 
 lic the benefit of their comprehensive ignorance. 
 
 There was no great difficulty in pushing the bill 
 through the state legislature; but what Agnew and 
 Pepper and White had never anticipated was the claim 
 made by Homceopathists and Eclectics to an equal 
 representation on the board. There were then in 
 Pennsylvania about seven thousand allopathic, seven 
 hundred homoeopathic, and three hundred eclectic 
 physicians. An amendment to the bill provided that 
 the Governor should not appoint on the board of 
 examiners a majority of any one school. It was car- 
 ried, some shadowy notion of fair play to the 
 under dog influencing our kind-hearted lawgivers. 
 The consequence was that the irregulars had a work- 
 ing majority over the regulars, who naturally did 
 not like it. Those were days when the rival schools 
 "fought bitter and regular like man and wife." 
 There was no pretence of accommodation on one 
 side, or smiling indifference on the other. 
 
 As for the four years' course of study, the argu- 
 ments against it were all purely and frankly senti- 
 mental. Such legislature, it was urged, was aimed at 
 the poor boy who could not afford to spend four years 
 in a medical school. It favoured the rich man's son 
 to whom time and money meant nothing. It was un- 
 fair and tyrannous to students in needy circum-
 
 66 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 stances. No one, it will be observed, wasted a thought 
 upon the patients (poor enough often) whom these 
 half-trained young men were going to assist to their 
 graves. Dr. Roberts Bartholow of Jefferson College 
 was of the opinion that a two years' course would 
 be quite long enough, because, as he naively said, 
 a student's real education came after he had grad- 
 uated. In other words, he would be taught by his 
 failures, a consoling reflection. Dr. James E. 
 Garretson of the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital de- 
 nounced all measures of reform. He did not want a 
 board of examiners. He did not want a four years' 
 course of study. He wanted things to be just as they 
 had always been. On the other hand, Dr. J. W. 
 Holland, Dean of Jefferson, and Dr. Clara Marshall, 
 Dean of the Woman's Medical College, emphatically 
 supported the four years' course. It may be observed 
 that England at this time required four years of 
 study, and France, five; while, in the United States, 
 Kentucky had a medical school which graduated a 
 student in nine months; and Tennessee and Georgia 
 were little more exacting. It was high time that 
 American physicians took a stand against such per- 
 ilous inefficiency. Dr. White, who held his profession 
 in honour, and who heartily mistrusted the line of 
 least resistance, worked unceasingly for a higher 
 level of attainment. Six years later, we find him writ- 
 ing to the "University Courier" a spirited defence
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 67 
 
 of the new entrance examinations demanded by the 
 Medical Department of the University, examina- 
 tions which were thought by many to be needlessly 
 severe. "If there should arise," he said, "as a result 
 of this advancement in entrance requirements, any 
 necessity for a choice between a class of four or five 
 -hundred men, well prepared for the work of their 
 lives, and a class of eight or nine hundred of infe- 
 rior scientific attainments, I am confident that the 
 Faculty would unhesitatingly accept the former al- 
 ternative, and would be upheld in that position by 
 the Trustees, with whom the final decision must 
 rest." 
 
 The same winter which witnessed Dr. White's 
 advancement in the University saw him waging a 
 brave but losing battle for his position as chief of the 
 surgical staff of the Philadelphia Hospital. It is a 
 curious story of political intrigue and personal ani- 
 mosity. Dr. James W. White, Senior, had served for 
 years as president of the Board of Charities and Cor- 
 rection. From this thankless and onerous post he 
 was summarily dismissed, "without executive com- 
 ment," by Mayor Fitler, who ruled the city pater- 
 nally, and was averse to giving reasons for his acts. 
 An angry correspondence ensued. The Mayor, en- 
 trenched in authority, and outraged by the comments 
 of Dr. J. William White, Junior, promptly demanded 
 his resignation from the staff of the Philadelphia
 
 68 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Hospital. With equal promptness and superior 
 vigour, Dr. White refused to resign; whereupon the 
 Mayor called upon the directors of the Board of 
 Charities and Correction to dismiss the recalcitrant 
 surgeon. A fearful fracas followed. The press con- 
 demned municipal despotism, and printed cartoons 
 of Fitler hi crown and ermine robes. The University 
 students and the students who attended the Phila- 
 delphia Hospital clinics made noisy demonstrations 
 in favour of their instructor. But the directors, or at 
 least three out of the five, did as they were bidden. 
 Dr. Richard A. Cleeman supported Dr. WTiite. Mr. 
 Richard McMurtrie refused to vote. Five other Uni- 
 versity physicians were retired at the same time, and 
 their places filled by men from Jefferson College and 
 the Medico-Chirurgical. Dr. H. R. Wharton, who 
 was elected to fill Dr. White's position, flatly refused 
 to accept it. Four years later, Dr. White was rein- 
 stated in his post amid clamorous rejoicings, and he 
 held it until 1898, when his ever increasing duties at 
 the University compelled him to reluctantly resign. 
 
 In April, 1890, Dr. White contributed to the " Med- 
 ical News" an article recommending the electric 
 chair in place of the gallows. It is a strong argument, 
 and, what is more, a readable paper, showing that 
 curious literary twist which he was wont to give to 
 subjects seemingly remote from literature. It also 
 reveals a relentless common sense, sharply at va-
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 69 
 
 riance with the sentimentality then beginning to dom- 
 inate a restless, anxious, and humane public. He ad- 
 vocates electricity because it is less terrifying and 
 painful to the criminal. But he advocates it still more 
 urgently because the brutality of hanging, and its 
 sinister associations, influence juries to acquit, and 
 governors to pardon. "Punishment," he says truly, 
 "is a deterrent influence in proportion to its certainty, 
 not its severity." His association with the Peniten- 
 tiary had given him an insight into that direful thing, 
 the criminal mind, and had convinced him that the 
 most powerful influence to control it is a reasonable 
 fear of the law, and of the consequences of breaking 
 the law. He agrees with Dr. Holmes's verdict: "Noth- 
 ing stands hi the way of the selfish motive which 
 leads to crime except some stronger selfish motive." 
 He quotes with relish a passage from an intercepted 
 letter written by a convict in Australia (where a 
 murderous assault upon a warden was at that time a 
 capital offence) to a fellow cracksman at home. "They 
 top" (hang) "a cove out here for slogging a bloke. 
 That bit of rope, dear Jack, is a great check on a 
 man's temper." 1 
 
 In November, 1890, the first importation of Dr. 
 Robert Koch's famous "lymph" reached Philadel- 
 phia. The press and public were greatly agitated 
 
 1 The Punishment and Prevention of Crime. By Colonel Sir Edmund 
 Du Cane, Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain.
 
 70 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 over its arrival; the physicians, cautious and reserved. 
 The five members of the Philadelphia Tuberculosis 
 Commission, to whom was entrusted the handling of 
 the new remedy, were Dr. William Pepper, Dr. James 
 Tyson, Dr. John Musser, Dr. White, and Dr. John 
 Guiteras, who had gone over to Germany to study 
 its use, and was still in Berlin. There was a painful 
 rush to the hospitals of patients eager for the magic 
 cure, yet so unreasonably alarmed that, after the 
 first injection, many refused a second, and many 
 more a third. Eight cases were selected for treatment 
 at the University Hospital, those of lupus being as- 
 signed to Dr. WTiite. Reporters, who had hitherto 
 been restricted to glimpses of the little tubes filled 
 with reddish-brown liquid, were admitted to the 
 operating-room; and one of them, true to his training, 
 described with accuracy and animation the rings on 
 the fingers of a female patient. The lymph brought 
 nothing but disappointment to the sick, and to the 
 less sanguine physicians. Confidence waned steadily 
 until its flickering gleams died in a dead level of 
 despondency. There are few things sadder than the 
 long story of "cures" for the incurables. Hope dies 
 so hard, and human beings so easily. 
 
 In the spring of 1891, Dr. William Pepper's gen- 
 erous gift of fifty thousand dollars to the permanent 
 endowment fund of the Medical Department of the 
 University, and the ready assistance proffered by
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 71 
 
 Dr. Agnew, Dr. White, Dr. William Goodell, and Dr. 
 H. C. Wood, relieved the school from financial strain, 
 raised its standard, and insured the four years' 
 course, so essential to its dignity and usefulness. 
 The following March, Dr. Agnew died, full of years 
 and honours, leaving behind him a name cherished 
 by friends, and reverenced by his profession. A year 
 later Dr. White was elected patron of the D. Hayes 
 Agnew Surgical Society. It was a responsibility he 
 did not covet, and an honour he could not refuse. He 
 was formally installed at the annual dinner of the 
 society in the Bellevue-Stratford, and the enthusiasm 
 which greeted him expressed alike the pride the city 
 took in his achievements, and the warm affection of 
 his friends. His speech on this occasion, as on all other 
 occasions, had that ring of candour, of straight and 
 strong sincerity, which never failed to reach his 
 hearers' hearts. He summed up the experience of 
 forty-three years when he said, "I have been reason- 
 ably successful in life; but I have always felt in my 
 own case the truth of Dr. Franklin's words, that, if 
 men are honest, they will admit that their success is 
 more of a marvel to themselves than it can ever be 
 to others." 
 
 An instance of undoubted success, which surprised 
 no one, was the reception accorded to "The Ameri- 
 can Text-Book of Surgery," edited by Dr. W. W. 
 Keen and Dr. White, and published in 1893. It was
 
 72 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 immediately adopted by forty-nine medical schools 
 and colleges, including the Kansas City Homreo- 
 pathic Medical College, which knew a good thing 
 when it saw one. Australia welcomed the book warmly, 
 and its steady sales compelled its editors to issue, three 
 years later, a new and revised edition. 
 
 In the summer of 1895, Dr. and Mrs. White went 
 to Spain and southern France. On the voyage to 
 Gibraltar they encountered Mr. John Sargent, the 
 artist; and an acquaintance begun over a game of 
 chess, the "glad conquest" of a summer hour, rip- 
 ened into a warm and lifelong friendship. Together 
 they travelled to Tangiers and to Granada, where 
 Sargent lingered while the more impetuous tourists 
 speeded on then* way. He had come to Spain to make 
 studies of the Spanish Madonnas; and although no 
 word of his could open Dr. White's eyes and heart to 
 the beauty of Murillo (a love for whom is one of life's 
 benefactions), and although no argument of the doc- 
 tor's could arouse in the artist's soul a true eager- 
 ness for athletics, the two men had, nevertheless, a 
 hearty enjoyment of each other's companionship. It 
 is amusing to note that when, hi 1898, Dr. White's 
 enthusiasm for cycling had reached its lieight, he 
 actually bullied Sargent into buying a new wheel, 
 declaring, on the authority of a surgeon, that his 
 friend was "soft and in need of exercise." The follow- 
 ing summer, golf was his ruling passion; and the poor
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 73 
 
 artist, having come trustfully to visit him at Barton 
 Court, was sent at once around the links with Mrs. 
 White as an instructor. "It would be a good thing 
 for him if he should come to like it," writes the doctor 
 with enchanting seriousness in his diary. 
 
 It was in the spring of this year, 1899, that the 
 report of Mr. Sargent's death in London had reached 
 the United States, and, before there was time to con- 
 tradict it, the American newspapers snatched their 
 chance to print long-cherished portraits, and ex- 
 haustive notices of his work. Fatigue in connection 
 with the Royal Academy Hanging Committee was 
 given as the somewhat inadequate cause of death. 
 "Expired after a brief illness at the house of his son,'* 
 was the headline to which the great artist took, as 
 an unmarried man, especial exception. "Had I died 
 anywhere," he said virtuously, "it would not have 
 been in the house of a son." 
 
 Dr. White's friendship with Mr. Edwin Abbey was 
 as warm and as constant as his friendship with Mr. 
 Sargent. He never went to England without paying 
 a brief visit to Morgan Hall at Fairf ord, where Abbey 
 had built a studio "as big as a barn," and where in 
 1897 he was hard at work on the "Holy Grail" dec- 
 orations for the Boston Library. These crowded and 
 glowing canvases, Dr. White pronounces to be 
 "simply magnificent"; and there is little doubt that 
 in the artist's vast and empty studio they had the
 
 74 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 space they need, and did not appear to be pushing 
 the public out of the room, as they do in their nar- 
 rower confines. 
 
 The inextinguishable passion for athletics coloured 
 Dr. White's life, affording him the pleasures of his 
 youth, the enthusiasms of his middle age, and the 
 adamantine convictions which lasted until his death. 
 The summer of 1896 was spent in New England, and 
 he had the supreme satisfaction of witnessing the 
 Newport swimming feats of Mr. Peter McNally, Mr. 
 Charles Oelrichs, and Mr. Robert Ralston. They 
 interested him all the more deeply because, sixteen 
 years earlier, he himself had covered the course now 
 mapped out for one of the younger athletes. In Sep- 
 tember, 1880, he swam from the Spring Wharf, New- 
 port, across the harbour, past Fort Adams WTiarf , and 
 south of Beaver Tail to the head of Narragansett 
 Pier Beach. The distance was nine miles, the day 
 chill and windy, the time four hours and fifty min- 
 utes. Twice during the swim, a raw egg and a dash of 
 sherry was handed out to him from the accompany- 
 ing boat. Even at forty-six, though he could no longer 
 repeat the triumphs of his youth, he took part in 
 a genial game devised by Mr. Oelrichs, and called 
 "Angling for Men." The swimmer was attached to 
 a stout line which did not interfere with his motions. 
 If he were hauled by the anglers into the boat, he 
 lost his game. If he successfully resisted them, he
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 75 
 
 won. Mr. Belmont, Mr. Theodore Havemeyer, and 
 Mr. James Kernochan angled thirty-eight minutes 
 for Dr. White, while the gray-haired and distin- 
 guished surgeon plunged, gambolled, and strained 
 in the heaving waters. He was dragged to within a 
 hundred feet of the anchored boat, but not close 
 enough to be landed. It was an engaging sport. 
 
 To a man so deeply concerned with every form of 
 exercise, the college football games were necessarily 
 matters of vital interest. As surgeon for the Pennsyl- 
 vania team, Dr. White stood responsible for the 
 men's physical condition; as a most loyal son of the 
 University, their victories filled him with elation, 
 their defeats with gloom. The controversy over pre- 
 liminary training raged hotly in the autumn of 1896. 
 The Pennsylvania men were taken in the summer to 
 Long Island for three weeks' practice. Harvard, Yale, 
 and Princeton had abandoned this system, though 
 their teams met occasionally in the holidays to "try 
 out." Mr. Caspar Whitney, writing in "Harper's 
 Weekly," attacked the summer training as savour- 
 ing unduly of professionalism. Mr. Henry Geyelin, 
 Mr. John Bell, Mr. George Wharton Pepper, and 
 Dr. White defended it vigorously, not only because 
 it put the men in good shape, but because it saved 
 time and fatigue when they were back in college. A 
 vast deal of comment, not unmixed with acrimony, 
 was expended on this dispute. Those were care-free
 
 76 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 days. We look back on them now very much as 
 Pandora might, in her old age, have looked back 
 upon the smiling, frolicsome years when the box-lid 
 was shut down, and no troubles had been let loose 
 upon the world. 
 
 As for the safety-loving people, the pacifists of that 
 time, who condemned football in toto as a brutal and 
 dangerous game, Dr. White entertained for them a 
 sincere and outspoken contempt. Their point of view 
 was alien to his spirit. He knew that in England, 
 as well as in the United States, there were men and 
 women who held these unworthy opinions; and he 
 was much comforted by a letter from Treves, de- 
 fending football, not only as one of the best and 
 bravest, but as one of the safest of sports. "More 
 lads die from loafing in a public house on Saturday 
 afternoons," wrote the British surgeon, "than ever 
 die from playing football one afternoon in the week. 
 I played every Saturday during the season until I 
 was twenty-one. I was a member of the Hospital 
 team, and we played in only first-class matches. I 
 can recollect hi all this time only two cases of con- 
 cussion, two broken legs, and some broken ribs. As 
 for myself, I broke two metacarpal bones, and that 
 was all. Put these broken bones on the debit side, and 
 then try to estimate what must be written on the 
 credit side. To drive through the streets in a hansom 
 cab is more dangerous than to play football matches,'*
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 77 
 
 There are readers to whom Treves's list of casual- 
 ties suggests the philosophic attitude of a country- 
 woman who was asked if she did not find an unpro- 
 tected well-curb a bit dangerous for her large family 
 of children. "Well, no," she said thoughtfully, "not 
 so bad as you might think. We've lived here nigh on 
 to seven years, and have lost only two of 'em." 
 
 But, after all, to inquire too curiously into dangers, 
 to count too closely the cost of all we do, is a dis- 
 quieting and a withering process. We lose a great 
 deal, and such is the irony of fate we are not 
 sure of saving anything. There is a satisfactory little 
 poem of Bret Harte's, in which the man who dares 
 not hunt lest he be hurt, and who dares not sail lest 
 he be drowned, stays at home, and is swallowed up 
 in an earthquake. Dr. White's simple and brave 
 philosophy was proof against every form of panic. 
 He gave it voice at the reception offered by the Mask 
 and Wig Club to the Pennsylvania football team, in 
 November, 1898. It had been a hard season, and the 
 Thanksgiving game which closed it had been played 
 and well played hi the teeth of a furious storm. 
 I quote a portion of Dr. White's speech on this occa- 
 sion, because it expresses with animation and sin- 
 cerity his lifelong point of view: 
 
 "Last Thursday gave apparent support to those 
 who object to football on account of the exposure it 
 involves; and the game, from that standpoint, will
 
 78 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 probably never have a more severe test. This is the 
 only time I have seen it played under such circum- 
 stances, and it is unlikely that it will be so played 
 again. I therefore regard Thursday as a supreme test 
 of the sincerity of my own convictions, and I have 
 thought much and seriously on the matter since then. 
 During the whole game a driving gale was blowing 
 from the northwest, carrying with it rain and snow. 
 The field was a quagmire of ice-cold mud and snow, 
 with pools of icy water on the surface. In five min- 
 utes every man was soaked to the skin, and kis 
 clothes weighed many pounds more than when he 
 put them on. The first half lasted for more than an 
 hour, and the work was hard and exhausting. We 
 must also take into account the dispiriting influence 
 of an adverse score. 
 
 "The newspapers have not exaggerated the ap- 
 parently appalling condition of the men at the end 
 of this half. Many of them were shaking so that they 
 could not give the least aid toward getting off their 
 wet clothes; could not carry their hands to their 
 mouths with the hot soup which was given them; 
 could not talk intelligibly for the chattering of then* 
 teeth; could scarcely feel the vigorous chafing of then* 
 hands and feet. 
 
 "I should be opposed to subjecting them again to 
 such suffering (it went far beyond discomfort). I 
 should be opposed to risk losing a game by the toss
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 79 
 
 of a coin, when well-earned victory means so much 
 to all Pennsylvanians. I thought for a few moments 
 that, as football players, the team was done for that 
 day. But I never for a moment, after looking them 
 over, felt anxiety as to the ultimate effect upon their 
 health. We know that men in such condition, with 
 their vitality so strong and their power of resistance 
 at so high a level, repel, not only cold and fatigue, 
 which are of minor importance, but those forms of 
 infection which, favoured by cold and fatigue, are 
 potent, in the presence of low vitality and dimin- 
 ished resistant power, to produce fever, pneumonia, 
 grippe, and other diseases. 
 
 "The reasons for my unshaken confidence in Penn- 
 sylvania spirit and pluck are obvious. I have many 
 times admired the men who represent us on the foot- 
 ball field; but never so deeply as on last Thursday, 
 when those eleven frozen, purple, shivering, chatter- 
 ing players, after a brief ten minutes spent in trying to 
 get warm, went out again into that storm, overcame 
 an adverse score, and wrested victory from the hands 
 of worthy and formidable opponents. They deserve to 
 be honoured, not only by every Pennsylvanian, but 
 by every one who loves manliness and courage." 
 
 It is little wonder that this kind of eloquence, 
 simple, sincere, plain-spoken, found its way to the 
 student's heart. It is little wonder that "Doctor 
 Bill " is still a name to conjure by. No one who has
 
 80 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 heard the victorious team stand cheering on an au- 
 tumn night before the surgeon's door, no one who 
 has listened to the long-drawn cry 
 
 Ra, ra, ra, 
 Penn-syl-va-ni-a, 
 White! White! White! 
 
 can doubt the place he held. 
 
 Two months after this memorable Thanksgiving 
 game, Dr. White went to Boston to address the New 
 England Alumni Society of the University of Penn- 
 sylvania. On this occasion he delivered a glowing 
 eulogy upon Benjamin Franklin, as an athlete. 
 With a hardihood of imagination which we cannot 
 sufficiently admire, he pictured "Poor Richard" as 
 contemplating with especial gratification the foot- 
 ball games. "The man who prided himself in his 
 youth on his swimming, and on his ability to carry 
 a printer's 'form* in each hand, while his fellow 
 workmen could carry but one, the man who made 
 athletic sports an integral part of his proposed cur- 
 riculum for the Academy, would not only rejoice to 
 have * Franklin Field' named after him, but would 
 join with us in our enthusiasm over the victories 
 won on that and other fields by the representatives 
 of Pennsylvania." 
 
 This is an original point of view. Franklin was so 
 many things, statesman, scientist, philosopher, 
 and economist, that his athletic side has been ob-
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 81 
 
 scured by time. It is hard to fancy him cheering, 
 whooping, and waving his respectable hat as the 
 Quakers rush to goal. 
 
 And swimming? What did Franklin know of that 
 noble art as practised by a modern enthusiast? Many 
 of Dr. White's summer diaries read like the records 
 of a merman. If he were within reach of the sea, he 
 spent more time in it than out of it. There is some- 
 thing so monotonous in these perpetual immersions, 
 that no terrestrial reader can fail to enjoy his lament- 
 able experiences in Holland. Thither he went with 
 Treves in August, 1898, confidently hoping that in 
 this level and sea-girt land they could cycle and 
 bathe, cycle and bathe, cycle and bathe, through the 
 long, hot, happy days. Save in the matter of heat, 
 they found themselves mistaken. The tideless and 
 filthy waters of the Zuyder Zee repelled even their 
 ardour. At Zandvoort they joyfully essayed the lap- 
 ping waters of the North Sea, and were so badly 
 stung by jelly fish that the two surgeons were ill for 
 several days. Mrs. White escaped more lightly. Fi- 
 nally at Scheveningen, where the wide, hospitable surf 
 invited their advances, they found, first, that after 
 4 P.M. no one was permitted to bathe at all; second, 
 that an hour's wait for a bathing-house was the pre- 
 liminary of every dip; and third, that when they 
 ventured out to their arm-pits hi a smooth sea, a 
 "life-guard" shouted and blew his horn to bring
 
 8$ J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 them back to land. If they did not at once return, 
 he waded out and "rescued" them. It was a humil- 
 iating experience for a man who had swum from 
 Newport to Narragansett Beach to have a Dutch 
 official, decorated with a life-saving medal, play the 
 Newfoundland dog trick with him in safe and quiet 
 waters. Dr. White's language on this occasion was 
 so vitriolic that Treves urged him to publish an 
 "English and Gehennese Phrase-Book," which should 
 meet all such emergencies, and help the inarticulate 
 tourist on his way. It was to begin with familiar 
 colloquialisms, such as "What the Hell," "How the 
 Hell," " Where the Hell," " Who the Hell," "Why the 
 Hell," and after translating these into divers tongues, 
 was to advance by degrees to more fervid and com- 
 plicated utterances. 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to say here that swear- 
 ing was never for Dr. White "the riotous medium of 
 the under-languaged." His vocabulary was large, his 
 speech was trenchant. He was well aware that the 
 value of an oath lies in its timeliness and its rarity. 
 Repeated too often, it sinks into mere drivel, and the 
 most tiresome form of drivel. If, as we are told, "the 
 inspired pen of John Masefield has made lyric poetry 
 blossom with both wild and cultivated profanity," 
 these flowers of speech owe their vigour and their 
 colour to a process of selection. Mr. Masefield, al- 
 though his diction, like his versification, is ungirt,
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 83 
 
 has never permitted himself to run amuck through 
 blasphemy. The quickness of Dr. White's temper 
 and his habitual impatience inclined him to strong 
 language. His love for every form of outdoor exercise 
 insured for him a constant variety of provocation. 
 Take golf alone, which Mr. William Lyon Phelps 
 says is, next to the telephone, the greatest incentive 
 to swearing. "The disappointments of golf are so 
 immediate, so unexpected, so overwhelming. They 
 make taciturn gentlemen as efficient as teamsters." 
 Now Dr. White began to play golf when he was in 
 his fiftieth year; and while this game is Heaven's gift 
 to the middle-aged and the elderly, they seldom excel 
 in it unless they have practised it in their youth. 
 There is a world of pent-up bitterness in this extract 
 from one of the pages of his English diary: 
 
 "July 20th: Letty and I played golf all day long. 
 I felt much encouraged yesterday, but dropped back 
 to-day. This place [Barton Court] is certainly ideal 
 for an impatient or a nervous beginner, because 
 there are no lookers-on. We buy new clubs all the 
 time, on the theory that there must be something 
 wrong with our old ones." 
 
 Two days later, as a consequence of these per- 
 severing endeavours, he developed an abscess on the 
 palm of his right hand, and could not play at all. If 
 there is never any excuse for profanity, there are 
 sometimes reasonable explanations.
 
 84 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 No provocation, however, could wrest from Dr. 
 White an infant oath if he thought it unbecoming. 
 The people whom he did not wish to hear him swear 
 never did hear him swear. There were times, too, 
 when fatigue and a rare dejection robbed profanity 
 of all savour. "I am evidently doing what is known 
 as 'ageing,' " he wrote me once when I was in Rome. 
 "I heard with a shock last week that my language 
 on the golf links had lost all its vivacity. Too bad ! To 
 destroy thus a reputation based on years of lively 
 endeavour. I have n't forgotten the words, but they 
 don't seem to come as easily as they used to. Can it 
 be that you are undermining me by praying to your 
 Roman saints ?" 
 
 In one respect alone, the doctor, for all his health 
 and strength and endurance, was physically ill-fitted 
 for life's unending strain. He could work as hard and 
 play as hard as any man of his years in Christendom. 
 He could swim like a fish, and with little more effort 
 than a fish might presumably make. He could cycle 
 a hundred miles in a day without undue fatigue. He 
 could lunch on "cakes, lemon cheesecakes, pears, 
 plums, milk and cream"; and this school-boy tuck 
 gave him no more uneasiness at fifty than it did at 
 fifteen. But he could not sleep unless sustained and 
 soothing silence composed him gradually to rest. In 
 this regard he was as unblest as the great Wallen- 
 stein, who pulled down all the houses around his
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 85 
 
 palace in Prague, so as to insure for himself quiet 
 and slumberous nights. 
 
 The summer of 1899 was spent by Dr. and Mrs. 
 White, and Mr. and Mrs. S. S. White, Junior, on the 
 English coast. Their days were given over to the 
 usual routine of outdoor sports, and all went merrily 
 save for the noises inseparable from hotel life, even 
 in England, where the infernal racket of continental 
 hostelries is happily unknown. Finally at Sherring- 
 ham, the clatter of housemaids indoors, and ostlers 
 out of doors, became so annoying that Dr. White 
 suddenly and wisely resolved he would have a roof 
 of his own. 
 
 "If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well 
 It were done quickly." 
 
 Within twenty-four hours he had rented a place, 
 imported a cook from Norwich, picked up a house- 
 maid in some neighbouring cottage, provisioned the 
 party with all things needful from coals and candles to 
 sugar and suet, and dined comfortably in a house, " the 
 very existence of which was unknown to us yesterday." 
 
 This is efficiency, efficiency which matches speed 
 with thoroughness. What a secretary of war Dr. 
 White would have made! 
 
 All was not yet smooth sailing, however, for the 
 intrepid householder. After two happy days and 
 tranquil nights there comes this spirited entry in 
 the diary:
 
 86 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 "Three yelping dogs broke our rest last night. The 
 silence here is like the silence of death after 6 P.M. 
 We were all sleepy, and turned in before ten o'clock. 
 About midnight, or earlier, these three curs over in 
 the farm-yard began to howl. At 1 A.M. the manly 
 form of Prof. William White of Philadelphia, clad 
 in pyjamas, and with a flickering candle in his left 
 hand, might have been seen standing in the drizzling 
 rain, pounding on the door of the farmer's cottage, 
 and using language which made an area of phosphor- 
 escence around the candle. As a result, the three dogs 
 were locked up in separate places, and a little sleep 
 was obtained. This morning I insisted that they 
 should be sent off the place, and I believe it has 
 been, or is to be, done. 
 
 "I am not, and I never shall be, used to farm 
 noises. I wish the little birdies had been created 
 dumb. I never could see any sense in a hen making 
 
 such a d fuss over every egg she lays; and it seems 
 
 particularly unreasonable that, like the females of 
 all other species, she should select such inconvenient 
 hours for bringing her offspring into the world. This 
 has been one of the complaints of obstetricians ever 
 since I have known any of them." 
 
 It is a bit unfair to hurl anathemas at hens, when 
 the cock, who has not his partner's excuse for self- 
 congratulation, makes such untimely and vociferous 
 racket. But Dr. White's reproaches, however un-
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 87 
 
 justified, seem to have shamed the denizens of the 
 farmyard into silence. Three days later he reports 
 favourably upon their amendment: 
 
 "We've shaken down into our places, and the 
 people are used to us. The dogs have been sent away; 
 the ducks have, I think, been given laudanum to 
 make them sleep late hi the mornings; the hens now 
 cackle a sort of lullaby when they lay their eggs; the 
 farmer tiptoes over the gravel path when he waters 
 the pony in the early hours; the gardener wears felt 
 slippers instead of hobnailed shoes; and the whole 
 outfit is as quiet as could be desired." 
 
 So much for resolution! 
 
 In 1899, Dr. White, who had been appointed by 
 President McKinley a member of the Board of Vis- 
 itors of the Annapolis Naval Academy, succeeded in 
 persuading various reluctant departments to permit 
 the West Point and the Annapolis football teams to 
 play on Franklin Field. It took a deal of persuasion, 
 and involved many promises which were hard to 
 keep. He pledged his honour that there should be 
 no gate money; but he could not prevent Philadel- 
 phia politicians from selling the tickets he was com- 
 pelled to furnish them. It was, moreover, a difficult 
 task to distribute seats "by favour only," and the 
 clamorous demand far exceeded the capacity of the 
 field. These Army and Navy games, which were re- 
 peated for many autumns, were dear to Dr. White's
 
 88 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 heart. He took pride in them as a Philadelphia!! and 
 as an American. They were spirited contests, to 
 which the presence of distinguished officials lent 
 interest and dignity. But from start to finish they 
 involved endless labour, which he did not grudge, 
 and a sort of intricate egg dance among contending 
 interests, which he was not supple enough to per- 
 form. Even when the authorities gave permission 
 that gate money should be asked, and the proceeds 
 given to the Army and Navy Relief, the difficulty of 
 satisfying the public was lessened, not ended. There 
 were more people who wanted to buy, and who held 
 they had a right to buy, than there were tickets to 
 be sold. 
 
 A friendlier warfare had been waged for years 
 between Dr. White, who was singularly reticent 
 about his "cases," and the press, which sought to 
 know the details of novel and intricate surgery. In 
 1897 he published, in collaboration with Dr. Edward 
 Martin, a work on " Genito-Urinary Surgery and Ve- 
 nereal Diseases." It was an exhaustive and author- 
 itative study, furnished with two hundred and forty- 
 three illustrations, and seven coloured plates. The 
 success which attended this volume, the opening in 
 the same year of the D. Hayes Agnew Pavilion, and 
 the beginning of the great drive for the University 
 Gymnasium, brought the doctor so sharply before 
 the public eye that an increased attention on the part
 
 THE YEARS THAT COUNT 89 
 
 of reporters was perhaps inevitable. The newspapers 
 claimed that when a man of science withheld timely 
 and valuable information from their readers, he in- 
 flicted a loss, and he suffered one. They argued with 
 Waller, 
 
 "Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retired." 
 
 Dr. White, impervious to this reasoning, and without 
 personal apprehension, expressed his point of view 
 in one uncompromising sentence: "Science," he said, 
 "ought not to be paraded side by side with a murder 
 up an alley." It was an irreconcilable difference of 
 opinion.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 
 
 MOST men who have lived through a half-cen- 
 tury find to their regret or to their relief 
 that they have abandoned the animating enthusiasms 
 of youth. They retain a tender and reminiscential 
 regard for past pleasures and extinguished zeal; but 
 their real and vigorous concern is reserved for the 
 cares and counsels of maturity. Dr. White never sur- 
 rendered his youthful convictions, or lost his youthful 
 ardour. He clarified both with the aid of reason, and 
 found them better worth preserving from being more 
 amply understood. His interest in athletic sports, and 
 his belief in their value, strengthened with years and 
 experience. If, as he lamented, "the opponents of ath- 
 letics die hard," he stood ever ready to help them 
 to their graves. He found time in his crowded days 
 to write sturdy articles in defence of the much 
 maligned football games, as well as of every other 
 game which required strength and hardihood. "Man 
 walked straight before he thought straight," was his 
 scornful reply to upholders of the studious life. 
 
 Being himself tall and strong, and having never 
 lacked mental concentration, sustained industry, or 
 professional skill, the doctor was naturally disposed
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 91 
 
 to resent President Eliot's contemptuous compari- 
 son of "big, brawny athletes" with "slighter, quicker- 
 witted men." He saw no reason why quick wits 
 should not accompany broad shoulders, and he said 
 so in the plainest words at his command. The dis- 
 paraging comments of the "Nation" and the "Out- 
 look "upon our "gladiatorial contests," and Dr. van 
 Dyke's concern over "a bone-breaking, life-imperil- 
 ing game," roused him to more spirited vindication. 
 Even the arguments of his friend, Thomas Robins, 
 who pleaded for an open field and for players less 
 highly specialized, failed to shake his "pigskin con- 
 servatism." He was, it must be admitted, "com- 
 plexionally averse to change"; but he brought himself 
 in time to accept reasonable measures of reform, and 
 to subscribe heartily to President Roosevelt's pro- 
 posals for a simple and uniform eligibility code. He 
 had been closely connected with students for twenty- 
 five years, he knew that their animal spirits needed 
 a broad outlet, and he had seen too many evils re- 
 sulting from "boisterous college sprees" not to be 
 fully aware of the corrective value of athletics. As 
 for the "hysterical enthusiasm" which was consid- 
 ered so dangerous an accompaniment of football, he 
 scored heavily when he retorted that far more injury 
 had been done to nations by besotting them with 
 oratory than by provoking their admiration for ath- 
 letics.
 
 92 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 It is amusing and instructive to see how this 
 champion of physical prowess turned a searchlight 
 upon history for examples that would illustrate his 
 argument. Dr. Weir Mitchell, speaking at a dinner 
 of the New York alumni of the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, took the opportunity to comment severely 
 upon college athletics in general, and upon football 
 in particular. He said that when he was in college, 
 their hero was, not the captain of a team, but their 
 "honour man." "We loved Thackeray and Tenny- 
 son. Some of us were enthusiastic over Socrates. Do 
 college men talk of Socrates in these days?" 
 
 Probably not. Probably not many undergraduates 
 in Dr. Mitchell's youth indulged in Socratic colloquy. 
 The reader and the scholar may be found in every 
 seat of learning. They have survived centuries of 
 sport, centuries of battle, centuries of ignorance. 
 But they have always been, and will always be, the 
 exception, not the rule. 
 
 From Dr. WTiite's point of view, work and play, 
 study and athletics, walked amicably hand in hand. 
 He was convinced that the men who are physically 
 fit are the men of most service to the world; and that 
 food and drink are not more necessary to develop- 
 ment than are sunlight, oxygen, and exercise. He 
 published two exhaustive papers in the "Saturday 
 Evening Post," November and December, 1900, set- 
 ting forth the "natural association" between physi-
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 93 
 
 cal, intellectual, and moral strength, and enforcing 
 his arguments with a host of amazing illustrations. 
 The startled reader found himself confronted by 
 Samson, "who, though he seems to have lacked dis- 
 cretion, was a judge in Israel"; Caesar, who was 
 "admirable in all manly sports"; Cicero, who ad- 
 mitted that he owed his health to the gymnasium; 
 Cato, "who drilled his muscles into activity"; Lord 
 Byron, who swam; Scott, who rode; Goethe, who 
 skated; Wordsworth and Dickens, who walked; 
 Gladstone, who chopped wood. Dr. White even tried 
 to persuade himself and his public that Kant's daily 
 stroll so methodical that the philosopher's neigh- 
 bours used to set their clocks by his passing was 
 in the nature of athletics. A canvas broad enough to 
 admit Samson and Kant in juxtaposition leaves little 
 to be desired. I offered to stretch it further by mak- 
 ing out an opposition list of eminent men who, like 
 Gibbon and Littre, were never known to take any 
 exercise whatever; but my services were declined. I 
 was reminded that Gibbon would not stand by the 
 woman whom he had asked to marry him, and that 
 Littre would not face the siege of Paris, regrettable, 
 but natural, consequences of sedentary habits. 
 
 There is no doubt that Dr. White's love for the 
 University of Pennsylvania strengthened his interest 
 in college sports, and deepened his concern over their 
 fluctuating fortunes. There is something admirable
 
 94 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 and touching in this sustained devotion to his Alma 
 Mater. He was a busy and a canny man; but he 
 grudged no time, no labour, no money, when the 
 advancement of the University was at stake. Her 
 medical school was his pride and joy; her really beau- 
 tiful museum which owed its perfections to Dr. 
 William Pepper and Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson 
 gave him profound satisfaction; her gymnasium was 
 the project nearest to his heart. Everything the 
 students did, from a Greek play to a Mask and Wig 
 burlesque, fired him with interest. When they pro- 
 duced "Iphigenia Among the Tauri," in the spring 
 of 1903, he triumphed in this evidence of scholarship; 
 and the two hundred roses presented to the players 
 by the Greek colony of Philadelphia pleased him as 
 much as if he had been a debutante actress receiving 
 this giant ovation. Yet he was habitually impatient 
 of entertainments that did not entertain. He once 
 sat in front of me at a conscientious performance, by 
 distinguished but deliberate amateurs, of Gilbert's 
 "Engaged," which, of all plays, needs to be lightly 
 handled. At the close of the second act he arose, 
 bade me a cordial good-night, observed amicably, 
 "I think I'll come around after breakfast to-morrow 
 morning, to see how they are getting on," and van- 
 ished. But the laborious presentation of "Iphigenia" 
 failed to daunt him, for every student actor was, in 
 some sort, his friend.
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 95 
 
 If college plays gave so much satisfaction to this 
 true lover of youth, college games, which in them- 
 selves are well worth looking at, naturally absorbed 
 his attention. He cared so much for the result, he was 
 so keen for victory, that pain and pleasure gripped 
 his heart whenever he watched the struggle. For six 
 bitter years the University football team had suffered 
 defeat at Harvard's hands. The Crimson men said 
 plainly and contemptuously that the Red and Blue 
 men were not worth playing against, and that if they 
 were beaten for the seventh time, they should be 
 dropped from the list of contestants. Therefore, when 
 Penn defeated Harvard 11 to at Cambridge, in the 
 autumn of 1904, the victory was a source of gratifi- 
 cation to all good Philadelphians, and of profound 
 felicity to Dr. White. The students celebrated the 
 happy event for twenty-four tumultuous hours, 
 made nuisances of themselves, as is their wont on 
 such occasions, and were readily forgiven by their 
 tormented, but proud and grateful townsmen. The 
 following year, Pennsylvania again beat Harvard 
 12 to 6 on Franklin Field; and Dr. White wrote to 
 Mrs. Tom Robins, who had wired him her felicita- 
 tions: "I was delirious on Saturday, wildly happy 
 on Sunday, ineffably content yesterday, and am 
 blandly satisfied to-day. It was what we football 
 cranks call a great and glorious victory." 
 
 Other sports laid claim to his enthusiasm, and
 
 96 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 brought their measure of delight and disappointment. 
 In the summer of 1901 the University crew went to 
 England, to row against the London Club, some Bel- 
 gians, some Irishmen, and the invincible Leanders. 
 Dr. White saw the new eight-oared shell christened, 
 made a rousing speech to the men when they sailed, 
 June 8th, on the Waesland, and followed June 15th, 
 on the Minneapolis, to witness the triumph he con- 
 fidently predicted. The Penn crew was exceptionally 
 strong, and his assurance was justifiable. But when 
 he reached Henley, and saw the Leander men train- 
 ing, he knew, though his hopes still ran high, that 
 the cup would be hard to win. The London Club was 
 easily outrowed, the Belgians were nowhere. "Bar 
 accidents, and I don't see how we can lose," he wrote 
 on the morning of the great race. But although our 
 men made a splendid showing, Leander came in a 
 length a bare length ahead, and his heart was 
 too sore for comfort. "I had argued myself into a 
 state of absolute confidence," he admitted, " so that 
 the result was a surprise, and all the harder to bear. 
 It was as bad as any football defeat, worse, I 
 think, because success meant more to us. I lost $190; 
 but, of course, I'd have given $1900 to see that cup 
 in Houston Hall for a year." 
 
 The next day, July 6th, there is this entry in his 
 diary: "Still dull, but gradually beginning to realize 
 that we must continue to live, and may (years hence)
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 97 
 
 enjoy ourselves. ... It must be understood that it 
 
 was a d d good race, and that we have nothing 
 
 to be ashamed of." Indeed, the best of good feeling 
 prevailed everywhere, and the contest was so close 
 that there was no bitterness in defeat. Neither, how- 
 ever, was there any solace in beating the Dublin 
 crew at Killarney, because the Irishmen were so 
 quickly outdistanced that the race was no race at all. 
 The beauty of the scenery brought small compensa- 
 tion to Dr. White's soul, and of Bantry he records in 
 words which Horace Walpole might have envied: "A 
 hideous, dirty, unmitigably Irish town, which makes 
 you spit and scratch just to look at it." The last act 
 of the drama was played in London, at the Hotel 
 Cecil, where the American Society gave a jovial 
 supper to the Pennsylvania men. Dr. White made a 
 gallant speech, and, inasmuch as the company did 
 not disperse until 5 A.M., the occasion must have been 
 a pleasurable one. Nevertheless, defeat is defeat, and 
 nothing can turn it into victory. "We certainly rowed 
 a magnificent race," is the diary's final comment, 
 "and scared them badly; but, after all, it comes back 
 to the fact that the cup stays here." 
 
 To the Army and Navy football game of 1901 came 
 Mr. Roosevelt, the first American president who had 
 ever graced the contest on Franklin Field. The de- 
 mand for seats was more clamorous than ever, and, 
 as fourteen thousand of the thirty thousand tickets
 
 98 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 went to West Point and Annapolis, it was clearly 
 impossible to satisfy all aspirants. The tickets issued 
 to politicians (to insure adequate police protection 
 for the President) were sold on the sidewalk for 
 twenty-five dollars each. It was a brilliant and an 
 unspoiled game. Admiral Dewey was among the dis- 
 tinguished guests. The sun for once forbore its cus- 
 tomary trickery, and shone gloriously in a blue sky. 
 Charles Daly, West Point's quarter-back, made a 
 sensational run, and won the Army's victory. The 
 crowd on the field shouted itself hoarse, and, when 
 the President left for his train, the vaster crowd out- 
 side took up the cry so democratic but so loving 
 "Teddy! Our Teddy!" until the skies rang with their 
 rapture. 
 
 This was not the beginning of Dr. WTiite's ac- 
 quaintance with Mr. Roosevelt. The two men 
 had met before. But it was an added link in the 
 friendship which became the enthusiasm and the 
 inspiration of the doctor's life. Every trait of Roose- 
 velt's splendid personality made its straight and 
 strong appeal to his spirit. The President was not 
 only the most distinguished American of his day; he 
 was not only the wise and intrepid ruler of the na- 
 tion; but he was a man whose hand to use Mrs. 
 Wharton's fine phrase was ever on the hilt of ac- 
 tion; a man who held his country's honour and his 
 own in high regard, who was so compelling he could
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 99 
 
 afford to be simple, and so determined he could 
 afford to be gay. To Dr. White, who thought in plain 
 straight terms, who held fast to primitive things, and 
 to those qualities which are the foundations of man- 
 hood, Mr. Roosevelt presented an ideal which years 
 failed to impair, and detraction could never weaken. 
 The President called him from the beginning a 
 "sworn friend," which he truly was; and showed 
 a well-placed confidence in his discretion when he 
 summoned him a few years later to Washington 
 for a conference upon college athletics, and upon the 
 new football rules which embodied some admirable 
 measures of reform. 
 
 In the summer of 1903, Sir Frederick Treves, hav- 
 ing reached the zenith of his fame, and having un- 
 doubtedly saved King Edward's life by his courage in 
 operating ("Any other man,'* said the King to Syd- 
 ney Holland, "would have sewed me up, and said 
 that there was no abscess, or that it was too deep 
 to reach"), retired from active practice. The royal 
 family declined to release him; but he severed his 
 connection with all humbler patients, and strongly ad- 
 vised Dr. White to follow his example. He was not 
 exactly like the fox who had lost his tail, because he 
 had cut off his own tail; but he was solicitous that his 
 friend should be as tailless as himself. "Treves has 
 retired definitely and permanently," wrote Dr. White 
 to Tom Robins, in September, 1903. "He has much
 
 100 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 to say in favour of my doing likewise. I find, how- 
 ever, that I grow more extravagant and exacting 
 as I grow older. That makes me hesitate about re- 
 tiring." And again, when lamenting to the same 
 faithful correspondent that he has had too much 
 surgery and too little golf, he adds wistfully: "I am 
 still looking forward to retirement, and never think 
 of you without envying your freedom from daily rou- 
 tine, and from anxiety, except such as is, of course, 
 unavoidable. We must all of us be anxious some time 
 or other about the people we care for most." 
 
 This note of apprehension is struck again and again 
 in every allusion to his profession. He was like one 
 forever breaking a lance with Death, and he could 
 not endure that his great opponent should sometimes 
 triumph over him. 
 
 In December, 1900, he had operated for appen- 
 dicitis on Mr. John Clarke Sims. The patient was 
 convalescent and considered out of danger, when he 
 succumbed to a sudden attack of heart failure, and 
 died before his surgeon could reach his bedside. It 
 was a heavy blow to Dr. White, the harder to bear 
 because the dead man had been his friend. "My af- 
 fection no less than my pride was at stake," he wrote 
 to me. "For weeks I have devoted all my skill and 
 all my purpose to saving this one life. For weeks 
 I have sacrificed both work and play. And I have 
 accomplished nothing."
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 101 
 
 Yet when, the following month, he came perilously 
 near to an enforced retirement, having infected the 
 middle finger of his right hand hi the operating-room, 
 he was in no wise disposed to be ousted from a career 
 which he liked to talk of abandoning. He had for his 
 profession that proud regard which is the natural 
 outcome of achievement. The opposition of the "li- 
 tigious laity" to great life-saving measures, such as 
 vaccination and the use of diphtheric antitoxin, fired 
 him with just wrath. The stupid jokes of comic 
 papers about doctors and surgeons irritated him as 
 keenly as if they had been barbed shafts of wit. I 
 once ventured to quote in his hearing those merry 
 lines from the "Beggar's Opera," 
 
 "Men may escape from rope and gun, 
 Some have outlived the doctor's pill"; 
 
 but they awoke no answering smile. There were 
 things he was not prepared to jest over, and the 
 healing art was one of them. 
 
 It was natural that the retirement of Sir Frederick 
 Treves should have influenced his friend, because the 
 two men had acquired the habit of spending part 
 of their summer holidays together. In July, 1900, 
 Dr. White rented an English country-house, Ingham 
 New Hall, in Lessingham, two miles from the Treves' 
 house in Hasboro, and slipped for once into the un- 
 broken calm of rural life. When he was not bathing, 
 or trying to get his bicycle repaired, he was driving
 
 102 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 a fat pony, " Clementina," to Stalham for butter and 
 soap, or superintending the arrival of ice from Yar- 
 mouth. The sole excitement of the summer was pro- 
 vided by a mole, an indefatigable, unconquerable 
 mole, which bade defiance to law and order. "I am 
 no good as a mole catcher, and might as well go 
 out of the business," writes the disconsolate tenant. 
 "Strychnia enough to kill the Boer army fails to 
 disagree with that beast." It was in truth a free-born 
 British mole, and scorned to be routed by Ameri- 
 cans. They found it there when they took the house, 
 and they left it diligently raising hillocks on the lawn 
 the day they drove away. 
 
 The admirable thing about the comradeship of Dr. 
 and Mrs. White and Sir Frederick and Lady Treves 
 was the large liberty they allowed one another. Their 
 tastes were alike, but their habits of life dissimilar. 
 "What I want to do, I want to do," writes Dr. White. 
 "Frederick has the same not uncommon peculiar- 
 ity, and we don't always want the same thing.' The 
 Englishman, for example, liked to loaf, and to be 
 comfortable. The American liked to forge ahead, 
 and to be entertained. When the Englishman got to 
 a place which he fancied, it seemed to him a good 
 reason for staying there. When the American got to 
 a place which he fancied, it seemed to him a good 
 reason for moving on. The Englishman had a strong 
 regard for his luncheon, and an almost religious
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 103 
 
 respect for his dinner. The American was content to 
 leave his meals to chance when tempted by an inter- 
 esting excursion. The Englishman (and the English- 
 man's wife) preferred to drive over the passes in the 
 Engadine. The American (and the American's wife) 
 preferred to walk, and took a genuine delight in 
 surmounting difficulties, and conquering fatigue. 
 
 "We said good-bye to the Treves," is an entry in 
 the Swiss diary of the following year. "They, of 
 course, were eating, and they regarded our pedes- 
 trian tour" (over the Schyn Pass and on to Campfer) 
 "as one of extreme danger and privation. They shud- 
 der at the thought of being out of reach of food for an 
 hour or two. They will go nowhere unless some English 
 doctor who is generally an ignoramus assures 
 them that the water is all right, that there have been 
 no 'throat cases' in the neighbourhood for years, and 
 that sterilized milk can be obtained for Enid. They 
 think I'm peculiar, and I think they're comic. All of 
 us think the others do not know how to travel. We 
 get on very well together, all the same." 
 
 Nothing incensed Dr. White so deeply as being 
 warned against walking too much, unless, indeed, it 
 was being warned against letting Mrs. White walk 
 too much. To some mild remonstrance on the part 
 of her family, he answered tartly and triumphantly: 
 "Letty has for years taken ten times the exercise 
 that most of her women friends take, and I should
 
 104 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 like to have some sort of comparative test of their 
 health and hers. I'll back Letty." That Dr. Osier, 
 whom he warmly admired, should not more explicitly 
 commend "the men who have sense enough to take 
 exercise/* vexed his soul; and he reproached this 
 high authority a bit unfairly for backing "all 
 the lazy, over-fed, gouty imbeciles in the commu- 
 nity." Finally, when his friend, Mr. Effingham B. 
 Morris, begged him to call a halt on Alpine climbs 
 (a dangerous sport for his years), he retaliated with 
 all the counter-accusations he could heap together in 
 one scorching missive. As it chanced, Mr. Morris's 
 letter reached him at Morgan Hall, where he was 
 leading a gentle and blameless life with the gentle 
 and blameless Abbeys, so that he was able to assume 
 an air of injured innocence, as if he had been frisking 
 like a lamb all summer long on the soft English turf. 
 After expatiating on the joys of croquet, and his de- 
 votion to that tranquil sport, he conjured his friend 
 to abandon the strenuous for the simple life, and 
 rebuild the foundations of health: 
 
 "I've no doubt the Drexel estate is both honour- 
 able and profitable; but if you don't take more hol- 
 idays, and since you won't climb mountains at 
 least play croquet, you '11 have a d d large hand- 
 some funeral, with a lot of millionaires for honorary 
 pall-bearers, and a few really sorrowing Christian 
 friends like me in the hired carriages.
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 105 
 
 "Your cheek in giving me good advice about 
 health and safety is monumental. If you'd come 
 over here and play with me in the summer, you 
 would not, I suppose, accumulate so many diamonds 
 for wearing purposes, but you could continue to use 
 Waterbury watches and nickel scarf-pins for many 
 happy years." 
 
 It has a convincing ring, but when we read the 
 records of the Swiss tramps, they sound more in- 
 trepid than engaging. Mrs. White walked like a 
 Trojan. Fatigue, vertigo, blistered feet, she 
 scorned them all; covered her requisite number of 
 miles, climbed up and slid down the mountain-sides, 
 found the right paths which Dr. White was an adept 
 at losing, and came in smiling when the day was 
 done, too proud and pleased to admit exhaustion. 
 "Letty has two blisters; but with plaster, grease, a 
 couple of pairs of stockings, etc., she pulled through 
 with comparative comfort," is a typical entry in the 
 diary. And, two days later, after climbing the Piz 
 Nair, which Baedeker fraudulently calls "easy and at- 
 tractive": "Letty has two blisters (not new ones, the 
 old ones resuscitated) ; otherwise we are both well." 
 
 In the summer of 1903 these dauntless pedestrians 
 ventured upon a supreme test of endurance. On the 
 1st of August they walked from Pontresina to La 
 Rosa, a good ten miles. This was merely to get up 
 steam. On the 2d of August they walked over the
 
 106 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Val Viola to the Nuovi Bagni at Bormio, thirty 
 miles, including an ascent of two thousand feet in 
 the morning, and a descent of four thousand feet in 
 the afternoon. "It was really a test of strength for 
 Letty," writes Dr. White triumphantly. "We have 
 had harder walks, but none so hard, hot, rough and 
 stony. She wound up in good shape, and is none the 
 worse for it." The next morning, August 3d, they 
 started at 7.45, and walked over the Stelvio Pass, 
 climbing five thousand feet, and descending four 
 thousand feet to Trafoi. Here Mrs. White enjoyed 
 the unwonted privilege of resting two whole days, 
 while Dr. White and a couple of friends, Mr. Fame 
 and Mr. Orthwein, made a successful ascent of the 
 Ortler. 
 
 This expedition was like all Alpine climbs, a 
 peerless combination of discomfort and danger. The 
 three men and their guides spent the night in the 
 "Payerhiitte" with a dozen adventurous souls, 
 sleeping or not sleeping in all their clothes for 
 the sake of warmth, arose at 3.30 "as fresh as daisies," 
 went out at 4.25 into the frozen dark, cut their way 
 over the upper glacier, and at 6.40 reached the sum- 
 mit, from which "it looked as if there were nothing 
 but mountains in the world." The ascent qualified 
 Dr. WTiite for membership in the Swiss Alpine Club; 
 and the only circumstances which humbled his legit- 
 imate pride were Baedeker's belittling statement that
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 107 
 
 the Ortler "is not difficult, but requires a tolerably 
 steady head," and the fact that a young American 
 girl, "very light and strong," climbed easily and fear- 
 lessly by his side. 
 
 The next day, August 6th, the Whites set val- 
 iantly forth, and walked for eight hours and a half 
 (their average was eight hours) over the Umbrail 
 Pass to Santa Maria; after which they were "tired 
 enough to enjoy the quiet of the night," but fresh 
 enough to start at 7.30 the next morning for the 
 Scarl Pass and Vulpera. "A most successful and en- 
 joyable week," is Dr. White's summing up. "We 
 men have climbed twenty-seven thousand feet, Letty 
 nineteen thousand. I have lost fourteen pounds since 
 I left Philadelphia. Letty has lost sixteen pounds. 
 She stood the trip wonderfully. Orthwein and Paine 
 are sure to give her a great reputation as a walker 
 when they get back to the Kulm. Very few women 
 could have done it." 
 
 It is little wonder that after an August spent in 
 such fashion, the Whites should have been well dis- 
 posed to dally a while in England with the Treves 
 (Sir Frederick promised to have all the barking, 
 crowing, cackling livestock within a mile of Barton 
 Court assassinated before his friend's arrival), or that 
 croquet on the smooth lawn of Morgan Hall should 
 have seemed a pleasant pastime. The Abbeys had 
 been Dr. White's guests in the winter of 1902.
 
 108 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Abbey had received the degree of Doctor of Laws 
 from the University of Pennsylvania, and had ac- 
 cepted a commission to decorate the State Capitol 
 at Harrisburg, work which he began with enthu- 
 siasm, and was destined never to finish. The vast 
 Coronation picture was still incomplete, and the bur- 
 den of it grew heavier year by year. The artist was 
 toiling over this canvas for several successive sum- 
 mers, and he told Dr. White many amusing stories 
 concerning the trials and tribulations inseparable 
 from the painting of royalty. 
 
 The Queen, he said, could never be persuaded to 
 keep her appointments; and the King, who was a 
 miracle of punctuality, changed his mind frequently 
 and tormentingly in regard to the details of his own 
 portrait. At first he was painted with the yellow 
 coronation robe falling to his feet. Then he asked to 
 have one leg exposed so as to exhibit the Order of the 
 Garter. This was done. Then he sent word that both 
 legs had better be uncovered. This involved changing 
 lights and tones, and did not, from the artist's point 
 of view, improve the picture; but it was also done. 
 Then he proposed that Abbey should "suggest" 
 Treves and Laking at the back of the royal box. 
 They were, with some difficulty, suggested. Then he 
 desired the same privilege for several duchesses who 
 accompanied the Queen; whereupon the artist, who 
 was but too well aware that everybody in that box
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 109 
 
 wanted his or her presence made plain, asked grimly 
 whom he should leave out to give place to the la- 
 dies. There being no one to leave out, the King, with 
 perfect good-humour, abandoned the duchesses to 
 obscurity. 
 
 Abbey also told Dr. White that, when he was 
 painting the Prince of Wales, the young man asked 
 him how much he thought Sargent made in a year. 
 Abbey said truthfully and discreetly that he did not 
 know. "Do you suppose," persisted the Prince, "that 
 it's 10,000?" "More likely 20,000," was the reply. 
 "My God!" said England's heir, "I wish I had 
 20,000 a year." 
 
 Another large canvas on which Abbey was engaged 
 in the summer of 1902 was a decoration for the Royal 
 Exchange, and represented a reunion, after a pro- 
 tracted feud, of the Companies of Skinners and Mer- 
 chant Tailors, in the presence of the Lord Mayor of 
 London. Time, Richard III. The incident is not pre- 
 cisely a high light in history, and many there are who 
 have never heard of it; but it afforded the artist a 
 good chance for the grouping and costuming in which 
 he delighted, and in which he excelled. Having per- 
 petual need of models, he pressed his guest into serv- 
 ice as a master skinner. "I wear a light wig with 
 hair reaching to my shoulders," wrote Dr. White in 
 the diary; "a tall black cloth hat with narrow rolled- 
 up brim, a long robe and a gilt chain. I look as ugly
 
 110 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 as H ! Perhaps it would be enough to say uglier 
 
 than usual." 
 
 Personal vanity was not a disturbing element in 
 his constitution. The morning he left Morgan Hall, 
 he paid a farewell visit to the studio, and declared 
 himself well pleased with his portrait. "Some day," 
 he wrote, "probably about 2102, a discerning art 
 critic will say : ' There is in the right hand corner of 
 the picture the head of a gray-moustached citizen 
 wearing the tall black hat of the period, which is 
 rightly considered as the central point of interest 
 in this remarkable painting. The face, judged by the 
 ordinary standards of human beauty, cannot be said 
 to be perfect. The mouth is somewhat full, and the 
 fact that it is partly open does not add to its at- 
 tractiveness. The eyes are over prominent, and have 
 a tendency to what was known in those days as 
 blinking. The jowls are too accentuated, and the 
 nose not enough so, being indeed slightly retrousse, 
 whereas if it had been longer, and inclined down- 
 ward, it might have partly hidden the conspicuous, 
 upper central incisors. These, however, are mere 
 details. What makes this face the gem of the pic- 
 ture, and of all the pictures of this master, is the 
 expression of almost superhuman intelligence, of 
 saintliness of spirit, of purity of soul, of pensive 
 benevolence, of meekness and abnegation when self- 
 interest is involved, but firmness and decision when
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 111 
 
 the rights of friends are jeopardized, which character- 
 izes every feature. If Abbey had painted nothing else 
 but this one face, it would in itself justify his im- 
 perishable reputation, and entitle him to rank above 
 Frans Hals and Velasquez.' ' 
 
 When we consider that, in addition to conferring 
 immortality upon his host, Dr. White operated on 
 the Abbeys' beloved black cat, Tinker, removing a 
 malignant growth from the animal's poor little head, 
 and prolonging one of its fleeting lives, we can un- 
 derstand his value as a guest, and the warmth of 
 welcome which awaited him. 
 
 Perhaps the obduracy of golf inclined him gently 
 to the Abbeys' favourite sport, croquet. He wrote me 
 once (when his patients were getting well, and mat- 
 ters at the University were all going his way) that if 
 his game of golf would but improve, he'd ask nothing 
 else of fate. But though it did improve, he never was 
 satisfied with its amendment. After a week's practice 
 on the links of Maloja, in the summer of 1901, his 
 only triumph was beating a Baltimore invalid who 
 had been suffering from nervous prostration: "I am 
 going to challenge the blind asylum when I get 
 home," is his bitter comment. "I should be afraid 
 of the deaf and dumb." 
 
 Yet, in their humble way, both Dr. and Mrs. White 
 distinguished themselves on the Maloja links. Mrs. 
 White hit a ponderous German on the head, and he
 
 112 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 said so often and so accusingly that she had "nearly 
 killed" him, that Dr. White, who had seconded his 
 wife's profuse apologies, was finally impelled to offer 
 to finish the job. Two days later, the doctor "took 
 another German in the small of the back with a 
 hundred and twenty-five yard brassie," awakening 
 violent profanity ; and the following morning he bowled 
 over, "with a hard-driven, low-pulled ball," a little 
 Italian caddy. For one horrid moment he feared he had 
 seriously hurt the boy; but an examination showed 
 nothing more alarming than a bruised hand, which 
 was speedily righted with a cold-water bandage, a 
 friendly word, and the gift of a two-franc piece. 
 
 Another distinct advantage of croquet was the 
 impossibility of losing one's way between the hoops. 
 Dr. White always vowed he could be lost in Ritten- 
 house Square; but Rittenhouse Square is a vast area 
 by comparison with a tennis court or a croquet 
 ground. He was the most eminent path-loser of his 
 day, and could always be trusted to choose a long 
 and hard route when there was a short and easy one. 
 "The Lord has not been very good to me in the 
 matter of talents," he wrote candidly. "I cannot 
 sing, or make music, or paint, or speak foreign 
 tongues easily. But He has given me a wonderful 
 insight into the wrong ways of getting or not 
 getting anywhere. I can beat the world at losing 
 myself. That's a proud thought at any rate."
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 113 
 
 In the spring of 1903, John Sargent spent a month 
 with Dr. White; and a great deal of gaiety was 
 necessarily crowded into two very busy lives. The 
 artist had been hard at work all winter, and had 
 painted among other pictures the masterly portrait 
 of President Roosevelt, remarkable, not only for its 
 force and purpose, but also, as Owen Wister pathet- 
 ically remarked, for having the first frock coat he 
 had ever seen "rendered gracious and harmonious." 
 I was in Rome that year, and Dr. White found time 
 I don't see how to write me an unwontedly 
 long letter, full of the joys and sorrows of a Phila- 
 delphia May. 
 
 " I have lived in what seems to have been a whirl 
 though a pleasant one for a month. Sargent came 
 here four weeks ago to-day, and goes to New York 
 this afternoon, to sail on Saturday for Gibraltar. I 
 like him more than ever, and wish he could be here 
 for another month; but, of course, there have been 
 dinners, and late hours, and less exercise than usual, 
 so that I shall have some lost rest to make up be- 
 tween now and my sailing time, June 19th. His 
 work here has been splendid. Mitchell's portrait is 
 superb; but he, Sargent, thinks (and Thomas Eakins, 
 John Lambert, and other artists agree with him) 
 that the best thing he did in Philadelphia is an oil 
 sketch of Mrs. White, begun and completed last 
 Sunday, two sittings of two hours each, and so
 
 114 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 full of life and animation and spirit that it is truly 
 wonderful. It does n't flatter her, or make her seem 
 younger than she is; it is not a photographic like- 
 ness; but it has something that I am not skilled 
 enough to describe, and that represents Sargent at 
 his best. I am delighted to have it. He insisted on 
 doing it, and we had not self-denial to refuse, though 
 we tried to do so. 
 
 " We have had tropical weather here for some days, 
 92 in the shade, and wretched criminals expect- 
 ing me to operate on them. My only comfort is in a 
 single shell on the Schuylkill, clad I, not the shell 
 in undershirt and drawers. I begrudge the hours 
 I spend at work. Rittenhouse Square is noisy with 
 the vociferous play of millions of the useless progeny 
 of my neighbours, the back street in the early morn- 
 ing is pandemonium, and it is one month from 
 to-morrow that I sail." 
 
 Again the note of impatience and weariness, the 
 hours "begrudged" to work. Treves was by this 
 time a free man, and meditating a journey around 
 the world. One daughter, Hetty, had died. The 
 other, Enid, had married Colonel Delme'-Radcliffe, 
 who was then officially surveying, and incidentally 
 lion-hunting, in northern Uganda. Dr. White prom- 
 ised his friends that he would meet them in San 
 Francisco, when the globe-circling tour landed them 
 on our shores, and the promise was nobly kept. It is
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 115 
 
 a far cry from Rittenhouse Square to the Golden 
 Gate; but when Sir Frederick, Lady Treves, and Mrs. 
 Delme-Radcliffe landed in May, 1904, Dr. and Mrs. 
 White were on the docks to receive them. The Eng- 
 lish ladies frankly confessed that they had had a 
 surfeit of travel. To stay in one place now seemed to 
 them the best of earthly joys. Therefore, when they 
 found themselves moderately comfortable in Wawona, 
 in Wawona they resolved to remain, while Sir Fred- 
 erick and the Whites went to the Yosemite. "I 
 didn't argue," writes Dr. White virtuously. "After 
 all, as I said to Lady Treves, they were under no 
 obligation, moral or otherwise, to 'do* the Yosem- 
 ite; and if they were happier in Wawona, no one 
 could object to their staying there." 
 
 This was a handsome concession. In ruder and less 
 tolerant days, no one had ever heard such words 
 from the doctor's lips. He was beginning to realize 
 hi the case of other people, not yet in his own 
 that there are limits to endurance. 
 
 As Treves was to receive a degree from the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania on the 13th of June, as 
 they were to visit the Grand Canyon on their east- 
 ward flight, as there were social engagements looming 
 on the Philadelphia horizon, and as the whole party 
 were to sail for England on June 24th, Lady Treves 
 and her daughter may have had some excuse for 
 relinquishing the rare loveliness of the Yosemite.
 
 116 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 And perhaps they would not have found it lovely. I 
 once made some rapturous comment upon its beauty 
 to Alice Meynell, and that distinguished lady replied 
 that she did not consider the Yosemite beautiful. It 
 was, she said, on too vast a scale for beauty. 
 * The distinctive feature of this summer was Dr. 
 White's ascent of the Piz Palti, one of the highest 
 peaks of the upper Engadine, a climb of which even 
 Baedeker the scornful speaks with becoming rever- 
 ence, as "trying, not advisable except when the 
 snow is firm, and requiring a steady head." The Piz 
 Palii is 12,835 feet, only a little lower and a little less 
 dangerous than the Piz Bernina. Mr. Paine was 
 again his companion. They had the two best guides in 
 the Engadine, and the expedition was of sufficient 
 importance to be gravely and admiringly chronicled in 
 the " Alpine Post." For a man in his fifty-fourth year, 
 who had made but one other ascent, it was an amaz- 
 ing feat. Dr. White confessed to extreme fatigue; 
 but, beyond a few cuts and bruises, seemed none the 
 worse for it. There is a characteristic entry in his 
 diary, the day before he started: "I've borrowed 
 Orthwein's ice-axe, Paine's second jersey, Bott's 
 gaiters to keep the snow out of my shoes and 
 Letty's dark glasses. If I fall down a precipice, or a 
 crevasse, there will be four people interested in find- 
 ing the remains." 
 
 In December, 1904, the long hoped-for, long
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 117 
 
 planned-for, long fought-for gymnasium was at last 
 opened to the students of the University. For years 
 Dr. White had worked with grim determination over 
 this cherished scheme. For years he had counted no 
 labour too heavy, no enthusiasm too keen, no sacri- 
 fice too great, where its advancement was concerned. 
 In April, 1902, he was able to write to Thomas 
 Robins that $200,000 had been raised, and that the 
 bond issue of $262,000 had been fully subscribed. 
 The building cost when completed nearly $600,000. 
 Its beauty, its scope, its admirable equipment, were 
 due to him. His unfaltering resolution and con- 
 tagious zeal animated his townsmen, and spurred 
 them to repeated efforts. The College alumni re- 
 sponded nobly to his call. The day that he formally 
 presented this gymnasium to the University was 
 perhaps the proudest and happiest of his life. In a 
 few simple words he told of his early hopes, of his 
 harsh disappointments, of his seven years of toil. He 
 also announced a bequest of $50,000 from the estate 
 of Mr. William Weightman to the endowment fund, 
 a bequest which he had personally beguiled from 
 the testator. Provost Harrison accepted the new 
 building in the name of the trustees, and Dr. R. Tait 
 McKenzie, sculptor, and Director of Physical Edu- 
 cation, made an admirable address. The relations 
 between this keen and brilliant young Canadian and 
 Dr. White were of the friendliest character. Six
 
 118 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 months after the opening of the gymnasium, Dr. 
 McKenzie wrote to Dr. White: "What your advice 
 and friendship have meant to me in this trying year 
 of strangeness and pioneer work I need never tell 
 you. If you are a telepathist, you must have felt it. 
 I am not likely ever to forget, and I hope I may yet 
 have a chance to repay it in small part, leaving al- 
 ways a debt that I am glad to owe." 
 
 In January, 1905, Henry James came to Phila- 
 delphia, to give his lecture on Balzac before the 
 Contemporary Club. It was his maiden effort, the 
 first time he had heard his own voice raised in public, 
 and he was correspondingly nervous and depressed. 
 Dr. WHiite put him up at the Rittenhouse Club, and 
 gave him a supper after the meeting, snatching 
 wisely at that happy hour when the burden lifted 
 a speaker becomes once more a free and happy 
 man. Mr. James before the lecture, and Mr. James 
 after the lecture, was a study in gloom and gaiety. 
 He and his host had never met until that January 
 night; and just as the great law of sympathy or- 
 dained that Dr. White and Roosevelt should be 
 friends, so the great law of contrast ordained that 
 Dr. White and James should also be friends, under- 
 standing each other from the first hour they met, 
 and trusting each other to the last. On his subse- 
 quent visits to Philadelphia, the great novelist waj 
 always the surgeon's guest. Dr. White never ex-
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 119 
 
 ploited him, never flattered him, never teased him 
 with questions; but just gave him honest liking, 
 freedom, and leisure; while Mrs. White saw to it that 
 he had the warm fires and soft blankets which he 
 dearly loved, being the chilliest man hi Christendom. 
 It is little wonder that when he left these pleasant 
 quarters to wander through the frozen South, Mr. 
 James's letters were full of regret for lost comforts 
 and companionship. He wrote from Biltmore that he 
 had been increasingly cold ever since he crossed the 
 Mason and Dixon line; that Richmond, "wrapped in 
 ice and snow" (it was a very inclement winter), had 
 desolated him; and that Biltmore House was "mag- 
 nificent, imposing, and utterly unaddressed to any 
 possible arrangement of life, or state of society, or 
 recruiting of company, in this huge, sordid, niggery 
 wilderness, which was all I saw after leaving the 
 melancholy Richmond." He pictured himself hob- 
 bling goutily through vast and chilly corridors, look- 
 ing out of "colossal icy windows," and sighing for 
 what seemed by comparison "the cosy little house 
 on Rittenhouse Square," with the "rich security of 
 its stained and pictured library," and with the sunny 
 suite of rooms which had been his own, and for 
 which he had acquired a cat-like attachment. He 
 would, he said, joyfully exchange the "whole per- 
 pendicular English staff " of Biltmore for "a single 
 snatch of Mrs. Morton and little Joseph."
 
 120 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 This seems a fitting time (inasmuch as she has 
 been formally introduced by Henry James) to say a 
 few words about Mrs. Morton, who was a familiar 
 and characteristic feature of Dr. White's establish- 
 ment. She was his housekeeper when he first ac- 
 quired a bachelor home on Sixteenth Street, and she 
 remained his housekeeper until he died. She had 
 been a sick nurse, and came to him because (a widow 
 with an only son) she wanted to keep this child by 
 her side. The doctor took a strong interest in the boy, 
 who went to the public schools, studied medicine at 
 the University, married, and acquired a country 
 practice and a family. But not even the lure of 
 grandchildren could win Mrs. Morton from her post. 
 Her affection for Dr. White, an affection duly mingled 
 with honour and with pride, was the great emotion 
 of her life. To talk about him was her keen delight. 
 She knew his crotchets, and conceded them. She also 
 knew his worth; his loyalty, his immaculate in- 
 tegrity, his boundless kindness to poor patients 
 whose paymaster is God. She could tell tales of his 
 devotion to these humble clients, about whom he 
 maintained a rigorous silence. "What praise is more 
 valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?" 
 asks Jane Austen, who knew that it is to our own 
 households we oftenest expose our inconsistencies. 
 Mrs. Morton's spare, upright figure, her white hair 
 and smiling face, remained a pleasant memory in the
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 121 
 
 minds of many guests. The references to her in their 
 letters mark the dignity and importance of her po- 
 sition. Her fidelity deepened with every year of serv- 
 ice; and when the end came, and Dr. White's be- 
 quest made her handsomely independent, she simply 
 transferred her whole allegiance to Mrs. White, who 
 had formerly shared it, and lived on in the old house 
 which had held all the substance and sweetness of 
 her life. 
 
 The power of attaching to himself people who 
 worked for him, or with whom he came into daily 
 contact, was Dr. White's lifelong gift. He estab- 
 lished relationships which stood the test of time. He 
 did not forget, and he was not forgotten. When in 
 the summer of 1903 he found himself in the neighbour- 
 hood of Lulworth, he motored over to see the old 
 couple whose cottage he had rented eleven years 
 before, and who had looked carefully after his com- 
 fort. He found his former landlord failing fast, and 
 made this entry in his diary: "Mem: To send Mrs. 
 Haytor a sovereign every Christmas, and increase it 
 to two after Hay tor's death." 
 
 Mention has been made of " Professor" Billy Mc- 
 Lean, in whose gymnasium Dr. White encountered 
 the friendly bruiser who had erstwhile thirsted for his 
 blood. McLean was a boxer from whom the doctor 
 had acquired the art of self-defence, and who was 
 prodigiously proud of his pupil. He loved to match
 
 122 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 him against professionals, to "try him out"; and on 
 one occasion brought three of these gentry, Forsyth, 
 Arnold, and McNallery, to the house on Ritten- 
 house Square, and presented them to its master as 
 opponents worthy of his skill. "The doctor," he said, 
 "would box with any one." On this occasion the 
 combat was so sustained and so glorious that Ar- 
 nold, who had driven a peaceful milk wagon before 
 he took to the fancy, asked with some asperity if he had 
 been lured into a gentleman's house to be murdered. 
 When McLean grew old, Dr. White obtained for 
 him a post as one of the guardians of Rittenhouse 
 Square; and there the former pugilist looked after 
 the playing children, rescued their boats from foun- 
 dering in the pool, and told hilarious stories of his 
 youth. "Once," he confessed to me, "I got into 
 some little trouble. Well, no matter what it was 
 about. I got out of it anyhow. The next time I saw 
 Dr. White, he said: * Billy, when you were in trouble 
 the other day, why didn't you send for me?' I 
 thanked him, and told him I had n't any need to. 
 And the very next day, what did he do but knock 
 down a fellow who had insulted him, and get himself 
 arrested for doing it. I waited until he came to my 
 rooms, and I said to him: 'Doctor, I heard you were 
 in trouble the other day. Why did n't you send for 
 me?' He just looked at me, and 'Billy,' said he, 'you 
 gotoH !'"
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 123 
 
 On the 22d of February, 1905, the University of 
 Pennsylvania conferred the degree of Doctor of 
 Laws on President Roosevelt and the German Em- 
 peror. Baron von Sternburg accepted the honour 
 in the name of the Kaiser, who cabled this urbane 
 message: 
 
 Dr. Charles C. Harrison, Provost, 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 
 I am truly glad that the University has tendered 
 me, at the same time with President Roosevelt, the 
 academic honour that once clothed George Washing- 
 ton. I beg you to accept with my thanks my best 
 wishes for the continued growth and prosperity of 
 the University. 
 
 WILHELM, Imperator Rex, Berlin 
 
 It is significant that President Roosevelt, who was 
 the orator of the day, should have made a plain and 
 practical appeal for protection against imperialism; 
 pleading then, as he had pleaded before, and as he 
 pleaded until the end, for that wise and warlike 
 preparation which alone can insure us safety. 
 
 Dr. White's admiration and affection for the Pres- 
 ident had deepened with the deepening of knowl- 
 edge and experience. A year before this celebration, 
 Thomas Robins accused his friend of trying to win 
 him over to warmer partisanship by sending him
 
 124 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 all the derogatory editorials in the "Nation." The 
 scheme worked. A steadfast course of reviling is sure 
 to awaken contrary emotions in generous hearts. 
 Robins admitted that, after reading one particu- 
 larly virulent attack, "Roosevelt became tolerable im- 
 mediately," and he stood ready to vote for him like 
 a man. "The Nation pulled me around." 
 
 On the great question of national security, Dr. 
 White held strong and sane views. He was the last 
 man in Christendom to pose as a prophet; but neither 
 was he ever content to live in a fool's paradise. Ger- 
 many had made plain her malevolence in the Spanish 
 War. He no more dreamed than did his neighbours 
 that she was planning fresh conquests in Europe, 
 and that within ten years she would turn the world 
 into shambles; but he was well aware that she was 
 making trouble for us in Mexico. As far back as 
 1899 he records in his diary a devout wish that the 
 United States would strengthen her navy, and ally 
 herself defensively with Great Britain; so that when 
 Germany plotted against us in Samoa, Mexico, or 
 the Philippines, we could put a stopper on her mis- 
 chievous designs. 
 
 In the spring of 1905 the first symptoms of heart 
 trouble intruded themselves menacingly upon Dr. 
 White's reluctant consciousness. He had always been 
 superbly healthy and superbly active. He could not 
 contemplate life under any other conditions. He was
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 125 
 
 then hard at work on the section of Piersol's "Hu- 
 man Anatomy" which dealt with practical surgery, 
 toiling over it with that concentration of purpose 
 which accomplished such marvellous results. " Yester- 
 day," he wrote on March 20th to Tom Robins, "was 
 a rainy day, and I sat at my desk from 10.30 A.M. to 
 7.30 P.M. Letty is at the Hot Springs. I will not go 
 down, as I want to get the book finished this spring." 
 
 By May he was so much worse that rest was im- 
 perative, and in early June he made a careful note of 
 his condition, and of Dr. Stengel's diagnosis. "For 
 the first time in my life I have reason to think I am 
 not entirely sound, having suffered for ten weeks 
 from an irritable heart, my symptoms consisting of 
 arrhythmia, palpitation, and a variable, but at 
 times decided, mitral systolic murmur. This is sup- 
 posed [to be due to heart strain during my recent 
 mountain climbing experiences. I am told that there 
 is no valvular disease, but that I probably have some 
 form of myocardial degeneration. The month at the 
 seashore did me so much good that I hoped the 
 trouble was disappearing; but four days in Phila- 
 delphia, with the hurry and worry of getting ready 
 to sail, have brought back most of the symptoms. So 
 much for this troublesome business." 
 
 To Thomas Robins, then in California, he wrote 
 more fully and freely about his health than he did to 
 any other correspondent. The initials "S. I.," which
 
 126 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 stood for saintly invalid (himself), became increas- 
 ingly frequent in his letters. He admitted to this 
 sympathetic friend his discouragement and his pro- 
 found disgust. Dr. Stengel promised him that he 
 might live many years if he would give up every- 
 thing which made life worth having. For that form 
 of amusement known as "moderate exercise" he 
 had no taste whatever. To abandon climbing, tramp- 
 ing, cycling, swimming, coffee and tobacco, consti- 
 tuted a heavy draft on renunciation. The only indul- 
 gence he relinquished without concern was alcohol. 
 Robins wrote back much good advice, given with the 
 solicitude of affection. He made up lists of reasonable 
 pleasures which the saintly invalid might still enjoy, 
 and he pointed out, with the perspicuity of an ob- 
 servant friend, a few roads to reform: "If you will 
 only lop off mountain climbing, walk after your golf 
 ball instead of rushing at it like a mad bull, and sit 
 quietly in your box at the ball games instead of wav- 
 ing your arms like windmills on the side-lines, you 
 will surely live to the eighties." 
 
 "Human Anatomy" was ready for the printers 
 by the end of May, and, on the 16th of June, Dr. and 
 Mrs. White sailed for England. In London, Dr. Osier 
 made a careful examination of the patient, confirmed 
 Dr. Stengel's diagnosis, permitted a few weeks in 
 Switzerland, and prescribed a cure at Bad Nauheim. 
 
 It is worthy of comment that during this summer
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 127 
 
 of ill-health and anxiety, when week after week Dr. 
 White's symptoms grew more pronounced, his days 
 less profitable, his nights devoid of ease, the diary 
 becomes for the first time in sixteen years riotously 
 humorous. It is as though the sick man, determined 
 not to repine, took refuge in dwelling hilariously 
 upon every absurd incident, and in laughing his wife 
 out of her deep concern. He fills pages with teasing 
 descriptions of her interrogatory conversation, her 
 ruthless interruptions to his poetic flights, the pe- 
 riodic losses of jewelry which enliven dull days, and 
 her fluttering fear of mice. "It is strange," he muses, 
 "how easily these animals with presumably no 
 education in the matter can tell a man from a 
 woman. It must be something about our legs or our 
 underclothes which enlightens them." 
 
 One astute and valorous mouse "of the dangerous 
 variety known as the Souribus Ferox, or woman- 
 eating mouse of the Engadine," attacked Mrs. White 
 in their sitting-room in the Hotel Kulm, St. Moritz. 
 "She was alone at the time, but fortunately I was 
 in the next room, or Heaven knows what might not 
 have happened. She gave a shriek that startled the 
 hotel, caused crowds to gather in the road below our 
 windows, and put back my heart cure one calendar 
 month. I rushed in, but the mouse was gone. No one 
 has seen it except Letty; but she now has our suite 
 so full of mouse traps that there's no room for fur-
 
 128 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 niture. This is a sample of our daily conversation: 
 ** 8 A.M. Letty appears, to the extent of putting her 
 head hi my room and yawning: 'Have any mice been 
 caught in the traps?' 'No, dear/ 'Why not?' 'I don't 
 know, love.' 'Have you looked at them?' 'I have, 
 and I caught my toe in one of them when I got up 
 to draw the curtains.' 'Well, did you set it again?' 
 'No, sweetheart.' 'Why not?' 'Because I love the 
 cute little mice, and I like to see them around, and 
 enjoy their innocent gambols, and ' Door slams." 
 As for the long threatened paper on "Morning 
 Noises of the World," some valuable notes were 
 secured for it in Switzerland. The travellers spent 
 one night at Siis, having crossed the Fliiella Pass en 
 route to St. Moritz, had an excellent dinner, and 
 slept the sleep of the weary until 4 A.M., when this is 
 what took place under their windows, the diary 
 recording each event in order: 
 
 1. (4 o'clock): Boy with a shrill tin whistle calling 
 cows. 
 
 2. Cows with large bells on their necks. 
 
 3. Shepherds talking to each other. 
 
 4. Shepherds talking to a female. 
 
 5. Shepherds and female all talking at once. 
 
 6. Sheep with small bells on then- necks, and lambs 
 bleating. 
 
 7. Rooster crowing directly under window, and try- 
 ing to outdo another rooster around the corner.
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 129 
 
 8. Two hens join rooster, and cackle. 
 
 9. Rooster and hens put to flight by a tumblerful 
 
 of water from J. W. W. 
 
 10. Horses (with bells) led through the streets. 
 
 11. Early diligence passes. 
 
 12. Rooster and hens return, and are again put to 
 flight. 
 
 13. Goatherd with a long horn, blowing loudly. 
 
 14. Goats with medium-sized bells on their necks. 
 
 15. Hens again. 
 
 16. Reapers with scythes, talking loudly on their 
 
 way to work. 
 
 17. Rooster again. By this time it was 6.20, and I 
 got up. So did Letty. 
 
 If good advice could keep any of us on the straight 
 and narrow path of prudence, Dr. White need never 
 have lost his footing. Friends and acquaintances 
 wrote to him all summer, enjoining a contemplative 
 life, and pointing out the beauties of inaction. 
 Among them was Henry James, who, after urging 
 his friend to come to Rye, implored him with whim- 
 sical intentness to surrender himself for once to the 
 limitations imposed by illness. "When you tell me 
 you are not well, I see it only means that the rank- 
 ness of your pride and the violence of your past are 
 not sufficiently laid low. . . . Nauheim is, I believe, 
 beautiful and benignant, and never fails with those
 
 130 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 of its children who really consent to nestle on its 
 bosom. Nestle close! Nestle, and don't wrestle, ac- 
 cording to your vice and wont. That's all you re- 
 quire, to permanently give up wrestling. I, for one, 
 shall feel myself better for your having done so. The 
 sense that you have quit it will act quite as my own 
 private little Nauheim." 
 
 From a friend of six months' standing, this letter 
 shows as much insight as affection. Its plea, and the 
 oft repeated pleas of other correspondents, were fully 
 granted; for it is in the nature of all "cures" to turn 
 their patients into pulp, to deaden every vital im- 
 pulse, to conquer the souls as well as the bodies of 
 their victims. When Dr. WTiite had been ten days at 
 Nauheim, he was as inert as a garden snail. "The 
 laziness of the place is really getting into my bones," 
 he writes in the diary. "To-day I've walked to the 
 bath-house (four minutes) and back; and to the Kur- 
 haus (ten minutes) and back. That's all, and yet I 
 feel as if I 'd had quite enough exercise, perhaps 
 a shade too much." 
 
 Thermal baths, "resembling Schuylkill water after 
 a heavy rain," filled up -a modicum of time. Massage, 
 "resting," and "fooling about" filled up the rest. To 
 play with some engaging little children at the Kur- 
 haus became a recognized pastime; to "listen to the 
 music" figured as recreation; an illumination in the 
 hotel garden was a real event. Dr. Heineman, the
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 131 
 
 Nauheim physician recommended by Dr. Osier, 
 urged his patient to be "placid" (he might as well 
 have asked him to be timorous or affable), and to 
 "take things quietly," which he tried hard to do. He 
 notes with increasing frequency in the diary his suc- 
 cessful essays at passivity. "Begin alkathrepta this 
 A.M. instead of coffee. Ha! Ha!" "To-day I stayed 
 eleven minutes instead of six in the bath, waiting for 
 the man to come and take me out and dry me. God 
 knows it's a wonder I'm not dead." 
 
 There seems to have been a forlorn pleasure in 
 laughing at his own plight, at the 
 
 "masterful negation and collapse 
 Of all that made him man." 
 
 On the 8th of August he records feelingly: "Out of 
 the last twenty-four hours I have spent fifteen 'rest- 
 ing' in a recumbent position. By the time my five 
 weeks are up, I shall have had more continuous, 
 consecutive rest than I've had in nearly fifty-five 
 years. And the trouble is they don't send you away 
 for your after-cure to exercise, and get up your 
 muscle again; but insist that you must then take 
 more rest, to recuperate from the baths. Heaven 
 knows what I'll be like in October. I never exercise 
 on a steamer anyhow. I'll probably arrive home in 
 a bonnet and veil, with a little knit shawl over my 
 shoulders, black fingerless mittens on my hands, 
 open-work stockings, high-heeled red morocco slip-
 
 132 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 pers, a lorgnette instead of spectacles, and a caba 
 to hold a little bottle of smelling-salts, one of cologne, 
 a piece of orris root to bite on occasionally, and a 
 nice little black Testament. If Ethel and Florence 
 see any one like that running at them with shrill cries 
 of joy, they'll know it's their Uncle Bill." 
 
 Dr. Heineman's diagnosis of the case was an "irri- 
 table heart from suppressed gout." This concurred 
 with Dr. White's own convictions, and with Dr. 
 Osier's theory that the trouble was "pure neurosis." 
 There were days when the patient felt himself 
 bounding, or at least sauntering, back to health, 
 and days when he was profoundly discouraged. 
 Clear Sprudel baths replaced the more homelike 
 "Schuylkill" dips; the children went away with their 
 arms full of Dr. White's farewell gifts; the weather 
 grew cold. The hour of departure brought with it a 
 sense of well-merited improvement, which was not 
 destined to last. Ostend, or at least the Palace Hotel, 
 a mile or so out of that "Franco-Belgian-German 
 ghetto," had been chosen as an after-cure. "Sargent 
 is off to Jerusalem," wrote Dr. White to Thomas 
 Robins. "I asked him why Ostend wouldn't have 
 done as well. There are more Jews there. Of course 
 his visit is in the interest of his work in the Boston 
 Library. I hate to see such paintings put in such a 
 God-forsaken place as that dreary corridor assigned 
 to them."
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 133 
 
 A verdict with which many readers will agree. 
 
 A brief visit to Henry James at Rye was immensely 
 cheering to the invalid. He wrote that he had sud- 
 denly lost all his homesickness, and should like to 
 stay in England for a month. The old house, the old 
 town, and his kind host gave him a serene sense of 
 well-being, which not even the rainy weather could 
 dispel. He listened delightedly to the chronicles of 
 the country-side, and to personal reminiscences, 
 jotting down occasionally such an item as this: "I 
 want to record, for the purpose of telling Harrison 
 Morris some day, that the best selling story James 
 ever wrote * Daisy Miller* was first offered to 
 'Lippincott's Magazine/ and was promptly rejected 
 by the editor, John Foster Kirk. * Daisy Miller* was 
 subsequently pirated in America" (the shame of it!), 
 "and seventy-five thousand copies were sold." 
 
 Morgan Hall was as soothing and as sympathetic 
 as Lamb House, although the patient suffered so 
 severely at this time that Dr. Osier made a little 
 journey to see him. Fresh advice was given, new 
 remedies were tried. "I am beginning to have my 
 own view about the situation," is Dr. White's grim 
 comment. "But I've had so many views of my 
 own and of others and they 're so devoid of practical 
 results, that I'm not going to waste time in putting 
 down any more. The camphor is keeping the moths 
 out of my heart anyhow. That's a great comfort."
 
 134 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 The summer he counted a failure (there was no 
 other possible verdict), and the winter to which he 
 returned was full of cares and contrarieties. Here and 
 there were bright spots in the gloom. The election of 
 Treves as Lord Rector of Aberdeen University gave 
 him sincere pleasure; and he accepted (provisionally) 
 his friend's invitation to represent the University of 
 Pennsylvania, and receive a degree at Aberdeen's 
 Four Hundredth Anniversary. He abandoned defi- 
 nitely and forever his surgical practice, taking this 
 long-meditated step for reasons which were more 
 convincing to himself than to his friends and patients. 
 He retained, however, the John Rhea Barton Chair 
 of Surgery at the University, and gave his lectures 
 with unstinted zeal. 
 
 There was much football clamour in the air, but 
 some of it passed him by. Columbia relinquished the 
 game which had never been her long suit. The col- 
 leges in general were keen for reform. The Army 
 and Navy game was played at Princeton instead 
 of on Franklin Field, which was unable to furnish 
 the requisite space to West Point and Annapolis. 
 President Roosevelt was again present. The distin- 
 guished guests were royally entertained; but thou- 
 sands of visitors, unable to obtain other food than a 
 chance sandwich (which they refused to consider in 
 the light of luncheon), and heart-broken over the dif- 
 ficulties of transit (it is a stout heart that Prince-
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 135 
 
 ton Junction cannot break), sighed for the flesh-pots 
 of Philadelphia. No wonder there should be a note 
 of genuine satisfaction in a letter written by Dr. 
 White to Thomas Robins, January 30, 1906, and 
 containing the welcome news that the repentant au- 
 thorities had signified their desire to return to their 
 old quarters: 
 
 "The Army -Navy game is to be played next De- 
 cember on Franklin Field. This was arranged yester- 
 day. We were generous, and promised we would 
 make some extra provision for them" (West Point 
 and Annapolis) "on a temporary stand, although we 
 would not recede an inch from our original position, 
 and give them more than two-thirds of the present 
 seats. I believe, on the whole, that we have done 
 right, and that they have had a lesson which will 
 enable them to appreciate what they are getting 
 when they come here. I am glad they went to Prince- 
 ton, for until they tried elsewhere, they did not know 
 how comfortable they were with us." 
 
 In this month (January, 1906), Dr. White, smitten 
 with the desire for a country home which comes to 
 every man at least once in a lifetime, bought the 
 very beautiful property in Delaware County known 
 as the "Old Farm." It was an estate of a hundred 
 and thirty-seven acres, with a good colonial house 
 somewhat out of repair. "You will see that I have 
 provided elaborately for the use of my spare time
 
 136 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 during the few remaining years of my life," he wrote 
 to Robins; who, in return, besought him eloquently 
 to do what no owner of a country home has ever 
 been known to do, live in it: "When you are in the 
 country give up the pursuits of town, all the pomps 
 and vanities of the wicked world, and the pride 
 thereof. Burn your bridges and be a countryman, 
 and you will be happy. But if you become a subur- 
 banite, cleaving unto Rittenhouse Square, you will 
 be miserable, and will promptly sell the place. All of 
 which I firmly believe." 
 
 ; Dr. Osier, who was Dr. White's guest this winter, 
 and still much concerned about his health, was en- 
 thusiastic over the curative powers of field and 
 meadow. "The farm, I dare say, will be your salva- 
 tion," he wrote after his return to England. This 
 pleasant conceit was echoed from every side. There 
 are hosts of people ready to believe that a town 
 mouse, transported to the country, becomes forth- 
 with a country mouse, changing its nature with the 
 changing scene. The only dissentient voice in this 
 chorus of congratulation came from Dr. Martin. 
 "WThat is the first thing I'd better do with this 
 place?" asked the proud proprietor; to which his 
 friend replied concisely and conclusively, "Pave it." 
 In April, the California earthquake, followed by 
 the disastrous fires in San Francisco, filled the coun- 
 try with dismay and commiseration. "Thousands are
 
 LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 137 
 
 stripped as naked as they were born," wrote Thomas 
 Robins from San Mateo. "Men who had large in- 
 comes have now nothing for daily needs; yet they are 
 full of hope for the future. I did not dream that the 
 highly specialized modern could face the conditions 
 of the cave man with such uncomplaining alacrity." 
 
 Dr. White's first concern was for the safety and 
 welfare of his friend. When this anxiety had been set 
 at rest, he applied himself vigorously to measures of 
 relief. He sent a strong appeal to the alumni of the 
 University of Pennsylvania in behalf of their fellow 
 students, who, scattered along the Pacific Coast, had 
 been involved in the universal ruin. "Some of them 
 are young men who worked their way through col- 
 lege, and had succeeded in establishing themselves 
 in the pursuit of their chosen avocations. Physicians, 
 lawyers, chemists and engineers have lost their li- 
 braries, instruments, household goods and clothing, 
 and are now in genuine and extreme distress. Where 
 can they turn in their hour of need with more cer- 
 tainty of freely proffered aid than to their Alma 
 Mater?" 
 
 The response to this call was so generous (even the 
 Mask and Wig Club broke its rules, and gave a 
 benefit performance), the fund was so well admin- 
 istered, and the demands upon it were so decently 
 moderate (American gentlemen do not take help 
 unless it be a sore necessity), that, after "central
 
 138 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 California had been raked with a fine tooth comb for 
 Pennsylvania men in need," there was actually money 
 left in the treasury, money for which no Univer- 
 sity graduate applied. 
 
 This relief fund was Dr. White's last public activ- 
 ity for the year 1906. His health had been indifferent 
 all winter and spring. He believed and said that he 
 was holding his own; that, notwithstanding many 
 bad days and nights, the heart trouble had made 
 little or no progress. He had given up violent exer- 
 cise, and, with it, the habits of a lifetime; and he 
 hoped that by spending tranquil days and nights on 
 the farm, and by rolling 'round in a motor like a fat 
 and prosperous citizen, he might compromise with 
 an unrelenting foe. Then suddenly there came a bolt 
 from the blue, a harsh threat of impending disaster, 
 a tremendous struggle for the life that was so useful 
 and so dear.
 
 CHAPTER VIH 
 A CRISIS PAST 
 
 ON June 5th, 1906, 1 had an attack of peritonitis, 
 during which I discovered a hard nodular mass 
 in my left iliac fossa. Taken with my other symptoms, 
 at my age (fifty-five), this indicated with great prob- 
 ability a cancerous growth involving the sigmoid 
 flexure, no final and conclusive proof of the presence 
 of internal cancer being at this date known to the 
 profession. On June 17th I left Philadelphia (with 
 Letty and Dr. A. C. Wood) for Rochester, Minne- 
 sota, where we arrived June 19th. On June 21st I 
 was operated on by Dr. William J. Mayo. Resection 
 of seven inches of the sigmoid, with end-to-end anas- 
 tomosis, was done. The operation was severe and 
 prolonged. Dr. Mayo thought the mass was can- 
 cerous until the pathologist 's report showed that it 
 was a congenital diverticulum, containing an enter- 
 olith which had set up ulceration, and was sur- 
 rounded by a mass of inflammatory exudate, making 
 the lump thought to be malignant. The ulceration 
 had already caused perforation of the bowel, which 
 had given me the attack of peritonitis." 
 
 This is Dr. White's succinct account of an expe- 
 rience which embraced the utmost limits of appre-
 
 140 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 hension and relief. He had no doubt that the growth 
 was a malignant one. The physicians who examined 
 him were equally sure of it. and made little effort to 
 deceive a man who absolutely refused to deceive 
 himself. He put his affairs in order with his cus- 
 tomary precision. There were many friends eager to 
 accompany him to Rochester; but he declined all 
 companionship save that of his wife and of Dr. Alfred 
 C. Wood, who had been for years his assistant in 
 the University Hospital, and for whom he enter- 
 tamed the strong regard which comes with the shar- 
 ing of work, and care, and responsibility. He knew 
 Dr. Wood's skill as a surgeon; he knew his deep 
 unspoken affection; and he knew the quality of his 
 intercourse, the smooth, silent, wise watchfulness, 
 which would give all the help that was needed, and 
 never fret the nerves of a man who believed he was 
 travelling to receive his death-warrant. As soon as an 
 hour was fixed for the operation, telegrams were sent 
 to Philadelphia, and Dr. Martin, Dr. Frazier, and 
 Dr. Stengel started at once for Rochester. Treves 
 had been most anxious to be present, but it was, of 
 course, impossible to await his coming. 
 
 There was one intervening day, June 20th, and 
 Dr. White filled it up, characteristically enough, by 
 watching the two great brother surgeons operate. 
 The utmost interest was taken in his own case, the 
 utmost kindness and consideration were shown him.
 
 A CRISIS PAST 141 
 
 When the report revealed the non-malignant char- 
 acter of the growth, Dr. William Mayo hastened to 
 the bedside of his patient, who was perilously weak, 
 and somewhat disinclined to living. "Well, you're 
 all right," he said gladly. 
 
 "Well, you're a good liar," replied Dr. White. 
 "I've been there myself, and I know." 
 
 Dr. Mayo sat down, and took the sick man's hand. 
 "You don't know every thing," he said. "It is like 
 this. A bagful of black beans and one white one. 
 You've pulled out the white bean. Now get well." 
 
 Meanwhile, in far-off Philadelphia, Dr. White's 
 secretary, Miss Ivens, waited all that long June day 
 hi his office on Rittenhouse Square for news which 
 she could transmit to his anxious friends. She was as 
 earnestly and as loyally devoted to him as any 
 friend he had, her concern was as deep, her heart as 
 heavy. At ten o'clock in the morning she said to me, 
 " Come back at four. We should have word by then." 
 At four I went. She opened the door. Her eyes were 
 shining, her face transfigured with joy. Silently she 
 handed me the telegram, and, half-dazed by the 
 sudden lifting of fear, I read the message which 
 brought better news than any one had ever dared 
 to hope. 
 
 The convalescence was slow, and endangered by 
 serious complications. For a whole month Dr. White 
 was permitted to remain in the hospital, an un-
 
 142 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 heard-of indulgence when so many patients were 
 waiting for admission. For ten days Dr. Wood stayed 
 by his side. He established the friendliest relations 
 with Sister Mary Joseph and her assistant nuns; and, 
 after his faithful fashion, he never forgot her kind- 
 ness. When he reached Rome the following Novem- 
 ber, he sent her a signed photograph of Pope Pius 
 the Tenth, and obtained for her and for her sister- 
 hood the Papal blessing; in return for which she 
 wrote him fervent thanks, promised him fervent pray- 
 ers, and gave him unreservedly the "united love" of 
 the community. 
 
 To Dr. Mayo he made the only return in his power. 
 His friendship for both the brothers, his admiration 
 and gratitude, found expression in a codicil in his 
 will, bequeathing to them the sum of $10,000. He 
 wrote them frankly of this bequest, and they an- 
 swered just as frankly, saying they always had bet- 
 ter luck than they deserved, and that, while they 
 were willing to wait many long years for the money, 
 it would be useful to the hospital when it came. 
 
 On July 3d, thirteen days after the operation, 
 came the first faint scrawl in Dr. White's hand- 
 writing to Thomas Robins. "I ought to have had 
 cancer," he wrote. " Mayo says it was one hundred 
 to one chances against me, and that he hardly 
 thought any alternative worth considering. But my 
 dumb luck stuck to me." On July 12th he wrote
 
 A CRISIS PAST 143 
 
 again, this time quite legibly, and in his old banter- 
 ing strain. He has escaped all the pitfalls spread to 
 catch his tottering steps. He has been promoted to 
 the dignity of bathing himself, and of brushing his 
 own teeth. The teeth he finds unchanged; but his 
 arms and legs are so shrunken, they are not worth 
 washing. He can hardly see them with the naked 
 eye. For fifteen months he had been treated for a 
 heart disease that did not exist. For fifteen months 
 the real nature of his malady had never been sus- 
 pected. For fifteen months he had blindly accepted 
 the verdict of his doctors. He offers the excuse that 
 he was the patient, and that it was not his business 
 to find out what was the matter with himself; but he 
 is candid enough to admit that he was a bit "stupid" 
 never to have made a guess at the truth. 
 
 On the 18th of July he left Rochester, and on the 
 20th a little group of happy friends and relatives 
 waited for the arrival of his train in Philadelphia. 
 Thin, worn, but smiling and as perverse as ever, the 
 convalescent jeered at the rolling chair which had 
 been drawn close to the car, refused the station lift, 
 walked proudly, though not very firmly, down the 
 stairs, and into the waiting motor. He was taken at 
 once to the house of his cousin, Mr. S. S. White, 
 at Narberth, and remained there, gaining a pound a 
 week, until he sailed for England about the first of 
 August. There existed between Dr. White and this
 
 144 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 cousin a warm and inextinguishable friendship which 
 dated from early boyhood, and which had that foun- 
 dation upon which Robert Louis Stevenson says 
 most friendships are built, the memory of careless, 
 happy hours, of mutual jests, of little experiences, 
 comical or exasperating, which they had shared for 
 years. Their marriage with two sisters deepened the 
 bond between them. Dr. White's summer diaries 
 were really letters, sent home in batches, meant 
 chiefly for his cousins and brothers; and full of jokes, 
 and phrases, and allusions, to which only his chosen 
 readers held the key. 
 
 From absent friends came hosts of loving, anxious 
 letters. John Sargent wrote his deep concern and his 
 profound relief. Henry James sent warm-hearted 
 messages to his "dear and gallant friend," and longed 
 to "scuffle" with Mrs. White for the privilege of 
 holding his hand. Treves was beside himself with 
 delight at the happy ending of so many sorrowful 
 hours. Lord Lister wrote a sad little note, confessing 
 his own heavy infirmities, while congratulating Dr. 
 White on his marvellous restoration to health. Dr. 
 Horace Howard Furness complimented the conva- 
 lescent upon his wisdom in foregoing for a time "the 
 problematic joys" of another world. "Had I my 
 will," he wrote affectionately, "every step in your 
 life should be strewed with flowers. But are not 
 transitory, fading flowers far better replaced by the
 
 A CRISIS PAST 145 
 
 countless blessings invoked upon your head from 
 lips where gratitude will last as long as life? What 
 are the roses of an hour compared with the roses of 
 health that you have made to bloom! Ah, my boy, 
 you are to be envied. 
 
 "As our St. Agnes told you, I intended to go at 
 once and look after you, although my special pro- 
 ficiency does not, as you are aware, meet your case. 
 But I am timid about calling on my friends. It is 
 such a horrid bore to talk to a deaf man. When 
 Nature sends deafness, it is the good dame's way of 
 saying to the victim, 'do you go into the corner and 
 hold your tongue, conversation is not for such as 
 you/ I accept her decree, and obey.'* 
 
 It was natural that the ocean voyage this fateful 
 summer should have seemed to Dr. White the sweet- 
 est he had ever known. The lightness of heart which 
 comes with the departure of pain and the daily in- 
 crease of strength was intensified by the thought that 
 life was his to hold; that the world, with its dear 
 familiar things, its perpetual menace and its shining 
 possibilities, was his to conquer and enjoy. He had 
 been ready to meet the "great adventure" with an 
 unshrinking front; but his desire to live was vigorous 
 and unabashed. The sea, the salt breeze, and the 
 sparkling sun sent the blood dancing through his 
 veins. The shores of England beckoned invitingly. 
 Loving friends awaited his arrival. Aberdeen, where
 
 146 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 he was to receive the degree of LL.D. was his main 
 objective; but there was time to spare for a run through 
 Wales, a visit to Morgan Hall, London, and the 
 English Lakes. He had thought to make things 
 easier by sending over his motor and his faithful 
 chauffeur, Ell wood; and the sight of them on the 
 Liverpool docks was pleasantly reassuring. Later on 
 he learned that he had secured for himself three 
 months of care and vexation; but this knowledge 
 was mercifully hidden in those first smooth, tranquil 
 days. 
 
 From Henry James came a long letter, full of ad- 
 miration, or consternation (it is hard to tell which), 
 at the meteor-like velocity with which the conva- 
 lescent was scouring through Wales. "The whole 
 picture of your proceedings and adventures," he 
 wrote, "affects me as nothing else does. I sit here 
 driving my poor dull pen, and striking my damp 
 ineffectual matches, while you bound from continent 
 to continent, from ocean to mountain, from hospital 
 to motor, from triumph to triumph, in a manner that 
 attests the exuberance, not to say the arrogance, of 
 your vitality. Truly you live a Life, and the mere 
 side-wind of it, in the form of a Bettws-y-Coed (I do 
 love to write that name) breeze, makes me sit up. 
 I am, in fact, sitting up till one A.M. to tell you how 
 I rejoice in your grand recovery, in your brave activ- 
 ity, in everything that is yours."
 
 A CRISIS PAST 147 
 
 Dr. White's appreciation of the Welsh scenery 
 found expression in a renewed zeal for photography. 
 Since the far-off days on the Hassler he had practised 
 this difficult art with singular lack of success. He 
 sent me once some photographs of his own taking, 
 and I could only say it was a severe blow to me to 
 know that he could do anything so badly. Still, as he 
 repeatedly pointed out, there was always a picture 
 of some sort to show as a result of his endeavours, 
 while Mrs. White occasionally drew a blank. "The 
 workings of the female mind are truly wonderful," he 
 observes with conscious superiority. "After eighteen 
 years of kodaking, Letty is just as likely as not to 
 put the lens against her stomach, and try and pho- 
 tograph with the other end." 
 
 It was inevitable that there should have been some 
 disappointments to mar the glory of this triumphant 
 summer. The motor, which behaved so irreproach- 
 ably in the start, grew more and more recalcitrant 
 as the weeks went by, and required a great deal of 
 tinkering at the least convenient times, and in the 
 least commodious localities. The reports from the 
 farm were exasperating, plumbers, plasterers, gar- 
 deners, and workmen generally, conspiring, after 
 their wont, to make a mess of their respective jobs. 
 "No bad news except about the farm, which I wish 
 were in Hell," is a typical entry in the diary. It was 
 in this first year of ownership that Dr. Martin chris-
 
 148 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 tened the place, "Oh, Hell!" and as "Oh, Hell!" it 
 is casually and repeatedly alluded to. Mrs. White 
 rebelled against this endearing epithet, explaining 
 tersely that it was not a name which she could have 
 engraved upon her stationery; so Mr. Robins re- 
 placed it with the pastoral and irreproachable appel- 
 lative, "Cherry Knoll Farm." 
 
 More serious matters of concern to Dr. White 
 were Abbey's ill-health (he had been an invalid for 
 five months), and his own lack of endurance. Fatigue, 
 heat, worry of any kind, told on him as they had 
 never told before; and, in the first flush of convales- 
 cence, he was apt to forget that he had ever been ill. 
 There were nights rendered sleepless by over-exertion, 
 and there were homesick days when he comforted 
 himself by watching Mrs. White's recovered bloom 
 and unalloyed content. "Letty's old insomnia still 
 troubles her before 10 P.M. and after 8 A.M.," he 
 writes from Keswick; "but for the intervening ten 
 hours she is dead to the world. She is having a tre- 
 mendous flirtation with a Canadian gentleman, a 
 little my senior, and spends most of her waking 
 hours (when they are not meal hours) talking to 
 him." 
 
 It would have been the part of wisdom (even mod- 
 erate wisdom) to have saved up strength for the 
 fatiguing days in Scotland; but this was not Dr. 
 White's way. Treves had written from the royal
 
 A CRISIS PAST 149 
 
 yacht, then anchored at Christiania, claiming his 
 friends as his guests while they were in Aberdeen. 
 He was not having a really good time on that yacht. 
 The daily excursions in company with one king, two 
 queens, and a princess, were less merry than the old 
 picnics at Scilly. "I miss the bathing clothes hung 
 out to dry," he wrote. "There is no golf, but a big 
 dinner of some sort every night, which I could do 
 without. The only thing you would enjoy is the 
 service of prayer and praise every Sabbath morn." 
 
 Two things weighed upon Dr. White's soul as he 
 motored to Aberdeen. He would be compelled to 
 make a speech (a short one, happily) in the name of 
 all the American universities; and he would be com- 
 pelled to wear, when he received his degree, a par- 
 ticularly brilliant gown of scarlet and pale blue. He 
 wondered if it would be as gorgeous as the Cambridge 
 gown in which Dr. Furness looked on Commence- 
 ment days like "a jolly old bird of paradise"; and 
 he found to his dismay that it was more determinedly 
 picturesque, being topped by a rakish black velvet 
 
 cap, hard to adjust, and "d d unbecoming" when 
 
 adjusted. The speech, however, was a great success, 
 owing largely to the fact that the Reverend William 
 Smith, first Provost of the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania, had been an Aberdeen man, born within a 
 mile of the town, baptized in the old Aberdeenshire 
 kirk, and educated at the University. The story of
 
 150 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 this highly belligerent and seditious Scotchman, 
 who, when clapped into a Philadelphia jail, con- 
 tinued to instruct his students in these incommo- 
 dious quarters, and turned the peaceful prison into 
 Bedlam, was hailed with delight by his townsmen. 
 They had forgotten all about him for more than a 
 hundred years, and were correspondingly pleased to 
 be reminded of his tumultuous and triumphant 
 career. 
 
 The Aberdeen celebrations lasted three days, 
 three whole days of meetings, and speeches, and for- 
 mal openings of new buildings, and processions, and 
 luncheons, and "banquets." It was a terrible pro- 
 gramme for a convalescent who had been ordered 
 quiet and rest; but, once embarked upon it, there 
 seemed no avenue of escape. The Lord Provost of 
 the University gave one banquet, the Lord Chancel- 
 lor, a second. At the first, Dr. White sat between a 
 German professor and an ex-Lord Provost, and had 
 as much in common with his neighbours as he might 
 have had with a "cigar-store Indian." At the second, 
 he was too tired and ill for conversation. As the 
 friend and guest of the Lord Rector, he was bidden 
 to the royal luncheon, the only foreigner so honoured; 
 and he walked in his cap and gown through the 
 streets of Aberdeen to the Town Hall, in company 
 with other gentlemen equally distinguished and 
 equally bedizened, while the crowd stared its fill,
 
 A CRISIS PAST 151 
 
 and the Gordon Highlanders held back adventurous 
 children. "It was a great day," he wrote, "for me 
 and the King." 
 
 It was even greater than his simple spirit had con- 
 ceived. English papers gravely recorded the favour 
 shown him, and Philadelphia papers repeated the 
 news a trifle more emphatically. Friends applauded 
 or jeered, according to their frame of mind. Henry 
 James, with an affectation of profound humility, 
 wrote, asking for the privilege of an interview. 
 
 "I shall not expect to do anything but come up to 
 London to lunch with you on some day that I now 
 appeal to you very kindly (or graciously, as they 
 say of your present sort) to appoint. I naturally 
 yearn over you, with your rise in the social scale, 
 more even than usual; and it is, in short, indispen- 
 sable that I shall at least be able for the brief here- 
 after of my days to swagger about having lunched 
 with you. Don't deprive me of this possibly sole 
 consolation of my inferiority. Make me some simple 
 sign of the duration of your days in London, and I 
 will come for as many hours as may be, and spend 
 them all as near you as one may now approach. 
 Would n't it be some day next week? I am supposing 
 that this will meet you in London. Heaven send it 
 find you intermitting a little, in the interest of rest, 
 the passion and pride of your career." 
 
 It was about this time that Dr. White came slowly
 
 152 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 and sadly to the conclusion that he was not strong 
 enough to return to Philadelphia, and take up his 
 lectures in the winter. He had tried to bully Nature, 
 and had consistently refused her all concessions. 
 Now he found that the "good dame" to use 
 Dr. Furness' too partial epithet was more than a 
 match for him. "I am still weak and nervous," he 
 wrote to Thomas Robins; "and while I can never 
 under any circumstances avoid worrying about 
 something, I'm sure I'd have more to trouble me if 
 I came home and went to work. I'm only part of a 
 man yet, and had, I suppose, better play until I can 
 stand at least the mild knocks of life." 
 
 His play would have bowled over Hercules. He 
 motored on, on, on, seeing everything that was to 
 be seen, hustling through Scotland, England, and the 
 beautiful towns of southern France, in a series of 
 one night stands. If by good luck a stormy day gave 
 him a chance to loaf and invite his soul, he wrote 
 reams of diary, dozens of letters, made up accounts, 
 and fatigued himself as thoroughly as if he had gone 
 on some nerve-racking expedition. He was always 
 a punctilious correspondent, "very scrupulous and 
 energetic" (his own words) in answering his friends' 
 letters, and very prompt and patient "even when I 
 don't care a damn for the answeree." It was doubtful 
 wisdom. Sargent used to point out to him that leav- 
 ing letters unanswered saves half a man's life, and
 
 A CRISIS PAST 153 
 
 leaving them unread saves the other half. As for the 
 thousand and forty-seven picture postcards which 
 he sent home in less than four months, that riotous 
 excess, that "passionate prodigality," would have 
 been possible to no other traveller in Christendom. 
 
 Monte Carlo left him cold. He had no love for gam- 
 bling, and no taste for the elaborately meretricious. 
 "I think I could be almost as wicked as anybody 
 here without half trying," is his highly characteristic 
 comment. The only person who interested him was 
 "an elderly, respectable, motherly looking lady, who 
 sat by the dealer at trente-et-quarante, and who got 
 ten thousand francs out of the bank while we were 
 watching her." The only thing which really pleased 
 him was the profound quiet of his rooms. Southern 
 France he had found to be little less noisy than Italy, 
 and to have the same reprehensible habit of begin- 
 ning life early in the day. At Brignoles he makes this 
 entry in his diary: 
 
 "October 29th. 6.15 A.M.: If it had not been for a 
 dozen musicians under our windows, one horse, two 
 roosters, three dogs, four cats, a cook hi a kitchen, a 
 scullion in a courtyard, and a carbuncle on my neck, 
 I 'd have slept very well last night. Letty did anyway. 
 Everybody in Brignoles except Letty is now up 
 and making some kind of a noise. I wish I had a 
 horn and a drum. I feel out of it." 
 
 With his usual amazing good luck, he had reached
 
 164 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Rome, and was actually in St. Peter's, when the 
 bomb was exploded on November 18th. He was not 
 a church-goer, and seldom attended a service. Yet 
 he did hear Mass that day, did linger to see the 
 great relics exposed in the logge, and did stroll about 
 afterwards long enough to be present when the out- 
 rage occurred. The bomb exploded near the beautiful 
 tomb of Clement the Thirteenth. There was a rend- 
 ing noise and a column of black smoke. Most of the 
 people left in the Cathedral ran to the doors. A few, 
 including the Whites, ran to the smoke. They were 
 so swift that Dr. White was able to gather up a 
 handful of nails and scraps of iron before the guards 
 appeared, and drove back the now clamorous and 
 excited mob. It was a remarkable experience. Phil- 
 adelphia newspapers took due notice of it; and one 
 journal, permitting itself a pardonable latitude in the 
 matter of detail, reported that Dr. White was travel- 
 ling through Russia, when a bomb flung by a nihilist 
 in the streets of St. Petersburg exploded at his feet. 
 
 The trip to Egypt, so long in abeyance, was now 
 settled upon. Of all Dr. White's friends, Henry James 
 alone opposed it. He had heard vague rumours of 
 "unrest," of "heavings" beneath the surface. He 
 had been informed by the usual "good authority" 
 that it was not a safe country for a "delicate fe- 
 male" to enter. "You, William," he wrote, "are not 
 a female, and your delicacy is a thing of the past,
 
 A CRISIS PAST 155 
 
 when I have known you really quite indelicate; but I 
 kind of fidget over Letitia, and am hoping that, in 
 the eastward current, as you have now sometime 
 been, you are not without full information and re- 
 assurance on this general head. If you've never 
 thought of the matter at all, think of it now, 
 always for Letitia, since I don't care so much what 
 becomes of you. I give you, of course, my little 
 chatter for what it is worth, and can but take for 
 granted that you are not going it blind, but know 
 where you are, and what you are doing. You are not 
 irresponsible infants, and won't behave as such. 
 Still, for the last word, don't, William, drag the 
 delicate Letitia! And do, Letitia, wrestle with the 
 reckless William!" 
 
 It may be imagined how much weight this coun- 
 sel had with either of the enterprising tourists. Dr. 
 White admitted that it gave the Egyptian trip "a 
 faint a very faint spice of adventure," which 
 was strengthened when a British soldier told him in 
 Cairo what precautions for safety had been taken. 
 Mrs. White probably never thought of the matter 
 again. The nostalgia which lay in wait for the doc- 
 tor's unoccupied moments (they were few) had 
 attacked him in Italy, especially on the days of 
 the Penn- Cornell and Army -Navy games, when he 
 did not know whether to give thanks or to curse, 
 and so felt all the bitterness of exile. The novelty of
 
 156 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Egypt was expected to heal these sick dreams of 
 home. His enthusiasm for fresh fields of travel was 
 as keen as in his youthful days, his curiosity was as 
 insatiable. He never knew and to some of us it 
 would be a heavy loss the exquisite and unworthy 
 pleasures of the idle tourist, who is content to be a 
 part of his strange surroundings, and who refuses to 
 be hounded into sight-seeing. The joy of leaving 
 Yarrow unvisited was never his to tell. 
 
 That he and Mrs. White should have climbed the 
 Great Pyramid, and have crawled into its burial 
 chamber, was inevitable. "I would n't have missed 
 entering if I'd have had to wriggle in on my belly," 
 he wrote emphatically. That, with the slow current 
 of the Nile inviting him to repose, he should have 
 made every excursion and visited every ruin, was 
 equally a matter of course. But when it came to the 
 dubious delight of riding on a camel fifteen, eighteen, 
 and twenty miles a day, his enjoyment is harder to 
 analyze. Yet there were many amusing experiences 
 which he would have missed had he been a shade 
 less energetic, notably a Soudanese wedding at 
 Wady Haifa, where he figured as a distinguished 
 guest. The bride's dowry consisted of two nose-rings, 
 a brass anklet, and a six-inch fringe of glass beads. 
 The groom possessed a goat-skin water bag and a 
 bone-handled dagger. With this simple and sufficient 
 equipment, free from the tyranny of things, from
 
 A CRISIS PAST 157 
 
 the burden of rubbish which we carry to our graves, 
 the young couple faced an unencumbered and con- 
 tented future. There was plenty of dancing, which 
 costs nothing; and Dr. White treated the donkey boys 
 to all the Arabic beer which they could drink, with 
 results that would have scandalized our peremptory 
 prohibitionists. 
 
 On the whole, Egypt was beneficent to the inva- 
 lid. A carbuncle and poisoned flea-bites marred his 
 pleasure in Cairo ("I just have to keep out of the 
 charming and attractive little cesspools and sewers 
 which they call streets," he wrote regretfully); but 
 the life-giving air of the Nile could not fail to in- 
 vigorate him. He had for the East as strong a sym- 
 pathy as was possible for a man to whom one of its 
 great inspirations was a dead letter, a blank leaf in 
 the book of fate. His careless summary of Mahomet 
 as "an epileptic lunatic" (and this after visiting the 
 mosque el Azhar with its library and students), marks 
 the barrier which divided him from a high tide of 
 human emotions, and blocked his historic perspective. 
 Epileptic lunatics have, indeed, started religious move- 
 ments; but these have perished with their founders. 
 They have made history; but only its brief and dol- 
 orous records. No epileptic lunatic has ever been a 
 nation-builder, a controlling influence in the world's 
 life, a potent force and a spiritual solace to millions 
 of men through the passing of the centuries.
 
 158 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 On the 24th of January the Whites sailed from 
 Alexandria, and on the llth of February they reached 
 Philadelphia. Three hundred University students 
 were lined up at the Broad Street Station, singing 
 "Hail, Pennsylvania!" as the train pulled in. When 
 they caught sight of the familiar gray head, the 
 broad shoulders and the broader smile, they cheered 
 vociferously, and formed themselves into a guard 
 of honour to escort the wanderer home. Many wel- 
 coming friends were also present, and from all over 
 the country came letters and telegrams of congratu- 
 lation. Dr. Furness, then ill at Wallingford, was com- 
 pelled to write the loving words he would have liked 
 to speak. 
 
 MY DEAR, DEAR WHITE! 
 
 Heartiest of all hearty welcomes to your home. 
 You never wrote a line more delightful to your 
 friends than "I am as well as ever again." 
 
 I have been counting upon nothing with more 
 eagerness than upon the pleasure of greeting you on 
 Wednesday at The Triplets; but you may possibly 
 have heard it remarked that man proposes but God 
 disposes. I have been completely tied up by the re- 
 sults of overwork, complicated with grippe; and my 
 physician will not listen to my going out in the night 
 air; so I must, perforce, forego The Triplets next 
 Wednesday.
 
 A CRISIS PAST 159 
 
 Who shall say that your restoration to health be 
 not due to the prayers of our dear friend, St. Agnes? 
 'T is a certain fact, if fervour spells efficacy. 
 
 Do let me send my sincere congratulations to that 
 happy woman, your wife, and believe me, 
 Yours affectionately 
 
 HORACE HOWARD FURNESS 
 
 There were receptions and public dinners. There 
 were many speeches called for, and a few made. Dr. 
 White was never enamoured of speech-making. He 
 could but say out of the fulness of his heart that, of 
 all sights in the world, the best and dearest to him 
 were the faces of his friends, and the dear familiar 
 shabbiness of Rittenhouse Square.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 
 
 IF Dr. White had rashly dreamed that the sur- 
 render of his practice would mean for him a life 
 of leisure and tranquillity, he was destined to be 
 rudely undeceived. Perhaps leisure was as alien to 
 his habits as tranquillity was alien to his disposition. 
 Certain it is that work found him out wherever he 
 went, and that the "rest," of which he was wont to 
 talk a little vaguely, formed no part of his earthly 
 experience. Three months after his return to Phila- 
 delphia, he was offered, and accepted, the post of 
 Advisory Surgeon to the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 Company. The position was a new one, and repre- 
 sented a needed consolidation. The doctor was given 
 supervision and absolute control of the medical 
 department of the great corporation which left no 
 part of its business to chance, and which for many, 
 many years, down to the spring of 1918, enjoyed the 
 proud distinction of being the best-run railroad in 
 the world. The Company's hospitals in the mining 
 regions were put under the Advisory Surgeon's care. 
 He was responsible for their management, equipment, 
 and staff. He was consulted in the appointment of 
 their physicians, and he gave personal supervision
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 161 
 
 when serious surgery was required. The work in no 
 way interfered with his University lectures; but it 
 insured a brand-new assortment of responsibilities, 
 and absorbed many hours of an already well-filled 
 life. 
 
 This being the case, there was no apparent need 
 for his associates to urge upon him fresh fields of 
 labour. Treves, who was forever driven by the demon 
 of print, wrote books about every place he visited, 
 and counselled Dr. White to follow in his footsteps. 
 He wanted him to write mild antiquarian papers on 
 English villages and manor houses. Dr. Weir Mitchell, 
 who could do anything he put his hand to, laughed 
 at the scruples of a man who pleaded that the field 
 of letters was not his bailiwick, and that perhaps it 
 was as well to keep out of it. "You are a blessed old 
 humbug," he wrote breezily, "to talk about the use 
 of language. You know that few men have a better 
 control of English. You have used your powers but 
 little, and needlessly underrate an unusual capacity." 
 Thomas Robins, with a limitless confidence hi his 
 friend's endowments, proposed that he should write 
 a novel, and the suggestion was repeated to Henry 
 James, who said briefly and enigmatically, "Why 
 not?" "I fancy," commented the doctor, "that he 
 knows why not as well as I do." 
 
 All this time there was much work to be done at 
 the University, there were papers for medical journals
 
 163 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 encroaching upon every spare hour, there were the 
 new and unloved football rules to be assimilated and 
 made the best of, and the Army and Navy games to 
 be kept in good running order. There was also the 
 supremely important business of getting well, which 
 never received the attention it deserved. Dr. White 
 had fondly hoped that the summer of 1907 would 
 find him tramping through the Engadine, and climb- 
 ing mountains with his old ardour and endurance. 
 He was profoundly disappointed when Dr. Osier 
 pronounced him to be still unfit for these strenuous 
 joys. No hard walks, no climbs, no carrying of knap- 
 sacks (why, in Heaven's name, should any man not 
 compelled to carry a knapsack solicit the privilege!), 
 was Osier's verdict; and so much danger did he appre- 
 hend from undue fatigue that he wrote twice to his way- 
 ward patient, entreating him to be cautious. "Don't 
 rush!" he pleaded. "Don't put any extra strain upon 
 your heart!" "Don't forget that you have no longer 
 the ostrich-like digestion of twenty-five years ago!" 
 Wise counsel which no friendly feeling could make 
 welcome. "I wish I hadn't asked him to examine 
 me," said Dr. W^hite dejectedly. 
 
 Yet there were attractions in England which 
 might well have outweighed the pleasure of moun- 
 tain climbing. Friends were there to welcome him. 
 Sargent, whom he had not seen for nearly two years, 
 was in London this season, dallying with the fond
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 163 
 
 illusion that he was about to give up portrait-paint- 
 ing, and answering all remonstrances with the strong 
 statement, "I hate doing pawtreets." Henry James 
 was there also, aghast as usual at Dr. White's "per- 
 verse and incalculable rhythms"; and Treves, who 
 had been so loaded with honours in the past twelve 
 months that his back was nigh to breaking. To him 
 and to Sir Francis Laking, the King's second surgeon, 
 had been granted, in recognition of their "great skill 
 and unremitting attention," the supreme dignity of 
 bearing a golden lion on their arms. Such a thing, it 
 was said, had never been known since the days of 
 James the First, when that disconcertingly demo- 
 cratic monarch had permitted his apothecary, Gideon 
 Delaune, to bear on his arms (if he had any) a golden 
 lion passant on a red field. A more substantial mark 
 of favour was the beautiful "Thatched House Lodge," 
 in Richmond Park, which King Edward assigned to 
 Treves as a residence. In its charming grounds stood, 
 and still stands, the original "Thatched House," 
 decorated by Angelica Kauffmann, and preserved 
 with admirable care. It was a priceless boon to a 
 man who had to be near London, yet hated to live 
 in it, who said and believed that the air of big 
 cities was "poisonous," and who loved the country 
 with a Briton's hardy and tenacious affection. 
 
 To prosper gracefully cannot, in the nature of 
 things, be impossible; but it is an art which has yet
 
 164 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 to be demonstrated. Sir Frederick would have been 
 more or less than human if his brilliant successes had 
 left no mark upon him. Dr. White, who was heart- 
 ily American, and, in his own fashion, democratic 
 (no two men are democratic along the same lines), 
 thought that his friend, when he went to visit him in 
 Dorsetshire, had grown a trifle superfine. Treves was 
 ready enough to sigh over the old unregenerate days, 
 but he would do nothing to compromise his present 
 exalted position. He had become strangely fastidi- 
 ous about the clothes he wore to church and garden 
 parties; he regarded bank holidays very much as a 
 conservative Boston gentleman might regard a re- 
 union of the "Elks"; he did not like to see his guest 
 bicycling hatless over the country "like a clerk," or 
 breaking eggs into a glass, having never listened 
 to Dr. Weir Mitchell's powerful and pleasing argu- 
 ments in favour of that cleanly custom. It took the 
 clear understanding and kindly offices of Lady Treves 
 and Mrs. White to keep their distinguished husbands 
 in smooth running order. 
 
 Dorsetshire had many attractions. Thomas Hardy 
 was a near neighbour, and a friendly one. The bare 
 simplicity of his house amazed Dr. White, who all 
 his life was powerless to resist possessions; but two 
 "nice cats" softened its austerity, and lent to the 
 great novelist and his guests the privilege of their 
 suave and gentle company.
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 165 
 
 Other acquaintances, less famous but equally 
 agreeable, did the honour of the countryside; and one 
 clever Englishwoman endeared herself for life to the 
 highly receptive American by telling him the story 
 of an ancient village dame who, when ill, said she 
 wished she were "in Beelzebub's bosom." "You 
 mean," corrected the startled parson, "in Abraham's 
 bosom." "Ah!" sighed the unconcerned patient, "if 
 you'd been a lone widow as long as I be, you'd not 
 care 'oose bosom it was." 
 
 Abbey was devoting his whole summer to the 
 decorations for the Capitol at Harrisburg, and Dr. 
 White, more confident than ever that these virile 
 and deeply coloured canvases would be "the saving 
 of that monument of graft," wrote a long account of 
 them, and sent it home to be printed in the Phila- 
 delphia papers. The symbolism of the designs pleased 
 him no less than the execution, because it was, for 
 the most part, of that uncomplicated order which 
 conveys its meaning instantly to the eye of the spec- 
 tator. Symbols which require little guide-books to 
 explain them are remote from the simplicity of dec- 
 orative art. What interests us is, not what the 
 decorator meant, but what he did; not what was in 
 his mind, but what was in his finger-tips; not how 
 deeply he felt the subtleties of his subject, but how 
 successfully he mastered the difficulties of his craft. 
 Dr. White's timely praise had the effect of sharp-
 
 166 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 ening public curiosity, already much concerned over 
 the Capitol decorations. The "Philadelphia In- 
 quirer" embellished his paper with a somewhat 
 rakish picture of the writer, felicitously inscribed: 
 "Rev. J. William White." "This," wrote the doc- 
 tor to Thomas Robins, "is a late recognition of my 
 piety and worth. It has led to sarcastic letters from 
 friends like Effingham Morris, to whom I have re- 
 plied in a truly Christian spirit of forgiveness." 
 
 The hours spent in Abbey's studio were to Dr. 
 White a never failing source of interest. He was ready 
 to pose as a model whenever he was wanted. He liked, 
 in the mornings, to watch the artist sketching and 
 grouping his figures; and, at night, to see the magnified 
 sketches thrown by means of lantern slides on the 
 great canvases stretched for their reception. "Then 
 the outlines and memoranda of the lights and shad- 
 ows, etc., are rapidly gone over, and avast deal of labour 
 is saved. In an hour, William Penn and four Indians 
 were placed on the canvas, and roughly sketched in." 
 
 Abbey confided to his friend that he thought sev- 
 eral additional panels were needed to complete his 
 designs for the "Founding of Pennsylvania." These 
 panels formed no part of his original conception of 
 the subject, or of his original bargain with a board 
 which might be reasonably reluctant to pay for work 
 it had not ordered. The more he considered them, 
 however, the more essential they seemed to his pur-
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS ! 167 
 
 pose; so, like the true artist that he was, he wrote to 
 his friend in December, 1908, bidding him ask space 
 for the panels, and authorizing him to offer them 
 without payment. This Dr. White did, and the offer 
 was briskly accepted. Politicians may have mar- 
 velled a little at such a method of doing business, but 
 they found no cause for complaint. 
 
 Dr. Charles Penrose, who had never abandoned 
 the pleasures of the hunt, met with one of its penal- 
 ties in the autumn of 1907, when he was camping in 
 the mountains of northwestern Montana. A she bear, 
 whose cub he had shot, attacked him so fiercely that 
 he was badly torn before he could despatch the en- 
 raged animal. He maintained, as became a huntsman, 
 that the bear was within her rights, and that he had 
 no kick coming; but the justness of this point of 
 view, while soothing to his mind and salutary to his 
 soul, left his body in a terrible condition. He was 
 taken to the Mayo Hospital in Rochester as soon as 
 he could bear the journey, and brought home when 
 partly convalescent. Dr. White was even then much 
 concerned over his condition. "Charley Penrose is 
 improving," he wrote Thomas Robins; "but he has 
 a wrist which gives me a good deal of anxiety. Mar- 
 tin is attending him, and I am in consultation. Our 
 differences of opinion (which are many) are marked by 
 vituperation and profanity, Charley finding fault 
 indiscriminately with both of us."
 
 168 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 By this time the farm was in fair running order. 
 Mrs. Morton's herculean efforts had made the house 
 habitable and attractive, and the workmen were be- 
 ing driven one by one from the domain they had so 
 long misruled. Dr. White's conception of a pastoral 
 life was to spend hours every day in the saddle, rid- 
 ing with Mrs. White in the morning, and alone in 
 the afternoon, and fatiguing himself as thoroughly 
 as if he had been carrying a knapsack over a Swiss 
 pass. His friends, especially those who lived in 
 Europe, thought of him as an American "Farmer 
 John," inspecting his crops and his poultry, or con- 
 templating from his own rooftree those aspects of 
 nature which were spoken of in Hannah More's day 
 as "moral scenery." Osier and Treves and Abbey vig- 
 orously applauded this serene absorption. Sargent, 
 who cared nothing for moral scenery, and who was 
 beset by groundless alarms lest bucolic pleasures 
 should wean his friend from their old haunts, wrote 
 him warningly to stop "watching mangel- wurzels, 
 and listening to black Leghorns and Plymouth 
 Rocks." "These, I am aware, are the joys of the 
 landed proprietor; but let them not take exclusive 
 possession of your heart. They beget a terrible re- 
 spectability, and an awful pride. And when they 
 have seared your soul, you will suddenly find that 
 you don't care a damn for mangel-wurzels after all." 
 
 Never in his correspondence with Dr. White did
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 169 
 
 Sargent consent to sully his pen by writing the word 
 "damn." He always stencilled it in large letters, red 
 or black as the fancy seized him. When red, it took 
 on a lurid significance. When black, it had an im- 
 pressive solemnity, reminding the reader of that 
 clergyman whom Thomas Fuller commended, inas- 
 much as "he could pronounce the word damn with 
 such emphasis as left a doleful echo in the hearer's 
 mind a long time after." 
 
 Jlenry James, who could never think of Dr. 
 White except in violent action, and who knew that 
 riding had for the time supplanted all other athletic 
 exercises, pictured him as an Arab or a Tartar, for- 
 ever astride of his beast, "leading a free quadrupedal 
 life, erect and nimble in the midst of the browsing 
 herds. ... It all sounds delightfully pastoral to one 
 whose 'stable* consists of the go-cart in which the 
 gardener brings up (from the station) the luggage of 
 visitors who advance successfully to the stage of 
 that question of transport; and whose outhouses are 
 the shed under which my henchman 'attends to the 
 boots ' of those confronted by the subsequent phase of 
 early matutinal departure" (is that James or John- 
 son?) . "All of which means that I do seem to read into 
 your rich record the happiest evidences of health as 
 well as of wealth, and that you take my breath away." 
 
 He took the breath away from friends less con- 
 templative and less stationary than Mr. James.
 
 170 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Even those who knew him best, and who shared his 
 tastes and amusements, were staggered by the im- 
 petuosity of a man whom years could not sober, or 
 illness daunt. "I weigh a hundred and seventy 
 pounds," he wrote to Thomas Robins in June, 1908. 
 "I'm in good hard condition. I've spent the last 
 days in the hay fields with pitchfork and rake, and 
 have done a man's work. I'm keeping three saddle 
 horses exercised. I've jumped four feet, six inches, 
 and, if you don't believe it, I 've a photograph taken 
 by Alan Wilson at the time. I have a horse that 
 whirls and rears at automobiles, and I don't care a 
 damn. So my nerves must be hi as good shape as my 
 muscles. I've had one fall (jumping), and tore some 
 of my probably large assortment of internal ab- 
 dominal adhesions. I was under the weather for 
 three days, but was on horseback and jumping again 
 on the fourth. It could not have been serious." 
 
 All this meant that Dr. White had unalterably 
 resolved to fling prudence to the winds, and escape 
 in August to Switzerland. It was not only the zest 
 for tramping, and climbing, and wearing himself out, 
 which impelled him to this indiscretion. He loved 
 those heights and valleys with a faithful affection. 
 "I have been asked," he once wrote, "if we did n't 
 get tired of the same mountains and the same walks. 
 Why, if there were only one mountain and one walk, 
 there would be variety enough."
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 171 
 
 There spoke the true artist. Yet it must be ad- 
 mitted that this nature-lover spent little time in 
 dalliance with his mistress, but wooed her after the 
 rough fashion of a conqueror. There is in the diary 
 of 1908 an account of a ten days' tramp from Riffelalp 
 to St. Moritz (with wide deviations) which equals, if 
 it does not surpass, the records of earlier years. Read- 
 ing it, we are forced to admit that, not adventure 
 only, but mere endurance has an inexplicable charm 
 for those who are strong enough and brave enough 
 to endure. For seven days, Paine and Orthwein were 
 members of the party. For nine days, Mrs. White 
 tramped heroically by her husband's side. The tenth 
 day he crossed the Julier Pass alone. On the third 
 evening, after a walk of twenty-two miles over diffi- 
 cult ground, he makes this cheerful entry in the 
 diary : 
 
 "To-night my two little toes, my left great toe, 
 and my left heel burn as if my feet had been run over. 
 My calves and thighs ache, and hurt to the touch. 
 My back is sore and strained, and my side bruised 
 from yesterday's fall. My shoulders feel the effects 
 of carrying a heavy knapsack. My face is peeling 
 from sunburn. I am * creepy' from fatigue and the 
 nervous exhaustion due to the pain in my feet. 
 Otherwise, barring a little overaction of the heart, 
 I am all right." 
 
 The ninth day brought them to Miihlen. On the
 
 172 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 tenth it was snowing hard. Mrs. White's shoe had 
 burst, her heel was blistered, her ankle badly swollen. 
 Under these discouraging circumstances, Dr. White 
 (handsomely conceding that her record was "well 
 enough for a woman, and ought to content her") 
 insisted upon her completing the trip by diligence; 
 while he donned clothes and shoes, wet from the 
 storm of the day before, and started for his climb in 
 the snow. The drifts grew deeper and deeper as he 
 ascended. He struggled through them with increas- 
 ing difficulty, and a well-defined apprehension lest he 
 should give out on this lonely way. Six hours of 
 exertion, too severe to be exhilarating, brought him 
 to the summit of the Pass. "At the top I put my 
 hand on one of the stone pillars erected by Augustus, 
 thought a few noble thoughts, looked at the road 
 before me going dovm, thanked God for the attrac- 
 tion of gravitation, and started for the Engadine at 
 a gait which would n't have disgraced Weston. I 
 actually did the next five miles in one hour and 
 seven minutes." 
 
 It was natural enough that this prowess should 
 have been a matter of pride to a man who, a year 
 before, had been leading the cautious life of a con- 
 valescent. His delight, when the long tramp was 
 done, bubbles over in the pages of the diary. "If any 
 gentleman of gambling propensities wants to bet, I '11 
 back myself to walk, climb, swim, ride, bicycle, row,
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 173 
 
 or do anything else not dependent upon grace of 
 movement, against any man he can produce, who is 
 near-sighted, white-haired, has an irritable heart 
 (and temper), has had eight inches of gut cut out 
 within two years, and is within three months of fifty- 
 eight. All ball games barred." 
 
 A merry and a light-hearted boast. But three years 
 later, in the winter of 1911, Dr. White ruefully ad- 
 mitted that the rheumatic neuritis in his right arm 
 was directly attributable to the exposure and fatigue 
 of that day on the Julier Pass. It began to trouble 
 him before the close of the summer, and he had 
 suffered from it at intervals ever since. 
 
 There was no premonition of these evil times in 
 the joyous weeks at St. Moritz. Flushed with tri- 
 umph, brimming, as he believed, with health and 
 vigour, the doctor despatched a letter to Effingham 
 Morris, pleading with him, as he had pleaded many 
 times before, to stop work and begin to play. 
 
 "I don't like the persistence of that discomfort in 
 the back," he wrote affectionately. "In the light of 
 its duration, of your broken sleep, and of your in- 
 temperance in the matter of work, it begins to look 
 like a symptom of exhaustion; and only emphasizes 
 the need of a real holiday of sufficient duration to do 
 you permanent good. So now you know, and don't 
 meet me with some fool excuses about the * impossi- 
 bility of staying away longer.' Some time we'll both
 
 174 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 stay away for millions of centuries, and things will 
 go on just the same. But don't hurry that day!" 
 
 In November, 1908, Dr. White was appointed by 
 President Roosevelt a member of the new Army 
 Medical Reserve Corps. These men were to compose 
 a strong medical staff who would serve as first lieu- 
 tenants in time of war, who could be put in immediate 
 charge of base hospitals, and appoint their assist- 
 ants. The President was well aware that the doctors 
 who served in the Spanish-American War were in- 
 effectively organized, and were too often political 
 appointees. The Reserve Corps was part of his "Pre- 
 paredness" programme, so distasteful to the senti- 
 mental and inert. 
 
 To Dr. Wfaite it was a wise and welcome measure. 
 His enthusiasm for Roosevelt deepened with each 
 year of his life. His delight when the President 
 received the Nobel Prize was equalled by his admi- 
 ration for the dignified use which the recipient endea- 
 voured to make of it. He was pathetically ready to 
 welcome Taft's nomination, and to uphold him 
 against all doubters. "On the whole," he wrote to 
 Thomas Robins in the spring of 1908, "I think the 
 anti-Roosevelt party at the Club is losing ground. 
 Three or four months ago, Taf t, as the next President, 
 was an * absurd impossibility.' Now they say little or 
 nothing against him, but content themselves with 
 looking gloomy, and predicting Bryan's election."
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 175 
 
 In other letters to the same sympathetic corre- 
 spondent he refuses wisely to doubt Owen 
 Wister's allegiance, and exults because "Ned Smith 
 reluctantly approves of Roosevelt's having sent 
 troops to Nevada, to suppress disturbances on the 
 part of that gang of murderers known as the Western 
 Federation of Miners." After a dinner at the "Ma- 
 hogany Tree," he reports that he sat next to Charles 
 Francis Adams, "a bigoted, intolerant, self-opin- 
 ionated, interesting, intelligent Yankee. He is 'agin* 
 the President, and his reasons seemed, if possible, 
 feebler than those I am accustomed to hear." 
 
 Dr. White was ever a strong antagonist in an 
 argument. It might have been said of him, as of 
 another great surgeon, that he was "formidable 
 when he was in the wrong, irresistible when he was 
 in the right." He fought with the broadsword rather 
 than with the rapier, and he had great difficulty hi 
 controlling his temper when he was very much in 
 earnest. But he never argued unless acquainted with 
 his facts. He had a tenacious memory and a lifelong 
 habit of accuracy. No access of feeling could betray 
 him into a groundless assertion, and no pity for an 
 opponent's weakness could stay his heavy hand. He 
 drove his weapon home, and, it must be confessed, 
 he turned it in the wound. When the conversation 
 strayed beyond physics, athletics, politics, tangible 
 things which he well understood, and entered those
 
 176 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 higher fields where statistics count for little, and the 
 emotions and experiences of mankind for a great 
 deal, he was at a disadvantage because no deep stu- 
 dent of humanity, humanity which never in re- 
 corded ages has been able to live by bread alone. 
 "I am having a lonely time," he wrote in 1909, 
 "when the talk turns on Roosevelt or Revealed 
 Religion." 
 
 In friendly badinage he was unsurpassed, and he 
 loved a joke with the pure enjoyment of a school-boy. 
 Many of his letters were filled with raillery, and he 
 carried on contests in doggerel with any of his friends 
 who had a gift that way. He wrote one summer from 
 St. Moritz to Effingham Morris in Philadelphia, 
 using an envelope on which, hi lieu of name, he had 
 pasted a fairly good newspaper portrait of his friend. 
 The patient post-office officials, accustomed to dis- 
 play the ingenuity of secret service men, delivered 
 this letter safely and promptly, to the delight of the 
 sender, and the embarrassment of the recipient. 
 
 Perhaps it was this ineradicable boyishness which 
 made Dr. White delight in the society of children. 
 He won their affections easily, and he never tired of 
 their companionship. They brightened and soothed 
 the tediousness of Nauheim. When he went to At- 
 lantic City he invariably met "a nice little girl," or 
 "two stirring little boys," with whom he spent his 
 days on the beach. Upon every ocean trip he records
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 177 
 
 his intimacy with children. He was much pleased 
 when a friend on the Cedric heard one passenger say 
 to another: "Dr. White of Philadelphia is on board." 
 To which the second man answered: "Oh, yes, I 
 know him by sight. He's the man with a gray mous- 
 tache and several children." He wrote to Effingham 
 Morris from the Adriatic: "There are some dear little 
 children on board five of them with whom I play 
 all day. We came over together last September, and 
 are true and tried friends. Letty tells me she heard 
 a passenger say: 'That old gentleman is certainly de- 
 voted to his children.* I think she put in the 'old.' ' 
 
 He was as garrulous as a grandfather in repeating 
 the witticisms of his friends' offspring. Dr. Penrose's 
 little son interested him especially, and he had always 
 an anecdote to tell of this precocious child. One story 
 I thought, and still think, remarkable, as illustrating 
 the unconscious subtlety of the childish mind. Dr. 
 White, going one morning to Dr. Penrose's house, 
 found this eight-year-old boy playing with a train of 
 cars which he was loading with bits of wood, and an 
 occasional lump of coal, purloined from the scuttle. 
 "Hello, Boies," he said; "where are you running 
 your train to?" "To Zanzibar," answered the child. 
 "And what's your load?" "Witches, and ghosts, and 
 hobgoblins. And there are n't any witches, and there 
 are n't any ghosts, and there are n't any hobgoblins." 
 "Why, then," asked the amazed visitor, "are you
 
 178 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 running a trainload of them to Zanzibar?" "Be- 
 cause," said the child, "the people of Zanzibar don't 
 know there are n't any." 
 
 Of rival schools of medicine, Dr. White was al- 
 ways profoundly intolerant, and he hated proprietary 
 drugs with a just and righteous hatred. Once in a 
 London hotel he found himself seated at table next 
 to the thrice celebrated Munyon, from whom he fled 
 as from the pestilence. "An honest, straightforward 
 burglar who takes his chance of being killed or jugged 
 is comparatively respectable," was his indignant 
 comment. This martial attitude inspired him to 
 work hard in the spring of 1909 for the new Medical 
 Examiners Bill, then being prepared for the state 
 legislature. He believed it to be a wise and a much 
 needed measure, and he rejoiced because it "in- 
 volved a row with osteopaths, homoeopaths, eclectics, 
 and all the other quacks in town and state." 
 
 The friends and former students of Dr. White had 
 been for some time eager to present his portrait to 
 the Medical Department of the University. This 
 year they subscribed the money, and asked his con- 
 sent. He in turn wrote to Sargent, who was still 
 struggling to escape from the bondage of portraits, 
 and put the questions bluntly. Would he paint the 
 picture? Would he paint it in June? Would he object 
 too keenly to the scarlet gown of Aberdeen? 
 
 Sargent, well accustomed to his friend's humorous
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 179 
 
 moods, thought this letter a jest, and treated it as 
 one. It took a second missive to convince him that 
 the request was made in sober earnest; and then, like 
 a loyal friend, he bowed his head to the yoke. True, 
 the image of his sitter, clad in dazzling tints, haunted 
 his sleepless nights, "invoking with a savage grin the 
 name of friendship to hurl me back to the damned 
 abyss of portraiture, out of which it has taken me two 
 years to scramble." True, he wrote pitifully that he 
 hoped Dr. White's admiring friends did not want a 
 three-quarter length. "That would take much longer, 
 and looking at a large surface of scarlet affects me as 
 they say it does army tailors, who have to retire to 
 the vomitorium every three-quarters of an hour. 
 You are sure to know all about the close connection 
 between the optic nerve, the colour scarlet, and the 
 epigastrium." True, he cabled in an access of despair: 
 "Prefer death to three-quarter length." Nevertheless, 
 he painted the portrait (a half-length), painted it in 
 the Aberdeen gown of scarlet and light blue, with the 
 University of Pennsylvania hood, and consoled him- 
 self by declaring that his old friend looked like a 
 "South African macaw," being apparently un- 
 aware that macaws are a product of tropical America. 
 On the 14th of June, Sargent wrote to Dr. White, 
 who was expected to land on the 20th: "By this time 
 I suppose you are on the bridge, practising a becom- 
 ing expression. I am also training for you by a course
 
 180 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 of drawing from the antique. If you get here on 
 Sunday, the 20th, I shall await you on Monday, at 
 eleven o'clock. Bring your war-paint in the way of 
 gowns, etc. I hope Mrs. White will come with you to 
 administer anaesthetics, and, generally, lend a helping 
 hand." 
 
 The sittings began on the 21st, Sargent swearing 
 vigorously that this would be his last, his very last 
 portrait. It was rumoured that he had already re- 
 fused a hundred and fifty commissions; but then he 
 was always refusing something or somebody. He re- 
 fused resolutely to make speeches; and, as he never 
 burdened himself with book-plates and other artless 
 impedimenta, he escaped the demands of collectors. 
 One day when he was painting his friend, he refused 
 to dine with the King and Queen at the American 
 Embassy. "I'd certainly go if I were asked," com- 
 ments Dr. White simply. "He is more indifferent to 
 such things. They bore him." 
 
 The ocean voyage had browned the doctor to a 
 rich mahogany, and the portrait was finished before 
 he had a chance to pale under the mild London skies. 
 He delighted in this Malayan tint, and explained 
 indignantly to Henry James and other startled 
 friends that he was often much darker, which 
 would have seemed impossible. Sargent contented 
 himself with expressing a hope that the picture 
 would protect him from future applications. "It
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 181 
 
 will suit my purpose better to let people think that 
 this is my present style than to make a plea for ex- 
 tenuating circumstances." That he knew his work 
 to be good, a penetrating likeness, a virile and dis- 
 tinguished portrait, is proved by his asking Dr. 
 White to lend the canvas to the Buffalo Exhibition. 
 It was shipped to the United States in September, 
 and was formally presented to the University by Dr. 
 Stengel, and accepted by Dr. Frazier, on the 22d of 
 February, 1910. In the meantime it had been hung 
 in the winter exhibit of the Academy of the Fine 
 Arts. There I found Dr. Keen earnestly contemplat- 
 ing it on the night of the Private View. "Don't tell 
 me that the leopard cannot change its spots," he 
 said, "for White has certainly changed his skin." 
 
 The Engadine programme in the summer of 1909 
 was materially modified by the fact that Dr. and Mrs. 
 Martin, and Dr. and Mrs. Clark, joined the Whites 
 at St. Moritz. The newcomers proclaimed themselves 
 burning with zeal for a walking tour, and August 2d 
 was set for a start. It snowed all morning and rained 
 all afternoon. Dr. Martin lightly proposed a train. 
 Dr. White explained that travelling by train was not, 
 and never could be, a walking tour. Dr. Martin ad- 
 mitted the irrefutable nature of this argument, and 
 compromised, as did the Clarks, by driving. They 
 repeated this measure whenever they were tired, or 
 the weather was unpropitious. There was nothing
 
 182 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 unduly strenuous about that trip. When the friends 
 reached Menaggio, Dr. Clark took one swim every 
 day, Dr. Martin, two, Dr. White, three. Dr. Clark 
 rowed sparingly, Dr. Martin, moderately, Dr. White, 
 exhaustively. "They think," wrote the diarist, "that 
 I'm a fool to work so hard. I know they're fools to 
 miss the edge that plenty of exercise always puts on 
 outdoor amusements. We're all satisfied." 
 
 Another friend of still more tranquil habits came 
 to St. Moritz in August. This was Mr. John G. 
 Johnson. He stated tersely that he was not there to 
 scramble over ice-pits, but meant to read novels and 
 play solitaire every day, and all day, until he left. 
 Two weeks later he wrote to Dr. White, then at 
 Menaggio, that he was still reading novels and play- 
 ing solitaire in great comfort and contentment. 
 
 On his return to Philadelphia in the autumn, Dr. 
 WTiite found fresh fields of labour awaiting him. He 
 had already, at Mr. Johnson's solicitation, accepted 
 membership in the Western Saving Fund Society. 
 Now he was appointed by the Board of Judges a 
 member of the Fairmount Park Commission. It was 
 an appointment which, in newspaper language, "gave 
 wide satisfaction" to all save the appointee, whom it 
 was destined later on to enmesh in a particularly 
 lively quarrel. More and more, as the years went by, 
 it became the habit of astute boards to pile work 
 upon the shoulders of a man who was perfectly sure
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 183 
 
 to do it. For shirkers and slackers he had a profound 
 aversion; for hedgers and temporizers a still more 
 profound contempt. A tenacious fidelity to old cus- 
 toms and to new duties characterized him through- 
 out life. He served steadfastly on the Board of Stew- 
 ards of the American Rowing Association. Years had 
 passed since he severed his connection with Blockley; 
 but he seldom failed to attend the "Old Blockley" 
 reunions of doctors and surgeons, and he stood ever 
 ready to assist in needed measures of reform. A 
 clause in that profoundly human document, his will, 
 bequeathed $5000 to the syphilitic ward, the interest 
 of which was to be given every year to some poor 
 patient who had been pronounced sound enough to 
 be free, and who was decent enough to try and re- 
 build his life, if help were given him to bridge over 
 the first hard months of convalescence. 
 
 Dr. White had not found it easy to escape from 
 surgery by the simple surrender of his practice. Old 
 patients refused to be surrendered, and new ones called 
 imperatively for aid. In December, 1908, Secretary 
 Root injured his knee, and begged Dr. White to come 
 to Washington in consultation, a favour for which 
 he expressed then and later the liveliest sense of obli- 
 gation. John G. Johnson, having need of a severe 
 operation, insisted that his old friend should operate, 
 brushing aside the latter's reasonable misgivings, and 
 declining to be touched by any other hand than his.
 
 184 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 In the winter of 1910, Henry James, hugging his 
 solitude at Rye, wrote sombrely to his friend: "The 
 days are short and dark, the rain eternal, the mud 
 infernal, the society nil. But, with the intuition of 
 genius, I none the less feel the weeks and the months 
 run through my fingers like water." 
 
 They ran swiftly, but they bore misfortune on 
 their current. Mr. James was, after all, an American, 
 and no American can vegetate with safety. He knew 
 he ought to be in London. He admitted that Lon- 
 don was the only cure for his ailments, the sovereign 
 remedy for ageing limbs and a heavy heart. Yet he 
 stayed perversely at Rye, in close proximity to a 
 Salvation Army, and his health and spirits visibly 
 declined. Later, the lamentable death of his brother, 
 Professor William James, plunged him into profound 
 grief and melancholy. "Every departure," says Mon- 
 taigne, "breaks a set of sympathies." There were so 
 many sets of sympathies between these brothers that 
 the years were too short to mend the shattered life 
 of the survivor. 
 
 The spring of 1910 brought three of the four 
 friends together in England, England visibly sad- 
 dened by King Edward's death, and dimly aware of 
 the disastrous nature of its loss. Sargent was in Lon- 
 don, rioting in his escape from portrait painting, 
 exhibiting a "Corfu Landscape," and a "Glacier 
 Stream," at the Academy, and spending happy
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 185 
 
 nights in watching Pavlova and Mordkin dance. 
 The Abbeys had bought a beautiful old manor house 
 near Winchester (Elizabethan in the main, but with 
 a wall or two which dated from the time of Richard 
 the Second), and were also in London, deep in plans 
 for alterations, furnishings, etc. The artist did Dr. 
 White a good turn, which was duly appreciated. 
 Hearing that his friend's silk hat had been left in 
 Philadelphia, he promptly presented him with one 
 which he held hi just abhorrence. It had been the 
 property of Mr. Cross known to the world as 
 George Eliot's husband who had walked off from 
 a dinner with Abbey's new hat, leaving in its place 
 one of his own, partly worn, and decorated with a 
 cigarette hole in the side. When they next met, 
 Abbey voiced an indignant protest, to which the 
 successful raider replied unconcernedly, "Aw really. 
 Just fahncy now." Abbey bought a new hat, and 
 handed over his souvenir to Dr. White, who wore it 
 once or twice until his own head-gear arrived; and 
 then, true to his instinct for hoarding everything 
 that had played the least part hi his life, boxed it up, 
 and carried it back to Philadelphia, to be stowed 
 away in some capacious closet of the Rittenhouse 
 Square home. 
 
 This summer the Whites actually succeeded in 
 persuading the Abbeys to visit them at St. Moritz. 
 Dr. White never could be brought to understand
 
 186 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 why his friends did not spend their holidays in the 
 Engadine, and on the Italian lakes, as he did. He 
 represented to them in moving terms how much 
 they missed, and how completely they were at fault 
 in missing it; and they answered with ribald and un- 
 seemly jests. Sargent wrote: "Wild omnibus horses 
 would not draw me from this domain to wallow on 
 your Lascivious Lakes." Henry James, always im- 
 patient of Switzerland, and of the "elevating amuse- 
 ments" it afforded, audaciously proposed that his 
 "passionate friend" should come to Rye instead. 
 "If you'll let me tie ropes around your waist, give 
 you a pickaxe to carry, and stick a brandy flask into 
 your pocket, you will be able to walk up and down 
 this backyard, with every other natural inducement 
 to believe you are on the Matterhorn." 
 
 Abbey alone listened to the voice of reason, and 
 presented himself at St. Moritz, with the astonishing 
 result that, instead of panting up mountain-sides, for 
 which hardy sport nature had unfitted him, the art- 
 ist insisted that his friend should follow his lead, and 
 learn to draw, for which amiable accomplishment na- 
 ture had, with equal austerity, unfitted Dr. White. 
 A sketch-book was selected with great care, and Ab- 
 bey sent to London for an instructive little volume on 
 the "Making of Pictures." Thus equipped, the friends 
 sallied forth in search of material and inspiration. 
 The pupil made amazing progress, only nothing he
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 187 
 
 drew was recognizable, or of the right size. "If I try 
 and sketch a rowboat," he wrote from Menaggio, "it 
 looks like an ocean liner, or a floating peanut." 
 
 Running through this summer's diary, and in some 
 measure through all the diaries, is a vein of raillery 
 which corresponded with family jokes, and with the 
 give and take of family banter. What Dr. White most 
 enjoyed was to deride his wife and sister-in-law ar- 
 rayed in arms, and arms of exceeding sharpness, 
 against him. When he wrote teasingly of his wife, it 
 was in continuation of this battle of wits, hi which he 
 was alternately conqueror and conquered. His one 
 lasting advantage lay in the fact that he kept a diary, 
 and Mrs. White did n't. At Menaggio he records the 
 arrival of home papers which he wanted to read, but 
 of which she promptly took possession. 
 
 "Letizia in Italian means joy or gladness. My little 
 Joyness read the recently arrived 'Ledger' to me, and 
 I noted mentally her selections. She began with the 
 death of Mrs. Snowden; then commented on the 
 death of Judge Craig Biddle; then tried to remind me 
 of some one on whom I had once operated, who was 
 of course dead, and whose sister had just died; then 
 read about the epidemic of infantile paralysis in 
 Pennsylvania, the pest of potato bugs in Chester, and 
 the appearance of caterpillars in Philadelphia, with 
 side remarks about caterpillars on the farm, and a 
 diagnosis of the death of our old sow, and a word on
 
 188 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 the need of a new pig-sty. Then she skimmed the 
 death list, and wondered if Miss Kate Biddle had 
 died. Then she told me that the Athletics had just 
 lost a game or two, and that their percentage had 
 gone down. Then she stopped a minute to comment 
 upon Kate's inability to stand American heat. Then 
 she settled to work again on the remainder of the 
 death list, the low price of all our stocks, and a couple 
 of railroad and automobile accidents. She was busy 
 with a description of the bodies that were removed 
 from the last wreck when we arrived at the spiaggia. 
 I felt quite cheered up.'* 
 
 In the autumn of this year, Dr. White took a step 
 he had been for some time contemplating, and sev- 
 ered the last tie which bound him to the profession 
 he had served for forty years. He resigned the John 
 Rhea Barton Professorship of Surgery at the Univer- 
 sity. The resignation of his chair followed inevitably 
 the resignation of his surgical practice four years ear- 
 lier. He was only sixty, and full of potential force. It 
 seemed too soon to step outside the ranks in which 
 he had risen to supreme command. Had he foreseen 
 what four more years would bring upon the world, he 
 would have stood by his guns, and bided his chance 
 to give his skill and experience to the great cause of 
 justice and civilization. 
 
 There was the usual melancholy round of last 
 words, and presentations, and regrets. Dr. Edward
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 189 
 
 Martin succeeded him as John Rhea Barton Profes- 
 sor. The D. Hayes Agnew Surgical Society held a 
 meeting at Dr. Martin's house, and presented Dr. 
 White with a loving cup. The students of the third 
 and fourth year medical classes gave him a farewell 
 reception in the amphitheatre of Logan Hall, pre- 
 sented him with a very handsome hall-clock, and 
 shouted themselves hoarse in his honour. He had al- 
 ways been popular with his classes, and they had 
 recognized the keen and generous character of his re- 
 gard. Years had passed since Dr. William Pepper, 
 whose name should be forever honoured by the city 
 which he served, had rescued the University of Penn- 
 sylvania from the state of coma into which it had 
 fallen, and had breathed new life into its shrunken 
 veins. In this work of revivification Dr. White had 
 bravely helped. Less philosophical and less imper- 
 sonal than Dr. Pepper, less patient under injury, and 
 less lenient to a blundering world, he was moved to 
 wrath by provocations over which the older physi- 
 cian would have shrugged tolerant shoulders. But he 
 could no more have been alienated from the college 
 by such provocations than he could have been alien- 
 ated from the United States by an Administration, 
 or from Philadelphia by its politicians, or by the 
 "social inbreeding" he astutely recognized and de- 
 plored. "The people think they are moving, but they 
 are like sticks in an eddy." His country was his coun-
 
 190 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 try, his birthplace was his birthplace, his Alma Mater 
 was his Alma Mater, and he stood ready to serve all 
 three while breath was left in his body. The notion 
 borrowed from Germany that criticism spells dis- 
 loyalty was less common then than now. 
 
 At the students' reception, Dr. White made a brief 
 and highly characteristic speech. It had been his rare 
 good fortune to inspire confidence in those whom he 
 taught. His enthusiasms were apt to be contagious. 
 " There was no resisting the exhilaration of his spirit, 
 or the impetus of his example," said a keen observer. 
 Now that he was speaking to these students for the 
 last time, he admitted that his greatest pleasure and 
 pride lay in the fact that, during the thirty years in 
 which he had lectured, only one man had to his 
 knowledge gone to sleep hi class. "I did not know 
 who this man was," he said, "I should not know him 
 if I saw him now awake. But I shall never forget the 
 shock of that sleeping face." 
 
 There spoke the spirit of the man. I recall, by way 
 of contrast, Dr. Horace Howard Furness saying to 
 me that the person whom he most liked to see at his 
 Shaksperian readings (readings which stirred the 
 heart and set the blood a-tingling) was a mutual ac- 
 quaintance who seemed to me strangely unworthy 
 of this preference. "Yes," he added, in answer to my 
 unspoken question, "I'd much sooner see her than 
 you, because she sleeps two thirds of the time, and I
 
 FOUR BUSY YEARS 191 
 
 have the satisfaction of knowing that there is at least 
 one person in the audience who is thoroughly enjoy- 
 ing herself." 
 
 There was none of this altruism about Dr. White. 
 He liked his students to attend to his lectures, not 
 only because there were many things which it be- 
 hooved them to know, but because he was speaking 
 to them. It takes a good deal to galvanize college 
 classes into life, and to rivet their attention. This he 
 was able to do. He was not a tranquillizing speaker 
 upon any subject. You liked, or you did not like, 
 what he had to say; but in either case you stayed 
 awake and listened.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FREEDOM 
 
 rriHERE is a story of Kipling's about a Scotch 
 M. sea-going engineer who came into a fortune, for- 
 sook his engine-room, and spent his long-hoped-for 
 freedom in doing for love the work he had formerly 
 done for pay. Dr. White was now a free man. He, too, 
 had abandoned his life's work. But there remained 
 the work of other people, and those odds and ends 
 of employment which consume leisure, and are war- 
 ranted to keep our interests and irritability from de- 
 cay. For one thing, he was elected a member of the 
 Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 It was a hotly contested election, for this, being a 
 year of changes, was also a year of disputation. Few 
 boards welcome a dynamic force into their slumber- 
 ous bosoms. They like a man who can be put on the 
 difficult jobs; but the worst of such a member is that 
 he will seldom let sleeping dogs lie, and there is a 
 deal of disturbance attendant upon their awakening. 
 When Dr. White held the chair of surgery, he had al- 
 ways striven to get the men he wanted under him. 
 Now that he was a trustee, he was as full of fight as 
 ever. "Uncertainty about anything close to my 
 plans and wishes always was killing to me," is his
 
 FREEDOM 193 
 
 naive admission. "I know you for the ruthless Ter- 
 rorist you are," is Robins's more forceful fashion of 
 describing the situation. 
 
 Provost Harrison resigned his position after six- 
 teen years of faithful and strenuous service, and Vice- 
 President Edgar Fahs Smith succeeded him. On the 
 22d of February the University conferred the degree 
 of LL.D. on our good friend, Count von Bernstorff, 
 who was received with tumultuous applause. The 
 prayer delivered by the Reverend Dr. William Henry 
 Roberts, Clerk of the Presbyterian General Assem- 
 bly, held special petitions for the Emperor of Ger- 
 many and the King of England. Count von Bern- 
 storff made a most interesting speech in praise of all 
 things German, and expounded to us the "Science of 
 Social Government," about which we were destined 
 to be later on more fully and freely enlightened. 
 
 That Dr. White's labours as a trustee were ulti- 
 mately crowned with success, and that his highest 
 hopes were realized, is shown by a letter sent early in 
 June to announce the glad tidings to Thomas Rob- 
 ins. "As to the University, everything has gone my 
 way," he writes triumphantly. "I haven't lost a 
 trick yet. The Governor has signed our bill for $995,- 
 000, which is $515,000 more than we ever before suc- 
 ceeded in getting from the State. It makes us easy 
 for two years, if there is n't another dollar begged 
 or given. We've raised many salaries, adding about
 
 194 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 $75,000 to the salary list, and diffusing an atmos- 
 phere of content and prosperity. Several of our best 
 men, who were on the point of going elsewhere, are 
 now fixed; and others will give cheerful instead of 
 reluctant work." 
 
 One break for liberty Dr. White made in the win- 
 ter of 1911. He and Mrs. White went to Bermuda, 
 being urged thereto by doctors and friends. The trip 
 was like all similar trips, a replacing of ordinary by 
 extraordinary exertions, and of vital interests by arti- 
 ficial ones. Dr. White bicycled all day, except when 
 he was swimming. He had the usual assortment of 
 accidents, and reports them with the usual acrimony. 
 "I picked up on the water's edge a beautiful blue, 
 soft, translucent creature, to show it to Letty," he 
 writes in the diary. "I'm not sure whether it was a 
 jelly fish or a nautilus. Anyhow it stung my finger, 
 which is now red, swollen and aching. I think I can 
 be stung by more kinds of animals than any one else 
 on this planet. If an apple-dumpling were floating on 
 the sea, and I picked it up, it would sting if it 
 did n't bite me." 
 
 Three days later he reports that he has a cold, from 
 getting alternately over-heated and chilled; and also 
 a sprained ankle. "Moreover, I twisted my back a 
 little in diving, and have a sore spot over the lumbar 
 spine. My stung finger still aches, and my shoulder 
 and arm are annoying me. My bicycle saddle came
 
 FREEDOM 195 
 
 off (from the breaking of a bolt), and I bruised my- 
 self on the bare wires. I broke a finger-nail against 
 the edge of a table I was moving, and that finger is 
 sore. The salt water (from diving) has made me deaf 
 in one ear. Otherwise I am in splendid condition." 
 
 Thus fortified he returned to Philadelphia, to be 
 met by evil tidings. Abbey was ill. He had been suf- 
 fering increasingly for months, but continued to la- 
 bour upon the Harrisburg decorations; "putting work 
 of the very first and finest order into those bottom- 
 less (or topless) spaces," wrote Henry James, and 
 striving vainly to outspeed the stealthy step of Death. 
 As the spring deepened, his malady laid a stronger 
 hand upon him; and, early in June, Osier and Mrs. 
 Abbey cabled to Dr. White, begging him to come to 
 London at once, and be present at an "exploratory" 
 operation upon his friend. 
 
 The doctor snatched the first sailing he could get, 
 stowing himself away in a lower cabin on the Mau- 
 retania, and leaving Mrs. White to follow with her 
 sister and her brother-in-law in a fortnight. He ar- 
 rived in London to find it in the throes of the Coro- 
 nation, and Mrs. Abbey urged him to occupy one 
 of their seats in front of the Reform Club. Heavy- 
 hearted, and out of tune with the gaudy pageant, 
 he shuffled through the crowded, scaffolded streets. 
 "The Londoner's one idea of decorating his city," 
 said Whistler, " is to cover it up and sit on it." The
 
 196 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 figures of burning interest to him were Lord Roberts 
 and Lord Kitchener. The spectacle he enjoyed was 
 the marching of the splendid British and Colonial 
 regiments. Had he been gifted with second-sight, he 
 would have beheld these men swathed hi their wind- 
 ing sheets. Three years more, and their graves yawned 
 for them. Germany's plans were maturing; her stra- 
 tegic railways were built; her arms and ammunition 
 were stored; she was waiting her hour to strike. And 
 England was self-blinded. Lord Roberts had given her 
 warning. In the plainest words he could use, he had 
 foretold the invasion of the Huns; and he had received 
 the reward meted out to prophets, discredit and dis- 
 trust. Liberal statesmen had decried his suspicions of 
 a "friendly power," and the Liberal press had feelingly 
 rebuked "the crude lusts and fears that haunt the sol- 
 dier's brain." 
 
 On the 25th of June the exploratory operation was 
 performed by an English surgeon, Mr. Moynihan, 
 Dr. Osier and Dr. White being present. It revealed a 
 situation so hopeless that there was nothing to be 
 done but tell the truth to Mrs. Abbey (a harsh duty 
 which devolved upon Dr. White), and make the sick 
 man as comfortable as possible for the remaining 
 months of his life. When the old friends parted, one 
 feared and the other knew they would never meet 
 again. Sargent, with superb generosity, gave up his 
 summer's plans, and returned to England to superin-
 
 FREEDOM 197 
 
 tend the completion of several of the Harrisburg pic- 
 tures which were so nearly finished that assistants 
 could deal with them; and also to arrange for an 
 exhibition of the artist's work at Shepherd's Bush. 
 Abbey died on the 1st of August, and Henry James 
 wrote to Dr. White, lamenting his loss, but adding, 
 "He had a pretty big and glorious life." It is a com- 
 ment which recalls Mr. BrownelPs summing up of 
 the novelist's own career: "If any life can be called 
 happy before it is closed, that of Mr. Henry James 
 may certainly be so called." This was written in 1909. 
 There were still five years of calm. 
 
 The remainder of Dr. White's summer was spent, 
 without keen enjoyment, in Switzerland, and on the 
 Italian lakes. No sooner had he returned to Philadel- 
 phia in the autumn than he began his memorable 
 contest for the abolishment of motor races in Fair- 
 mount Park. As a member of the Park Commission, 
 he offered on October 12th the following resolution: 
 "Resolved, that in the opinion of the Fairmount 
 Park Commission it is unadvisable to continue the 
 automobile races in the Park, and that, to avoid dis- 
 appointment and misunderstanding, this opinion be 
 transmitted to the persons heretofore chiefly con- 
 cerned, and be made public." 
 
 It was a bold stand, determinedly upheld. The 
 races were popular with sporting motorists; with the 
 public, which gathered in crowds at the most danger-
 
 198 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 ous curves on the track, in the hope of seeing a smash; 
 and with that large body of citizens whose plea for all 
 happenings, from a presidential nomination to a cir- 
 cus, is that it brings trade to the town. Grave pro- 
 tests against "reactionary Philadelphia" were heard 
 from every side, and scornful critics asked mockingly, 
 " Was this White the athlete, the lifelong champion of 
 all dangerous sports, who now proffered the ignoble 
 plea of 'safety first'?" 
 
 To these assaults Dr. White presented an un- 
 broken front. He had always taken a utilitarian view 
 of motors, as vehicles for transportation; and he 
 pointed out that, while most sports worth consider- 
 ing hold an element of danger, this danger should be 
 incurred by, and confined to, the sportsman, not 
 shared by spectators. There had been accidents at 
 Syracuse and at St. Louis which had resulted in se- 
 vere injuries to lookers-on, as well as to the racing 
 motorists. This he held to be unsportsmanlike and 
 uncivilized. 
 
 The Park Commissioners were equally reluctant to 
 pass the resolution, or to reject it. They wanted natu- 
 rally to be let alone, and spared such burning ques- 
 tions. They tried postponement, hoping it would die 
 a natural death, but they reckoned without Dr. 
 White's sustaining power. He had kept too many pa- 
 tients alive, to let a resolution die. They tried refer- 
 ring it to the sub-committee on Police and Superin-
 
 FREEDOM 199 
 
 tendence; and that acute body sent it back to them 
 without action or comment. They tried to show they 
 lacked jurisdiction, and the doctor promptly pro- 
 cured the legal opinion of Mr. George Wharton Pep- 
 per, which was to the effect that the authority to per- 
 mit or forbid the races within the Park confines lay 
 with the Park Commission. On December 13th, the 
 postponed resolution was brought up for considera- 
 tion. Dr. White again spoke briefly in its defence: 
 
 "There is no form of physical competition or stren- 
 uous sport," he said, "which is wholly devoid of dan- 
 ger to the participant; and sometimes, as in mountain 
 climbing, or in the pursuit of man-eating game, the 
 element of danger is a justifiable stimulus. But the 
 moment the peril is excessive, or extends to lookers- 
 on, or, worse still, grows to be the chief element of 
 interest, the usefulness of the sport is gone, and it 
 becomes harmful and demoralizing. 
 
 "I must frankly admit that I have attended and 
 enjoyed these motor races in the past, and I have a 
 keen admiration for the dexterity and fearlessness of 
 the drivers. When I realized, however, my own re- 
 sponsibility in the matter, my pleasure was marred, 
 because spectators, who were encouraged by this 
 Commission, of which I am a member, to be present, 
 might be instantly killed in one of the races, and be- 
 cause no conceivable precaution could eliminate this 
 possibility."
 
 200 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 He won out. On May 8, 1912, the Commission 
 passed the Resolution with only one dissentient vote. 
 Much indignation was expressed by motorists. Some 
 regret was felt by sight-seers. There was vague talk 
 of "legal action." Then the press dropped the matter, 
 the public forgot it, and the world moved uncon- 
 cernedly on. 
 
 On the 30th of March, a medallion in commemo- 
 ration of Dr. Crawford Williamson Long, of the class 
 of '39, was unveiled in the University of Pennsylvania. 
 It was the work of Dr. Tait McKenzie. Dr. Long, it 
 was claimed, was the first practitioner who, seventy 
 years before, had used ether as an anaesthetic in sur- 
 gery. Dr. White made the address at the unveiling, 
 and dwelt long and lovingly on the hard fortune 
 which always attends the innovator. He told with 
 relish the experiences of that stout-hearted Scotch 
 surgeon, Sir James Simpson, who got himself into 
 a world of trouble by using chloroform in cases of 
 childbirth. He quoted the letter of an Edinburgh 
 minister, who censured Simpson for employing a drug 
 which was but "a decoy of Satan, apparently offering 
 itself to bless women; but, in the end, destined to 
 harm society, and rob God of the deep earnest cries 
 which arise in time of trouble for help." 
 
 The sins of the pulpit were balm to Dr. White's 
 soul; but in this instance the laity was as deeply 
 impressed by the immorality of chloroform as was
 
 FREEDOM 201 
 
 the dourest cleric in Scotland. An Edinburgh mob 
 went so far as to smash Dr. Simpson's windows, by 
 way of signifying its disapproval of his interference 
 with what they piously designated as "the curse of 
 Eve." A male mob evidently. Men have always mani- 
 fested a broad tolerance for this particular curse. It 
 is about the only ruling of Providence which has their 
 full and free concurrence. 
 
 The presidential nominations were now darken- 
 ing the horizon, and Dr. White's hopes for his beloved 
 Roosevelt ran higher than did the hopes of more 
 astute adherents. On the 12th of April the Colonel 
 addressed two Philadelphia meetings, and was re- 
 ceived with that tumultuous enthusiasm which is as 
 a fire of straw. No man understood this better than 
 he; and his suggestion that his audience should 
 not "take it all out in shouting," betrayed his wide 
 knowledge of humanity. Owen Wister presented him 
 to the five thousand men and women packed into 
 the Metropolitan Opera House; while to the fifteen 
 thousand men and women on Broad Street he pre- 
 sented himself in the homely fashion so dear to the 
 heart of democracy. The nomination of Wilson failed 
 to shake Dr. White's confidence. He wrote to Tom 
 Robins that there was some satisfaction in it, inas- 
 much as it meant the defeat of the forces that had 
 betrayed their trust in Chicago. "The machine pol-
 
 02 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 iticians cannot hold the organization together. I con- 
 sider Taft is as well out of it as if he were dead." 
 
 What wounded his spirit past healing was the con- 
 tumacy of friends. Some there were who, like Robins 
 and Sargent, gave Roosevelt an adherence as loyal 
 as his own. Henry James, whom he rashly attempted 
 to convert, had an invincible distaste for all presi- 
 dential nominees. Effingham Morris, for whom his 
 affection was strong, constant, and curiously out- 
 spoken, was the associate whom he most wanted to 
 see the light, and who dwelt permanently in dark- 
 ness. The friends would argue until they quarreled, 
 and Dr. White hated to quarrel with the few men 
 whom he loved, as much as he liked to quarrel with 
 the many men to whom he was indifferent. There is 
 something profoundly wistful in the way he pleads 
 with Mr. Morris during the heat of the presidential 
 campaign: "If I could only have you and one or 
 two others but especially you singing 'Onward 
 Christian Soldiers!' by my side, on the same plat- 
 form both political and wooden with the Colo- 
 nel, my cup would overflow." 
 
 It is strange how deep his feelings ran, how irre- 
 sistibly the tide of a few strong emotions swept him 
 through life. When, instead of mounting the Pro- 
 gressive platform, Mr. Morris sent him some ribald 
 rhymes on his great leader, he comments more in 
 sorrow than in anger: "It's funny, of course. But
 
 FREEDOM 203 
 
 that it should represent the serious view of men 
 whose intelligence I had until recently considered as 
 far above the average is a continual surprise." 
 
 In truth he could no more tolerate a jest at the 
 expense of Roosevelt than he could tolerate a jest at 
 the expense of his profession. The Colonel himself 
 often enjoyed such thrusts hugely. I have heard him 
 roar with laughter over " Dooley's " amended title for 
 his volume on "The Rough Riders." "If I was him, 
 I'd call th' book 'Alone in Cubia.'" But though Dr. 
 White admired this hardy sense of humour, this free- 
 dom from the peevish vanity which cannot forgive a 
 personal affront, he would not, even on this occasion, 
 join in the laugh. His loyalty was too staunch, his 
 allegiance too undivided. 
 
 The summer found him still full of hope. He wrote 
 in July to Mr. Edward Van Valkenburg, propos- 
 ing three planks for the platform. First: A constitu- 
 tional amendment giving the President power to veto 
 items in appropriation bills. Second: A proviso that 
 at least one member of the Cabinet shall have the right 
 ex officio to participate in the debates of the House 
 and Senate. Third: The establishment of a Federal 
 Bureau of Health. "The first would stop the iniqui- 
 tous business of adding riders. The second would put 
 definite clearness into much legislation. The third 
 would contribute to the safety, and therefore to the 
 prosperity and happiness, of the whole nation."
 
 304 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 All of which is true, provided you are sure of your 
 president, sure of your cabinet, and sure of your 
 bureau. Of course no one is ever sure of Congress. 
 But that is an old story. 
 
 In October, Colonel Roosevelt's candidacy came 
 near being closed by an assassin's hand. The bullet, 
 deflected by a steel spectacle case, lodged between 
 the third and fourth ribs, and stayed there. When 
 the patient was strong enough to be taken home (he 
 was fired at in Milwaukee), Dr. White accompanied 
 him to New York; and joy that life was spared went 
 far to solacing his faithful heart in the dark Novem- 
 ber days. After the battle was over and lost, Roose- 
 velt, who had foreseen no other issue, wrote a few 
 words of comfort to his less prescient follower: 
 
 "Looking back, I think I can say that we won 
 more than we had a right to expect. My dear fellow, 
 I very earnestly hope that we shall be able to develop 
 some other leader who can do better than I have 
 done in the fight for social and industrial justice, 
 and that I shall never again be a candidate for the 
 Presidency." 
 
 The summer of 1912 was spent in the fashion of 
 other summers, a little of it in London, a great 
 deal of it in the Engadine. Dr. Agnew used to say 
 that at seventy a man should not break even a bad 
 habit. Dr. White was only sixty -two; but his holiday 
 habits were set. Now and then he admitted to Robins
 
 FREEDOM 205 
 
 that flower-shows and German princelings palled on 
 his jaded fancy; but there was always an avenue of 
 escape. When hard pressed socially, he and Mrs. White 
 retreated to their mountain fastnesses, and were safe. 
 
 This season St. Moritz gave him little rest, be- 
 cause a young American, a Harvard student, lay 
 desperately ill in the hospital, and Dr. Bernhard 
 implored his aid in a difficult and dangerous oper- 
 ation. It was not the first time such help had been 
 asked and given; but never before had he been so 
 deeply interested, so gravely anxious. It was the old 
 story of fighting with death, and, while that duel 
 was on, Dr. White knew no respite from concern. He 
 would leave the hospital late at night, and be in it 
 again by seven in the morning. He kept a minute 
 record of the case. "I am afraid that boy will slip 
 through our hands after all," is his frequent and de- 
 spairing report. He helped to dress the wound twice 
 a day. "I could give them all lessons in surgical 
 dressing to their advantage. They lack delicacy of 
 touch and attention to detail. But, of course, I've 
 seen and dressed a hundred cases where any doctor 
 here has seen and dressed one." 
 
 When at last the patient was pronounced out of 
 danger, and the Whites fled to Menaggio, it was only 
 to be pursued by a telegram, urging their immediate 
 return. Fresh complications had arisen, and there was 
 fresh need for help. "I've agreed to go, d it!"
 
 206 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 groaned the doctor, and go he did. The poor lad, 
 who clung so desperately to life, greeted him with 
 joy. He was cheerful and full of jokes. "Joking won't 
 stop that fever," is the diary's grim comment; but 
 perhaps it helped. Once more he was pulled out of 
 the abyss, and his feet set upon the paths of earth. 
 " If I ever get through with this case, I shall try to 
 keep out of others," wrote Dr. White soberly, and 
 Mrs. White added "Amen." 
 
 The only conflicting interest that St. Moritz of- 
 fered was the arrival in August of Prince Adalbert, 
 the Kaiser's third son. He was a friend of the Orth- 
 weins, and took enough of a fancy to Dr. White to 
 confide to him many of his opinions, noticeably his 
 liking for Americans, and his detestation of Jews. 
 Also but this was accidental his views upon a 
 more abstruse subject. Meeting the doctor one morn- 
 ing hi the corridor of the Kulm, he showed him an 
 X-ray photograph of a skull, saying, "That's good 
 of a monkey, is n't it?" 
 
 Dr. White looked at the paper, and then at the 
 young man. "Many human skulls are exactly like 
 that," he answered. 
 
 The Prince laughed. "As it chances, it's mine," 
 he said. 
 
 Again the doctor glanced at the royal conforma- 
 tion, and observed cheerfully, "The resemblance to 
 a monkey takes us back to our common ancestors."
 
 FREEDOM 207 
 
 "Not to my ancestors," said the Prince quickly. 
 
 "I was not alluding to the Hohenzollerns," ex- 
 plained Dr. White; "but to the common ancestors 
 of the human race, millions of years before there 
 were any class distinctions." 
 
 "I don't believe in that kind of thing," said the 
 Prince. 
 
 "But surely," protested Dr. White, "you believe 
 in evolution. All your scientific men believe in it, as 
 do scientific men the world over." 
 
 "Well, I don't," said the Prince, and the subject 
 was dropped. 
 
 No sooner had the travellers returned to Phila- 
 delphia in October than they began to plan their 
 long meditated trip around the world. The time 
 seemed ripe for its accomplishment. Germany, with 
 sinister patience, bided her hour, and the nations 
 which she so easily hoodwinked saw the years before 
 them mellow with peace, and brimming with pleasur- 
 able activities. All of the doctor's letters in the winter 
 of 1913 are full of allusions to this cherished project, 
 and all of his friends' letters to him are full of that 
 qualified assent which is as far as friendship lends 
 itself to enthusiasm. "I can only gape, and admire, 
 and oh, so detachedly, applaud," is Henry James's 
 method of expressing this familiar and discomfiting 
 attitude. 
 
 Dr. White really stood in need of a little moral
 
 208 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 support, because, though he wanted to go, he hated 
 to leave. There was nothing which imperatively de- 
 manded his presence, but there were many things 
 which would suffer from his absence. He was toiling 
 very hard over the needs of the University this win- 
 ter, and he wrote and published in the spring an ex- 
 haustive resume of the work done in the various 
 departments. The paper is so singularly impersonal 
 that it reads more like a bulletin than a eulogy; but, 
 being designed as a basis for begging (an endowment 
 fund of thirty millions was the writer's golden dream), 
 no word which could be of service is left unsaid. "We 
 do not seem to attract bequests as I think we should/* 
 is his anxious comment in a letter to Provost Smith. 
 "This is a matter which will slowly right itself, but 
 I may not live to see it." 
 
 A matter of less moment, but one which had long 
 vexed his mind when he had leisure to think about 
 it, was the dismal decay into which Rittenhouse 
 Square had been permitted to fall. In my youth this 
 beloved but melancholy little park was shut in by 
 tall iron railings which protected its gravel walks, 
 dead turf, and moribund trees from the too careless 
 incursions of the public. When the English sparrows 
 had performed their appointed task, and had eaten 
 up the measuring worms which were wont to descend 
 upon us adroitly from every tree, the caterpillars 
 took their place, and used the railings for nurseries.
 
 FREEDOM 209 
 
 They were old established tenants with whom no 
 one interfered. It was a shock to conservatism when 
 the unsightly barriers were removed, and lawless 
 citizens could step upon what was by courtesy called 
 the grass. 
 
 An effort had been made to have the Philadelphia 
 squares put under the control of the Fairmount Park 
 Commission, which might possibly have done some- 
 thing for them; but it was clear to all concerned that 
 only private enterprise could, or would, deal success- 
 fully with what the newspapers were beginning to 
 call "the city beautiful." The Rittenhouse Square 
 Improvement Association met for the first time on 
 the 19th of February, at the house of Mrs. Edward 
 Siter, Dr. White acting as chairman. Big reforms 
 were planned, and money was liberally subscribed. 
 Dr. White was elected the first president of the As- 
 sociation. To Professor Paul Cret of the University 
 of Pennsylvania, and to Dr. Oglesby Paul, was en- 
 trusted the work of transformation. The chief of the 
 Bureau of City Property offered any cooperation 
 which did not involve expenditure. Philadelphia had 
 no money to give, but was gratifyingly rich in good- 
 will. 
 
 It would have been hard to find a man, in or out of 
 town, who knew less about landscape gardening than 
 did Dr. White; but no one was better fitted to bring 
 any enterprise to a successful close. Moreover, since
 
 210 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 he had become a landed proprietor, he had gradually 
 assumed the "nature hates a farmer" tone, common 
 to his estate. It angered him when a transplanted 
 tree languished and died, as it had angered him in the 
 old days when a patient, who had been operated 
 upon, gave up the fight for life. Locusts, he scornfully 
 pronounced to be "weed trees," easy to grow and 
 hard to kill; yet even locusts, planted with the nicest 
 tenderness and care in Rittenhouse Square, took it 
 upon themselves to assume delicacy of constitution, 
 and withered away because he had an interest in 
 their survival. 
 
 Yet when the time came for him to start on the 
 long voyage around the world, it was to his country 
 home that his affections clung. The mangel-wurzels 
 had so far fulfilled Sargent's prediction, and cast 
 their spell upon him. "I hated to say good-bye yester- 
 day to the farm, and the horses, and the dogs," he 
 wrote wistfully to Thomas Robins. "I was much flat- 
 tered by learning that the farmer's second boy was 
 in tears in the farmhouse on account of having said 
 good-bye to me. Farmers and their families have 
 been, in my experience, scarcely human, and this is 
 both touching and encouraging." 
 
 Once on his way, the old adventurous spirit laid 
 hold of him, and also the old assurance that what he 
 was doing was the best thing in the world to do. Mrs. 
 White was as unwearied a traveller as Sinbad, and
 
 FREEDOM 211 
 
 parting from the mangel-wurzels cost her no pang of 
 regret. She was also better able to bear up under the 
 depressing baseball news which followed them to Eu- 
 rope. The few hours spent at Gibraltar were over- 
 cast by a report that the Athletics had lost three out 
 of their first five games. At Menaggio "throwing a 
 gloom over what would otherwise have been a very 
 happy day" came the melancholy tidings that 
 they had been beaten in New York and in Cleveland. 
 It was not until the tourists reached Athens in Oc- 
 tober that Dr. White's fears were permanently re- 
 lieved. "As Letty came upstairs last night," he 
 writes on the 16th, "she captured a Herald of the 
 10th, with the inspiring, uplifting, and exhilarating 
 news of the eight to two score in our favour in the 
 third game. We've now used three pitchers, and 
 they 've used six. I think it 's a three to one bet on the 
 Athletics. I'm surprised no one has cabled me." 
 
 It was inevitable that the diary kept this autumn 
 and winter should be far more minute than those of 
 earlier years. Turkey, India, China, and Japan offered 
 fresh fields of adventure. Dr. White wanted to be less 
 expansive, he would have liked to spare himself fa- 
 tigue; but he simply did not know how. "I've got 
 
 this d d diary business so fixed on me that I can't 
 
 tell when to stop," he wrote querulously from Greece. 
 "I'm always thinking of my later, invalid, semi-se- 
 nile years, when it will be the little things, the jokes,
 
 S12 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 the unimportant trifles, which will bring back the ex- 
 periences I shall then be tremulously trying to recall. 
 ... I swear, however, I'm going to write less. It's an 
 awful habit. When once it has you in its vice-like 
 grip, only the iron will, and the determination and 
 endurance of a Christian martyr can break it. But 
 I've got them. So now you know." 
 
 Many of the descriptions of people and of places 
 are marvellous in their vigour and veracity. What 
 Dr. White looked at, he saw, and what he saw seemed 
 to be indelibly impressed upon his memory. He ac- 
 centuated every detail because he remembered every 
 detail, and because he was not squeamish in delinea- 
 tion. In Venice, he and Mrs. WTiite went to an eve- 
 ning party given by Mr. Anthony Drexel in the Pa- 
 lazzo Balbi Valier. It was an unusual assemblage, and 
 there is a series of pen pictures in the diary, proving 
 that no single personality was lost upon the attentive 
 American. The guest who offered him the keenest 
 
 diversion was the Marchesa , the daughter of an 
 
 English Parliamentarian, who spent his life in finding 
 fault with things as they were, and in taking his coun- 
 trymen to task for their shortcomings. 
 
 "She deserves a page to herself. If it were a page of 
 letter paper, it would make most of the clothes she 
 wore. Her gown was of an X-ray sort, cut down and 
 slit up, and I don't think she had on any underwear, 
 though I did n't make sure. If she had been dressed
 
 FREEDOM 213 
 
 in a one-piece, cream-coloured, wet, close-fitting 
 bathing-suit made of mosquito netting, she'd have 
 been about as much clad. Her black hair was brought 
 down in great curves to her eyebrows, and over her 
 ears, out on her cheek, and down her neck. Her eyes 
 were blacked, her lips scarlet, her face powdered, her 
 cheeks rouged. She sat in a studied pose, holding a 
 flower in her hand. During the singing she never 
 changed her attitude except to roll her eyes at the 
 man she was talking to, or to smell her flower, or to 
 get a little mirror out of her hand-bag, look at her- 
 self, and touch up with powder and rouge. She may, 
 of course, be a model mother and housewife, who 
 mends her own clothes it would n't take her long 
 and teaches the children their A, B, C's; but she is a 
 corker for gall. How she ever made up her mind to 
 wear that costume outside of her bath-room gets me." 
 No part of their stay in Egypt pleased the travel- 
 lers half so well as a five days' ride through the des- 
 ert. Their little caravan consisted of thirteen men, 
 including Mahmoud the dragoman, eight camels, and 
 Mahmoud's donkey. "I certainly am stuck on cam- 
 els," comments Dr. White. "I always liked them, 
 now I love them. They are so well fitted to their busi- 
 ness, and know it, and attend to it. I think they are 
 extremely intelligent. The Bedouins seem very kind 
 to them. One boy cried yesterday morning because 
 he thought they were overloading his special charge."
 
 S14 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Next to the camels and the great stretches of sand, 
 which filled his soul with a sort of ecstasy (he re- 
 sented Lake Kerun and the green tract of the Fay- 
 oum as intrusions on their monotonous splendour), 
 the doctor's heart went out to the Arab boys who 
 walked with swift light strides alongside of their 
 beasts. He envied them being sixty-three their 
 supple youth and endurance. "They are all bare- 
 foot, and go over the pebbles and rocks without the 
 least evidence of discomfort. My lad covered nine- 
 teen miles the first day, and eighteen miles the sec- 
 ond, often running to keep up, chattering half the 
 time, and minding it as much as Sam would mind a 
 stroll around Rittenhouse Square." 
 
 India and China afford so many thrills, even to 
 indifferent tourists, and breed in them such a lust 
 for description, that people who stay at home are apt 
 to resent any allusion to these amazing countries. 
 "What I have seen I do not need to hear about, and 
 what I have not seen I do not want to hear about," 
 is the common and pardonable attitude of humanity. 
 But there was something in Dr. WThite's frenzy of 
 enthusiasm, united to his very unusual gift of narra- 
 tive, which conquered the most reluctant reader and 
 listener. Now and then interesting things happened 
 to him, and he told about them in a forceful and 
 amusing way. At Bombay he and Mrs. White were 
 invited to visit the Gaekwar of Baroda, a very rich
 
 FREEDOM 215 
 
 and very powerful native prince, who had scandal- 
 ized England and India by refusing to withdraw 
 backwards from the presence of King George and 
 Queen Mary when he came to offer fealty to his 
 suzerain. He wheeled around and strode out of the 
 audience hall as if he were every whit as good as a 
 Hanoverian. 
 
 Dr. White, however, found him far from awe- 
 inspiring. A short, stout, jovial Indian gentleman, 
 very much interested in the United States (he had 
 sent a son to Harvard), in physical education, and hi 
 Theodore Roosevelt. He presented his guests with 
 his photograph, and entertained them with sports 
 which began with trained parrots, progressed to 
 wrestlers and acrobats, and wound up with fighting 
 buffaloes and elephants. The most extraordinary 
 thing about him was the extent of his useless pos- 
 sessions, ranging from a gold cannon which could n't 
 be fired, and which was mounted on a silver gun- 
 carriage, to the famous diamond, Star of the South, 
 once the property of Napoleon the First, and valued 
 at $1,200,000. Being the wealthiest ruler in India, 
 the Gaekwar could afford unprofitable investments. 
 
 The sights which of all others in the East enthralled 
 Dr. White's fancy were the Burning Ghats of Ben- 
 ares. The combination they presented of pictur- 
 esqueness, loathsomeness, and unique rejection of 
 the world's theories of sanitation, so fascinated the
 
 216 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 American surgeon that he returned again and again, 
 to spend hours in rapt contemplation of their horrors. 
 It is impossible to quote more than half of a single 
 morning's experience; but this is enough to show 
 that he missed no detail, and spared none to his 
 readers. 
 
 "Every Hindu is burned, completely if the 
 family can afford to buy enough wood, but partially 
 anyhow, and, in Benares, the ashes or scraps are 
 flung into the Ganges. It is a sanitary stream. What 
 we actually saw, lying in our boat ten or twelve 
 feet from the biggest of the ghats, beggars descrip- 
 tion. One body lay on a pile of logs, and was covered 
 with wood, a single foot protruding. Another was 
 wrapped in a shroud. A third we knew to be a woman 
 by the red cloth that covered her. A fourth was a 
 very pretty little girl with long hair. She was about 
 seven or eight years old. 
 
 "While corpse number one was beginning to burn, 
 and make a fine fat crackling, two men undressed 
 the little girl, washed her with Ganges water, laid a 
 strip of white cloth over her middle, and wrapped 
 another around her. They then carried her up to the 
 pyre built for her on a platform fifteen or twenty 
 feet higher. By this time corpse number one was well 
 under way. Now and then a toe from the protruding 
 foot would burst, some melted grease would sputter 
 and flare up in the fire, and there would be an un-
 
 FREEDOM 217 
 
 pleasant whiff. The men who sold fire-wood, the 
 priests who say for a consideration when the 
 auspicious moment has come for the application of 
 the torch, the men who furnish the fire, the men who 
 wash the bodies and put them on the pyres, all stood 
 about joking and laughing, as well they might. They 
 make their living by taking the petty coins the 
 pice, of which it takes two to make a cent from 
 the poorest people in the world who have any coins 
 at all. 
 
 "While this was going on, ten yards away, at the 
 foot of the next ghat the Manikarnika were 
 many devotees scooping up the water that went 
 from us to them (the Ganges flows to the north), 
 sprinkling their heads with it, and drinking it out of 
 their hands. Just at our feet an old hag was washing 
 out the dirty sacking which had been the little girl's 
 grave clothes. To our left, almost near enough to 
 touch, a Pariah dog had made a great find. He was 
 dragging from the water, up on the mud where he 
 could eat at leisure, the remains of a body only half 
 burned. It will be remembered that the poorest 
 people are unable to buy enough wood to make a 
 good job of it. They do the best they can, and what 
 is not burned goes into the river. While the dog was 
 at breakfast, and while the worshippers were drink- 
 ing the water which came to them from his break- 
 fast table, and from the old hag's laundry, and while
 
 218 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 corpse number one was blazing merrily, a man ap- 
 peared above with a lot of thin burning sticks in his 
 hand. He walked five times around the body of the 
 little girl, touching her head each time, and then set 
 fire to her pyre. The men on the steps of the ghat 
 were joking and laughing loudly. Nearby two boys 
 were wrestling. At the further end of the steps, a long 
 file of washerwomen went up with enormous baskets 
 on their heads, carrying clothes that had just been 
 cleaned in the same current that was running past 
 the burning ghat, and the dog and his meal, and the 
 old hag with the child's coarse shroud, down to the 
 worshippers who were always there, one succeeding 
 another, and always drinking. 
 
 "We pushed off and went with the stream, and, as 
 we did so, we saw another contribution to the sacred- 
 ness of the beverage. A new procession came down 
 the river, but this time it was of dead animals, 
 chiefly cats, swollen until they were as big as goats, 
 and a donkey that looked like a young elephant. 
 Mercy ! what a thirst that must have given the dev- 
 otees when they saw it!" 
 
 Christmas was spent on the train going to Rangoon, 
 and there is this characteristic entry in the diary: 
 
 "If when I was a very small boy, getting up Christ- 
 mas mornings in the dark, and catching croup by 
 reading Christmas books in my nightshirt and bare 
 feet, I could have seen myself riding across the plains
 
 FREEDOM 219 
 
 of Burmah, and going to golden pagodas, and star- 
 ing at hundreds of gigantic idols, and shaven-headed 
 Lamas with their chelas carrying their begging bowls, 
 and crowds of black, yellow, and copper-coloured 
 natives in robes of every hue of the rainbow, and 
 priests ringing bells and beating gongs and burn- 
 ing incense, and flower-decked girls bowing before 
 shrines, and all the picturesque and barbaric rest of 
 it, well, I'd have been delirious with delight." 
 
 In Colombo came word of Dr. Weir Mitchell's 
 death. Two lines in a local paper announced the tid- 
 ings; but even two lines in the Colombo press spell 
 fame for a Philadelphia doctor; and it was bad news 
 for the Philadelphian who read it. 
 
 After the "dear old ghats" of Benares, no spectacle 
 afforded Dr. White a more acute interest than did 
 the narrow streets of Canton, and the broad expanse 
 of the Pearl River, with its hundreds of thousands of 
 inhabitants, living and dying on the boats on which 
 they were born. He delighted in the little painted 
 pigs blue and yellow and purple spots decorating 
 their fat sides which roamed unmolested through 
 the byways; in the agile night watchmen who pa- 
 trolled the roofs instead of the streets; hi the sinister 
 old Place of Execution, where more people have been 
 put to death than on any equal area of the earth's 
 surface. The Chinese children, who never begged, 
 gave him the impression of good-humour, common
 
 220 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 sense, and stability; and in the Chinese restaurants 
 he was charmed with his own skill in using chop 
 sticks, contrasting the ease and grace of his perform- 
 ance with the clumsiness of Mrs. White, who was 
 sometimes reduced to the necessity of conveying her 
 food to her mouth with her fingers. 
 
 The University of Pennsylvania Settlement in Can- 
 ton impressed Dr. White profoundly. His former stu- 
 dent and old acquaintance, Dr. Joseph McCracken, 
 was at the head of the hospital, which was run by 
 half a dozen graduates of the University Medical 
 School. All of these men had married college grad- 
 uates, and all were striving to accomplish herculean 
 tasks with the scanty resources at then* command. A 
 codicil in Dr. WTiite's will, bequeathing five thousand 
 dollars to Dr. McCracken, or to his successor, for the 
 use of the hospital, proves the practical nature of his 
 regard. It was the old story of his undying interest 
 in all things connected with his Alma Mater. He 
 was ill when he reached Yokohama, and the doctors 
 warned him against exposure; but he went in a blind- 
 ing snow storm to Tokio, to attend a dinner given 
 by the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Associa- 
 tion of Japan. 
 
 "They were all Japs of course. There was a speech 
 by Tosui Imadate, C.E. Class of 1879, laudatory of 
 me, and welcoming me to Japan. There was a speech 
 by me, laudatory of the University, and thanking
 
 FREEDOM 
 
 them for their welcome. There were many little 
 speeches most of them by me and some inter- 
 esting reminiscences." 
 
 To visit Japan in mid-winter is a hazardous ex- 
 perience. It insures discomfort, and it affords gen- 
 erous opportunities for disease. Dr. White tried to 
 solace himself with the reflection that freshly fallen 
 snow is as beautiful as blossoming cherry trees; but 
 no aesthetic appreciation of the ice-bound scenery 
 could keep the travellers warm. Nikko in February 
 was as cosy as Lapland. They had soft coal fires in 
 their grates, and in their worthless little Japanese 
 stoves; they had brass vessels with smouldering 
 charcoal embers over which to hold their frozen 
 hands and feet; but the rooms remained "colder 
 much colder than Hell," and Dr. White speedily de- 
 veloped influenza. He had himself carried around to 
 temples and mausoleums, he missed no sight that 
 Nikko offered; but he was well aware of his own 
 unutterable folly. 
 
 " If I had a patient as ill as I am, and he said : 'May 
 I go out on a mountain-side among snow fields, walk 
 on slushy paths, climb hundreds of ice-cold stone 
 steps, stand around draughty, windy temples, sit 
 down occasionally on a frozen board, and take off my 
 shoes, and walk about in slippers for a half-hour, and 
 then put congealed shoes on my frosted feet?' I'd 
 reply: 'You belong in Kirkbride's.'"
 
 222 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Fortunately the "distant sights,'* lakes, water- 
 falls, and the like, were all iced over or snowed under, 
 and the roads leading to them were impassable, so 
 they were left out of the programme. 
 
 The spring was well advanced when the travellers 
 returned to their native land, and to their native 
 town. There was a noisy demonstration of welcome 
 at the Pennsylvania station. Dr. Martin had staged 
 the show, and had engaged a band, so that the home- 
 coming was a little like a Roman triumph. The stu- 
 dents cheered, the engines puffed, the band brayed 
 and fluted, and the few words which Dr. White tried 
 to say were lost in the uproar. It was an animated 
 scene. 
 
 The months that preceded the Great War were 
 marked by unrest without prescience, and by a feel- 
 ing of insecurity which had no sense of direction. In 
 England, a wave of hysteria had swept women past 
 the border line of sanity. They did strange deeds 
 of violence, and their lawlessness was the childish 
 and terrifying lawlessness of fanaticism. Among 
 other pitiful and purposeless acts of destruction, they 
 slashed Sargent's admirable portrait of Henry James, 
 then hanging in the Royal Academy. Mr. James had 
 written to Dr. White of his profound pleasure in this 
 masterpiece, and of his desire to show it to his friend. 
 
 "Yes, J. S. S. has finished the loveliest portrait of 
 me, the loveliest, but one, he has ever painted of any
 
 FREEDOM 223 
 
 mere male. It's just done, and will be doubtless var- 
 nished and framed by the time you come around to 
 see it. I am quite ashamed to admire it as I do. 
 It makes me feel as if I were smirking before the 
 glass." 
 
 The connection between a portrait painted by an 
 American artist of an American novelist and the ex- 
 tension of the British franchise was hard to trace. 
 The picture was reported to be injured beyond re- 
 demption, and the peculiar inconsequence of the 
 crime deepened the anger and disgust which were felt 
 on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. James's regret over 
 the "bloody gashes" was equalled by his delight 
 when the canvas was so adroitly mended that not a 
 cicatrice was visible. He was pleased, too, at the 
 indignation expressed in the United States; and he 
 suggested, with some show of reason, that the sym- 
 pathy of his countrymen might find fitting expression 
 in a more generous purchase of his books. Sargent 
 wrote to Dr. White, sending him a photograph of the 
 portrait, and telling him that it would be hung in its 
 old place as soon as the restoration was completed. 
 "It looked hopeless," he added, "as if several bombs 
 had burst through it; but now there is no trace of the 
 damage." 
 
 If Dr. White had not been the true Wandering 
 Gentile, the summer of 1914 would have seen him 
 recovering serenely from the excesses of his eight
 
 224 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 months' journey, and contenting himself with coun- 
 try life, until the breaking of the war-cloud de- 
 stroyed the contentment of the world. But his habits 
 were too firmly fixed to admit a change. He did a 
 thing because he had always done it; and as he had 
 always spent a portion of his summer at St. Moritz 
 and Menaggio, he could not conceive the possibility 
 of passing these months elsewhere. "On account of 
 the threatened European war we were a trifle uneasy 
 about sailing," he writes July 31st, "but had no 
 serious thought of any derangement of our plans." 
 He and Mrs. White were actually in New York, 
 ready to sail on the Princess Irene, and they waited 
 four days before realizing that the ship would never 
 put to sea. By August 3d all hopes of peace had 
 vanished, and, on the 4th, the relentless travellers 
 determined to go somewhere started for Can- 
 ada and Alaska. For over a month they pursued the 
 beauties of nature at Banff, or dawdled through mo- 
 notonous days on Alaskan waters, while, at home, 
 men waited tensely hour by hour for news which, 
 when it came, filled all hearts with apprehension. 
 They were at Sitka the day that Aerschot was bar- 
 barously sacked; they watched a "panorama of 
 mountains and forests" while the Germans entered 
 Liege; they had reached Seattle when Lou vain was 
 fired. News came to them tardily, or not at all. They 
 might have been sleeping beauties in the wood, so
 
 FREEDOM 225 
 
 remote they seemed from a world seething with hor- 
 rors, and hatreds, and crimes which cried out to 
 Heaven for vengeance. It was not until they returned 
 home on the 12th of September that Dr. White awoke 
 to the full and bitter realization of what was happen- 
 ing in Europe. From that hour until death struck 
 him, he never ceased to work with all the vigour 
 of his resolute nature for outraged civilization and 
 humanity.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GREAT WAR 
 
 f 1 1H.E heart," says Lord Shaftesbury, "cannot re- 
 A main neutral, but takes part constantly one way 
 or the other." Individual neutrality was to Dr. White 
 a form of mental and moral cowardice. He held that 
 no rational being has a right to plead ignorance when 
 knowledge is attainable, or to be indifferent to mat- 
 ters of right and wrong. Despite a temporary irrita- 
 tion at England's behaviour in the complicated busi- 
 ness of the Panama Canal, his sympathies had always 
 been soundly British and democratic. He could never 
 have ranged himself with Imperial Germany, or with 
 Austria, steeped to the lips in crime. The ultimatum 
 to Serbia seemed to him the epitome of bullying; 
 and the grossness with which the Central Powers 
 disturbed the peace of Europe angered him, as it an- 
 gered all law-abiding men. But it was the invasion 
 of Belgium, and the ferocity of Germany's campaign 
 in that unhappy land, which changed him from a 
 moderate to an extreme partisan of the Allies. He was 
 like a man who knows that behind closed doors a 
 child is being butchered, a woman is being violated, 
 and who cannot break through and interpose. To ask 
 such a one to be neutral in deed is to cripple his man-
 
 THE GREAT WAR 227 
 
 hood; to ask him to be neutral in thought is to bid 
 him be accessory to sin. 
 
 Two things were made clear from the start to this 
 acute, though not dispassionate, observer. He knew 
 that the war was the greatest moral issue ever pre- 
 sented to a quibbling world; and he knew that it was 
 from its first inception a logical and consistent ex- 
 pression of Germany's national creed. He saw it one 
 and indivisible in every fresh development. The 
 curious process by which the Teuton's warm apolo- 
 gists became in time half-hearted opponents had for 
 him neither sense nor sincerity. He did not separate 
 a conformable and harmonious whole into jarring 
 phases. The sinking of the Lusitania, Germany's 
 whip-lash across our nation's face, the surpassing 
 insolence of Count von Bernstorff and other officials, 
 left him unchanged. He needed no fresh proof of 
 German malevolence because he had never sought 
 to deceive his own soul. 
 
 The amiable illusion of a good German people, 
 misruled and misrepresented by a bad Prussian mili- 
 tarism, is, and has always been, foundationless. 
 There was no class in Germany untainted by na- 
 tional avarice. One and all they were eager for the 
 spoils of war. One and all they stood ready to defend 
 any method by which these spoils might be secured. 
 The German professors who lied glibly for their 
 Kaiser, the German clergy who preached his bloody
 
 228 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 doctrine from their pulpits, the German socialists 
 who bent their supple knees, the German tradesmen 
 and artisans from whose serried ranks no word of 
 protest ever issued, the German women who shamed 
 their sex by coarse insults to wounded prisoners, 
 what was there to condone in this nation-wide guilt? 
 Dr. White wasted no sentiment upon a people who, 
 if they had not ordered the war, gave to its every 
 crime their full concurrence. He fought with the 
 weapons at his command the poisonous propaganda 
 tolerated and encouraged in the United States during 
 the first months of the contest. The hectoring tone 
 adopted by German-Americans, their threats, their 
 treachery, and their violence, wounded his pride, 
 and outraged his sense of decency. That they should 
 have held us to be capable of cowardice, and incapa- 
 ble of understanding, was a double-barrelled affront 
 he could never bring himself to pardon. 
 
 His first ardent hope was that he might be per- 
 mitted to raise a corps of American surgeons who 
 would work in the Allied ranks. He wrote to Dr. 
 now Sir William Osier, and to the French 
 ambassador, M. Jusserand, proffering his services. 
 Pending their replies, he busied himself in prepar- 
 ing his "Primer of the War for Americans," and in 
 collecting funds for the Louvain professors, who, 
 after the destruction of their University and of their 
 homes, had fled to England, and found a temporary
 
 THE GREAT WAR 229 
 
 refuge in Oxford. Osier had written to him early in 
 October, begging him to interest himself in these 
 victims of German barbarity. "We have here now 
 seven or eight Belgian professors and their families. 
 Many of them are charming people, and some are 
 destitute. If you can squeeze a few hundred dollars 
 out of any of your friends, we shall be much obliged." 
 
 Dr. White squeezed five thousand dollars with 
 such amazing ease and rapidity that the first cheque 
 reached Oxford on October 28th. By that time the 
 number of professors had increased to fifteen, and 
 there were twenty more in Cambridge. The Rocke- 
 feller Foundation proffered help. "What an angel 
 you are!" Osier wrote his friend. "It is perfectly 
 splendid. I wish you could look in here, and see how 
 comfortably Grace [Lady Osier] and young Mrs. 
 Max Mu'ller have settled these people. Our house is 
 nothing but a junk shop. We have packing cases 
 arriving every week, and our drawing-room is now 
 a sewing-room for the wives of the professors, most 
 of whom are making baby clothes. They are an 
 extraordinary lot." 
 
 So many cares and labours engrossed the great 
 Canadian doctor's time, and so many difficulties 
 beset his path, that it was a relief to turn to Dr. 
 White for sympathy and support. "I am trying to 
 stir up the anti-typhoid inoculation," he wrote in 
 October, "and have been addressing open-air meet-
 
 230 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 ings of the men in camps. I wish you could have seen 
 us at the King Edward Horse Camp, near Slough. I 
 spoke to the soldiers from beside a big oak tree, they 
 sitting about on the ground, and afterwards all the 
 officers were inoculated as an example. Those sons of 
 Belial, the 'antis,' have been preaching against it." 
 
 In November Dr. White went to Washington to 
 receive an honorary fellowship in the American Col- 
 lege of Surgeons. It was the only break in a breath- 
 less month. He was working hard on his "Primer of 
 the War for Americans," and harder still to raise 
 money and collect supplies for the Philadelphia ward 
 of the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris. The 
 "Primer" was published in early December. In his 
 brief preface to this brief handbook he stated that 
 he began it to clarify his own thoughts, to ascertain 
 distinctly his own convictions, and his reasons for 
 cherishing them. Twelve plain questions are plainly 
 answered. "WTierever my answers have involved 
 matters of fact, I have taken pains to attain accu- 
 racy. When they have related to matters of opinion, I 
 have endeavoured to give the basis for such opin- 
 ions." 
 
 The book, with its many apt and illustrative quo- 
 tations, is clear, incisive, and systematic. Germany 
 has been, from start to finish, so amazingly liberal in 
 furnishing evidence against herself, she has talked so 
 loudly and so blatantly, that she can be, and has
 
 THE GREAT WAR 231 
 
 been, condemned out of her own mouth. 1 Dr. White's 
 brochure is in no wise comparable to such masterly 
 arraignments as "The Evidence in the Case," and 
 "The War and Humanity," works of weight and elo- 
 quence, which made clear to thousands of American 
 readers the tortuous diplomacy of the Central Powers, 
 and the depth and breadth of their brutality. Its 
 author had neither Mr. Beck's knowledge of inter- 
 national law, nor his skill in marshalling arguments; 
 but he made his appeal in straightforward, manly 
 fashion to the decency and justice of a world which 
 had witnessed the supreme frightfulness of vandalism. 
 The "Primer" was well received by the American 
 press, upon which Dr. White placed an unshaken 
 reliance, went through three American editions, had 
 a fair sale in England, and was translated into five 
 languages by the Publicity Committee of the British 
 Foreign Office. That it made its way to remote allies 
 is evidenced by a long and able review which ap- 
 peared in the "North-China Daily News," printed 
 in Shanghai, February 2d. Two weeks after its pub- 
 lication, Dr. White was at work on "Germany and 
 Democracy," a reply to the amazing statements of 
 Dr. Dernburg, one of the most active and vociferous 
 members of the Kaiser's "foreign legion." It seems 
 incredible now that these publicists, press agents, 
 and professors, so liberally paid to undermine the 
 
 1 William Roscoe Thayer: Out of Their own Mouths.
 
 233 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 honour and honesty of the United States, should 
 have been encouraged to spread their propaganda 
 throughout the land. Many of them were plotting 
 shamelessly against our trade and our safety, and 
 some succeeded in doing us grievous harm; but a 
 credulous and bewildered people could not be 
 brought to believe in such duplicity. Herr Heinrich 
 Friedrich Albert told us strange tales of Belgian in- 
 humanity to Germans. Dr. Dernburg, relying too 
 securely on our ignorance, told us of France's viola- 
 tion of Belgium's neutrality, and of her attempted 
 invasion of the Fatherland. What wonder that in 
 this monde bestournS there were men who did not 
 know whether the wolf was eating the lamb, or the 
 lamb was eating the wolf; whether St. George or the 
 dragon was defending assaulted humanity. M. Jus- 
 serand pointed out in a very amusing letter to Dr. 
 White the discrepancies in two of Dr. Dernburg's 
 articles which were published simultaneously. The 
 worthy Teuton did not mind giving himself the lie. 
 It was part of his profound contempt for the intelli- 
 gence of the American periodicals which sought his 
 words, and of the American public which read them. 
 Dr. White wrote the pamphlet, "Germany and 
 Democracy," wholly and entirely that he might 
 have the pleasure of proving Dr. Dernburg's men- 
 dacity. He called in my help, and I was glad to give 
 it; but the speed and fury with which he worked left
 
 THE GREAT WAR 233 
 
 a collaborator toiling far behind. It was my first in- 
 timate acquaintance with his literary methods. He 
 wrote three fourths of the pamphlet rather than 
 wait for me to do my share. I could no more have 
 kept pace with him in composition than I could have 
 climbed a mountain by his side. 
 
 His championship of France and England won him 
 many enemies. Hyphenated Americans and pacifists 
 united in assailing him, and agitated ladies wrote 
 letters to newspapers, deploring the violence of his 
 language. Ex-Governor Pennypacker, a warm sym- 
 pathizer with Germany's aims and methods, criti- 
 cised him bitterly in an address to the German So- 
 ciety of Pennsylvania, and the audience howled its 
 reprobation every time his name was mentioned. A 
 Germanic Sherlock Holmes divulged this dreadful 
 secret: "I hear from good authority that Professor 
 White is the closest friend of Lord Treuves, the phy- 
 sician of King George, and visits him frequently. 
 Now may I ask Professor White what it was worth 
 to him to be persuaded by his friends, George and 
 Treuves, to stir up Americans by false and lying 
 misstatements? May I ask what was the price?" 
 
 So persistent was this abuse that it became one of 
 Dr. Martin's cherished pastimes to call his friend up 
 on the telephone, and in guttural German accents, 
 which deceived the listener for a moment, threaten 
 him with dire retribution. "The Little Brothers of
 
 234 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Germany," to use a phrase of Mr. Chapman's, were 
 so loud-voiced in 1915 that one wonders their silence 
 in 1917 did not choke them. Month after month an 
 ever-increasing list of savageries made more difficult 
 their defence of the fatherland. The wisest of them 
 fell back once and for all upon the solid support of 
 General von Disfurth's pronouncement: "Germany 
 stands as the supreme arbiter of her own methods, 
 which must be dictated to the world.'* 
 
 From Henry James, to whom Dr. White had sent 
 the pamphlets, came an incandescent letter of de- 
 light and relief. "With passion I desire that those 
 who surround you should range themselves intel- 
 ligently on the side of civilization and humanity 
 against the most monstrous menace that has ever, 
 since the birth of time, gathered strength for an 
 assault upon the liberties, the decencies, the pieties 
 and fidelities, the whole liberal, genial, many-sided 
 energy of our race." 
 
 Sargent, painting tranquilly in the Dolomites 
 when the war-bomb burst upon the world, had been 
 caught without passport, without money, and with 
 "every symptom of being a spy." He made his diffi- 
 cult way back to England; and James wrote to Dr. 
 White in the early spring that a noble desire to be of 
 service had driven the emancipated painter back to 
 the work he had forsaken. 
 
 "You will no doubt have seen how, at a great
 
 THE GREAT WAR 235 
 
 auction-sale of artistic treasures sent by the benev- 
 olent for conversion into Red Cross money, Sir Hugh 
 Lane bid two thousand pounds for an empty canvas 
 of John's, to be covered by the latter with the portrait 
 of a person chosen by Lane. What a luxury to be able 
 to resolve one's genius into so splendid a donation! 
 It is n't known yet who is to be the paintee, but that's 
 a comparatively insignificant detail." 
 
 On March 4th, Dr. White was able to announce 
 that he would sail hi June with the surgeons, physi- 
 cians, and nurses chosen from the staff of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania to take charge of the hundred 
 and eighty beds consigned to their care in the Amer- 
 ican Ambulance Hospital in Paris. His first plan of 
 raising a corps of army surgeons had been frustrated 
 by the reluctance of the Allied Powers, of France 
 especially, to admit the American doctors into their 
 service. He therefore turned his time and attention 
 to the one hospital he could help, and which was 
 always in need of assistance. A month before his 
 public announcement, he wrote to Tom Robins that 
 the generous response of the public kept pace with all 
 demands. 
 
 "We have now opened a Philadelphia ward of 
 forty beds in the American Ambulance Hospital in 
 Paris the very best ward hospital in Europe 
 and have the money to support it for six months. We 
 are trying to get enough money for a year, and are
 
 236 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 within $7000 of it. The fund for the University 
 representation must, however, be entirely separate, 
 as people of all affiliations, including some of the 
 Jefferson men, have been active in raising the general 
 fund. 
 
 "Pennsylvania must do, not only good work, but 
 work which will compare well with whatever is done 
 by the Western Reserve and by Harvard. Dr. Crile 
 is over there now with an entire floor of a hundred 
 and fifty beds under his care. He took with him a 
 party of twelve, at a cost of eleven or twelve thousand 
 dollars. His term of service includes January, Feb- 
 ruary and March. Harvard has secured April, May 
 and June. I accepted in behalf of Pennsylvania for 
 July, August and September, trusting that in some 
 way I should secure the funds. 
 
 "Jim Hutchinson will go and take his assistant. I 
 shall pay my expenses, and Jim will pay his; but the 
 younger men and the nurses, while willing to give 
 their services, and run whatever risk there is about 
 it, have no money to spend on themselves." 
 
 On the 8th of May came word of the sinking of the 
 Lusitania. It was an event which harmonized with 
 Germany's avowed principles, and fulfilled her avowed 
 intentions. She went as mad with delight when the 
 deed was done as if it had been dauntless and danger- 
 ous. The immediate result in Great Britain was a 
 hardening of the national fibre, a conviction that it
 
 THE GREAT WAR 237 
 
 was better to die fighting than to yield to a power 
 capable of such inhumanity. In the United States, 
 German-American societies, and their affiliated Irish- 
 American societies, received the news with delight, 
 and cheered the drowning of American women and 
 children. Pacifists, like Henry Ford, sprang to speech, 
 assuring us we had nothing to resent. We were 
 officially bidden to be calm. Twelve months after 
 the crime was committed, the American Rights 
 Committee was refused permission to hold a Me- 
 morial meeting in New York. It seemed for a time 
 as though the dead were dishonoured by our indif- 
 ference, as though Germany were right in her calcula- 
 tion that we would take her blow kneeling. Yet none 
 the less that wholesale and cowardly murder of 
 noncombatants was her death-warrant. Americans 
 neither forgot nor forgave. There smouldered in the 
 heart of the nation a fire which gave little out- 
 ward token of its intensity, but which slowly and 
 steadily burned its way to the surface, and burst 
 into a flame that purified the land. 
 
 To Dr. White, this supreme act of piracy was the 
 natural and inevitable outcome of all that had gone 
 before. When Dr. William H. Furness wrote to him: 
 "Don't you believe that now, with the sinking of the 
 Lusitania, we can say, as did my grandfather when 
 Fort Sumter was fired on, 'The long agony is over'?" 
 he had no answer to give. The agony was eating into
 
 238 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 his soul. Every month that Germany was suffered to 
 flaunt her foulness in the face of civilization was a 
 month of painful endurance. Like many other Amer- 
 icans, he sought what comfort he could find in the 
 hardest of hard work. As the sailing of the University 
 contingent drew near, he had no hour which he could 
 rightly call his own; but when he was urged to pre- 
 pare a new and enlarged edition of the "Primer/* 
 which should deal with more recent conditions and 
 events, he took up the task, and toiled at it day and 
 night with that concentrated intensity which so per- 
 ilously consumed his strength. 
 
 The "Text-Book of the War for Americans" is a 
 closely printed volume of five hundred pages, show- 
 ing signs of the haste with which it was compiled, 
 and lacking the coherence of the earlier pamphlet. 
 Its heaped-up evidence makes it valuable as a book 
 of reference. Its transparent honesty, the hatred for 
 cruelty, and contempt for cowardice, which kindled 
 every page, gave it weight in that sad season of doubt 
 and indecision. It was one of the forces which helped 
 to strengthen our sense of moral obligation, and 
 prompted us to the great sacrifice. 
 
 Having launched this last offensive against Ger- 
 man barbarism, Dr. White's whole attention was 
 turned to his approaching departure. For the first 
 time in twenty-seven years he was to sail without 
 Mrs. White, believing that conditions were too
 
 THE GREAT WAR 239 
 
 dangerous to warrant a woman's crossing the sea 
 unless she had definite and useful work to do. It was 
 a sane and unselfish decision, because he knew that 
 he wanted her companionship; but what he did not 
 know was how much he was going to want it as the 
 solitary months sped by. To all reporters and news- 
 paper men he made this clear statement: "I should 
 like it fully understood that Dr. James P. Hutchin- 
 son is assuming the chief responsibility for operative 
 work. As a surgeon, I am now a back number. More- 
 over I have tasks to do in England this summer, and 
 at home next autumn. I shall therefore return when 
 I have been of all possible use, leaving the ward in 
 the exceptionally able hands of Dr. Hutchinson." 
 
 The surgeons sailed June 12th, on the St. Louis. 
 Dr. White's diary bears testimony to the compre- 
 hensive dirt and discomfort of the ship, as well as 
 to the intelligence and friendliness of the passengers. 
 There were several Canadian officers on board, and 
 they gave him the benefit of their experiences. One 
 of them told him he had seen the body of a two-year- 
 old Belgian child, a little girl, pierced by a lance, and 
 hung naked on a meat-hook in a butcher's window. 
 The incident was no worse than countless other in- 
 cidents in Germany's campaign. It was not so bad 
 as many things that happened daily. But Dr. White 
 loved children, and the image of that little brutalized 
 body, exposed as a legitimate joke to appreciative
 
 240 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 German eyes, destroyed his peace of mind. He wrote 
 about it in a white heat of grief and rage to Effingham 
 Morris. He never forgot it while he lived. 
 
 The week spent in London was crowded with 
 social happenings. "Of course I had lots of old 
 friends here," wrote the doctor to Provost Smith, 
 "but now I seem to have hundreds of new ones." 
 He lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, and warmly 
 admired General Henderson, Chief of the British 
 Aviation Corps, who was one of the guests. He dined 
 with Anthony Hope, and was amused, though not 
 unduly dazzled, by Mr. Wells. He dined with Mr. 
 Fisher Unwin, who was publishing the English 
 edition of the "Text-Book," and spent a burning 
 hour in discussing the Lusitania with Sir Sidney Lee. 
 More happily he dined with Sargent and Henry 
 James, and the three friends had what James called 
 "a perfect orgy of indiscretion." Sargent wrote to 
 Mrs. White, assuring her he was looking after her 
 "absconding husband" to the best of his ability, 
 though it was no easy matter to keep track of any 
 one so popular. James wrote to her that he also was 
 engaged in this pious duty, and was fulfilling it 
 "with a zeal and tenderness which you and Miss 
 Repplier rolled into one could n't surpass. . . . Wil- 
 liam has done more than he came for," added this 
 affectionate chronicler, "and his ability and effect 
 will now be splendidly enhanced. He is the delight
 
 THE GREAT WAR 241 
 
 of our circle, besides being that of other circles in 
 which we do not presume to feel that we move." 
 
 Those were dark days for the Allies. Germany was 
 putting forth her utmost strength, and displaying 
 her utmost ruthlessness. Her arrogance kept even 
 pace with her resourcefulness. She challenged the 
 civilized world to stay her hand. Dr. White, temper- 
 amentally hopeful, but beset by heavy fears, was 
 strengthened in spirit by this visit to England, and 
 by the tenacity of purpose he beheld on every side. 
 He summed up his convictions the night before his 
 departure in the following characteristic paragraph: 
 
 "I am leaving London, depressed as to the im- 
 mediate outcome of the war, but not as to its final 
 results. The British are still making mistakes. Some 
 of them not a few are hardly awake yet to their 
 own danger. But they are all splendid in one thing. 
 They don't brag or blow about it. They don't talk 
 about it much. But they have n't the slightest idea 
 of being beaten finally. They intend to win if they 
 have to finish the war ten years from now, and alone. 
 They believe (as they have a right to believe) hi the 
 justice of their cause. They believe (as they have a 
 right to believe) that they and their Allies are fight- 
 ing, not their own battles only, but the battles of 
 every civilized nation, of every real democracy. They 
 think, though they don't say it in so many words, 
 that this moral supremacy over their enemies, this
 
 242 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 innermost consciousness that they are defending 
 humanity at large, is bound to have more and more 
 weight as time goes on, and that it will sooner or 
 later become overwhelming in its influence." 
 
 In Paris, Dr. White spent most of his time at the 
 American Ambulance Hospital. It was inevitable 
 that he should now regret (as Treves had bitterly 
 regretted) his retirement from surgical practice. "I 
 wish I had n't stopped operating some years ago," 
 he wrote to Mr. Edward B. Smith. "I make myself 
 of what use I can, and I try to preserve my self- 
 respect by remembering that I assumed at once the 
 responsibility for accepting the offer to come over, 
 that I effected the organization, and with your 
 help the financing of this unit." 
 
 His admiration for the bearing of the wounded 
 soldiers was unbounded. That brilliant playwright, 
 Hubert Henry Davies, who nursed for months in a 
 London Hospital, recorded his conviction that "the 
 nearest thing on earth to an angel is the British 
 Tommy." Dr. White stood ready to say as much for 
 the Poilu. "Men and officers," he wrote to Mr. Smith, 
 "I never saw such a cheerful, contented, hopeful lot. 
 Some of them shot half to pieces, but never a grumble 
 or complaint. It's wonderful. Their chief anxiety 
 seems to be to get back to the front again." 
 
 The diary bears the same testimony to this un- 
 varying heroism. "A finer, more uncomplaining,
 
 THE GREAT WAR 243 
 
 more cheerful lot of men I 've never seen. They really 
 are splendid, and their readiness to go back to that 
 Hell from which they have escaped with their bare 
 lives is amazing." 
 
 The hospital itself satisfied all the requirements of 
 this exacting critic. He has nothing but praise for 
 surgeons, doctors, nurses, and attendants. "I am 
 glad," he wrote, "to have something that, as an 
 American, I can be proud of. We are now settled and 
 hard at work, with a hundred and eighty to two hun- 
 dred wounded in our care. The organization of our 
 unit is excellent. I have no fear but that the results 
 will compare favourably with those of preceding 
 units." 
 
 To .Thomas Robins he repeats the same enthu- 
 siasms and the same regrets. "The hospital takes a 
 large part of each day, though I do no real surgical 
 work, and sometimes feel like a senile, decrepit, dod- 
 dering old ass, who ought to be dozing away my last 
 days in Philadelphia, instead of being here where 
 everything is war, war, war. But it's^me, and the 
 finest thing of all is the cheerfulness, and optimism, 
 and unquenchable ardour of the poor fellows who 
 have been shot to pieces. They never grumble, and 
 they all want to get back to the front." 
 
 The five Philadelphia wards, with eight and ten 
 beds in each ward, gave him especial satisfaction. He 
 has much to say of their inmates. One of them was a
 
 244 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 young French surgeon with the rank of lieutenant. 
 He had been tending the wounded during a bombard- 
 ment, and heard the groans of a Zouave lying, hurt 
 and helpless, in No Man's Land. He called for vol- 
 unteer stretcher-bearers, and went to the rescue 
 under a Red Cross flag, which immediately drew a 
 well-directed fire from the enemy (a Red Cross is to 
 a German what a red scarf is to a bull), with the re- 
 sult that the Zouave and the four bearers were killed, 
 and the surgeon badly wounded. He managed to 
 crawl back to shelter, and was then wearing the 
 croix de guerre, as a reward of his fruitless valour. 
 
 There were weekly entertainments at the hospital 
 for the amusement of convalescents, and the array 
 of talent they presented was rich in variety. On one 
 occasion Dr. White heard the baritone of a Buenos 
 Aires Opera company, some French actresses from 
 the Opera Comique, and Anna Held, who sang " Tip- 
 perary " three times because the wounded men could 
 not get enough of it, but begged for it again and 
 again. 
 
 When not in the hospital, the doctor wandered 
 about his old haunts in Paris, went to some public 
 dinners, heard some amazingly dull speeches (he 
 failed to understand how they could be so dull under 
 such circumstances), and spent a few happy hours 
 with Edith WTiarton. Their mutual affection for 
 Henry James, their mutual admiration for Theodore
 
 THE GREAT WAR 345 
 
 Roosevelt, gave them grounds for sympathy; and to 
 find his views so keenly and comprehensively shared 
 by this most distinguished of American women was 
 a very great delight to her compatriot. 
 
 Two things he ardently desired, two favours he 
 asked and obtained. He was permitted to make an 
 ascent in a French military biplane (an experience 
 less common then than now), and he was permitted 
 to visit "the front." For the first adventure he was 
 consigned to the care of M. Caudron, constructeur 
 d'aSroplanes, who professed his pleasure at being 
 able to oblige so good a friend of the Allies and of 
 Mr. Roosevelt. A biplane was placed at his service, a 
 young pilot was assigned to him, a heavy coat, a cap 
 and goggles were lent him, and in a driving storm he 
 circled Paris, and flew up and down the Seine. "I 
 never did want to be a chauffeur, but I certainly 
 should like to be an aviator," he writes in the diary; 
 "and if I could drop a few bombs on the Rhine 
 bridges, and the Krupp Works, and Potsdam, and 
 Unter den Linden, it would be delirious happiness." 
 
 On the 20th of July he visited Rheims, then under 
 heavy bombardment, and, as it chanced, he had the 
 benefit of a particularly lively morning. In an hour 
 and a half, more than five hundred shells, costing at 
 an easy estimate nine thousand dollars, were rained 
 upon the town. "Every few seconds there would be 
 a dull roar, then almost instantly the scream or
 
 246 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 shriek of a shell overhead, and then another closer 
 shattering roar, as it struck and exploded. Some- 
 times there was no shriek between the first dis- 
 tant roar, and the second close one. This 
 meant that the shell was a No. 130 (130 millimetres 
 in diameter) which is the smallest the Huns usually 
 employ, and which goes at so high a velocity that it 
 reaches its aim and bursts, before the sound it makes 
 in the air has time to strike the ear. The 150 and 210 
 millimetres do not travel so fast." 
 
 By afternoon the firing ceased, and Dr. White was 
 given an opportunity to see the havoc it had wrought. 
 The devastated Cathedral had been, as usual, the 
 principal target for the guns. The centre window of 
 one of the chapels in the apse, the third from the 
 south transept, had been blown in. The altar lay 
 crumbled into fragments. There was a hole four feet 
 deep and ten feet in diameter in the Cathedral yard. 
 The buildings that surrounded it had sunk more com- 
 pletely into ruin. Throughout the city there were 
 rubble heaps that had been homes at sunrise. A 
 dozen townspeople, most of them women, lay dead 
 under humble roofs. Nine thousand dollars' worth 
 of frightfulness had done its appointed work. 
 
 A week later Dr. White went to Boulogne, then in 
 the war zone, where he had permission to remain for 
 several days, and where he was the only civilian in 
 the hotel. The second day, Colonel Sir George Makins
 
 THE GREAT WAR 247 
 
 motored him to St. Omer, the headquarters of the 
 British army, which was being intermittently shelled, 
 and to the Clearing Hospital, No. 10 (in Belgium), 
 where he saw some three hundred men shot and 
 burned who had been brought in from the field 
 hospitals that morning. The desire of his heart was 
 to get into Ypres, but there seemed little likelihood 
 of its fulfilment, until by rare good fortune he en- 
 countered Captain R. J. C. Thompson, "ex-football 
 player, ex-officer in the Egyptian army, and a good 
 fellow without any ex," who was in command of a 
 motor ambulance convoy, and who promised that, 
 if the doctor would dine and spend the night at the 
 farm which was his headquarters, he would motor 
 him into Ypres at dusk. 
 
 The alacrity with which this offer was accepted 
 can be well imagined. It was a "hot night," not 
 so registered by the thermometer, but in the British 
 lines, where an attack upon the enemy's trenches 
 was under way. Sir George and Major Irvine accom- 
 panied Captain Thompson and Dr. White; and the 
 party reached Ypres hi time to see by the waning 
 light that picture of uttermost desolation. There were 
 ruined streets, and the battered walls of the Ca- 
 thedral, and broken bits of masonry that had once 
 been part of the incomparably beautiful Cloth Hall, 
 marked by the Germans (as they marked the Ca- 
 thedral of Rheims) for complete destruction. Shells
 
 248 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 whizzed above their heads, and one of them bursting 
 perilously close, showered dirt and rubble over the 
 incautious visitors. "If Ypres ever again becomes a 
 city," wrote Dr. White, "it will have to be rebuilt as 
 completely as if no town had ever stood there. How 
 many hundreds of thousands of shells it took to 
 accomplish this demolition, only God and the Huns 
 know. They'll probably say they fired six shells to 
 dislodge a Belgian observer from the roof of the Ca- 
 thedral." 
 
 After making this melancholy round, the doctor 
 was taken to the nearest field hospital, where sadder 
 sights awaited him. The fight was going on between 
 Ypres and Hooge; and all night long came an endless 
 file of wounded British soldiers, some unconscious 
 on stretchers, some hideously burned by liquid fire 
 (Germany's latest invention), some walking feebly. 
 "One chap, who ought himself to have been tenderly 
 and carefully carried, had the arm of another, worse 
 hurt, around his neck, the two of them barely able to 
 crawl." All were indomitable, uncomplaining, brave, 
 cheerful, and grateful. "Think of a poor fellow with 
 his head bound up in a blood-stained bandage, a 
 hand and arm riddled with shell splinters, his face 
 so covered with clotted blood mixed with dirt that 
 it looked like a mask, think of that man wait- 
 ing his turn to be dressed, and actually grinning as 
 he said: 'Our artillery are doin' fine. They've got
 
 THE GREAT WAR 249 
 
 the range of their trenches to a foot. Every time one 
 of our shells struck, I saw four or five of the swine 
 goin' up in the air, and in pieces, too.' I could 
 have kissed him, blood and dirt and all." 
 
 For hours and hours Dr. White stayed in that field 
 hospital, admiring the speed and precision with 
 which the British surgeons did their work, the order 
 and cleanliness which reigned in such rough quarters, 
 the unvarying heroism of the wounded. And every 
 hour his desire to help grew stronger. It was dreadful 
 to stand there idle, while those other men, worn and 
 spent, saw the work ahead of them exceed their ut- 
 most powers. Finally he could bear it no longer, and 
 made a tentative offer of his services. But it might 
 not be. Even in those cruel straits, even in that wel- 
 ter of blood and agony, red tape bound the official 
 world. Dr. Hays, the surgeon in charge, grinned 
 pleasantly., but would accept no aid; and Sir George 
 explained later that to have done so "would have 
 been subversive of discipline and a bad precedent." 
 "I understand, and agree as to principle," wrote Dr. 
 White wistfully; "but I think that if I could have 
 gotten to work, I might have helped to save some 
 lives." 
 
 By the 4th of August he was back in London, and 
 attended the great anniversary service at St. Paul's, 
 objecting characteristically to the sermon preached 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because it was
 
 250 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 "mixed up with religion/* On the 7th he went to Sir 
 William Osier's at Oxford. There was a houseful of 
 guests of various nationalities, but not a neutral soul 
 among them; and the talk had a quality of insight, and 
 a sustained intensity of feeling, which suited his own 
 angry and heroic mood. The only amusing thing he 
 had to relate was a story told him by Osier of King 
 Edward showing a photograph of himself to Lord 
 Salisbury, and asking, "What do you think of that? " 
 Salisbury, always unobservant and absent-minded, 
 regarded it with a pitying eye. " Poor old Buller ! " he 
 said, " I wonder if he really is as stupid as he looks." 
 One task Dr. WTiite set himself to perform in Eng- 
 land. Henry James had asked for British citizenship, 
 and, believing the matter to be of no interest or 
 concern to the public, had declined, save for a few 
 lines to the "Times," to give any reasons for his 
 action. He would not even discuss the subject among 
 friends, being always reticent about his own af- 
 fairs. The doctor, however, felt that some statement 
 should be made, and as nothing would induce Mr. 
 James to make it, he valiantly asked for and ob- 
 tained permission to send a communication to the 
 "Spectator." In this brief analysis he outlined the 
 events of the past year, the repeated violation of 
 American rights by Germany, the repeated insults 
 and injuries suffered by Americans at the hands of a 
 nation which took a brutal delight in flouting them.
 
 THE GREAT WAR 251 
 
 It was, he asserted, no lack of loyalty to American 
 ideals which had actuated Mr. James, but a desire 
 to line up with the fighting people, with those who 
 were doing their level best to save an assaulted world. 
 It was his sense of individual responsibility in a great 
 moral crisis, when every man must stand for right or 
 wrong. The "Spectator" printed Dr. White's com- 
 mentary without elimination, and added a line of its 
 own, courteous, temperate, and sane. Sargent wrote to 
 Mrs. White that he was glad the word which needed 
 to be said had been well said. Mr. James maintained 
 a suave silence. There was no need for him to speak. 
 On August 20th that venerable dining-club, the 
 "Kinsmen," gave a dinner in honour of Dr. White, 
 a brilliant affair, although the chairman, Sir Sidney 
 Lee, had forgotten a number of people who should 
 have been asked, and had given wrong dates to 
 others. The men of letters who had succeeded in 
 being present were full of friendly feeling for their 
 guest. There were but three speeches, Sir Sidney's, 
 Dr. White's, and a very good one from Sir Alfred 
 Keogh, Surgeon-General of the British Army. What- 
 ever pleasure Dr. White might have had in the enter- 
 tainment was hopelessly marred by the news which 
 had just reached London of the shameful sinking of 
 the Arabic. She was an unarmed ship, westward 
 bound, carrying civilians only, and no munitions. 
 She was torpedoed without notice, and sank in eleven
 
 253 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 minutes. Two Americans were reported to be missing. 
 What wonder that the American who sat at an Eng- 
 lish board was heavy of heart and speech. His coun- 
 trymen at home were every whit as sorrowful. 
 
 Upon one point he was determined. The sinking of 
 the Arabic should not prevent him from returning, 
 as he had planned, on the Adriatic. The St. Paul 
 sailed the same day; but, apart from the fact that 
 his experience of the St. Louis had inspired him with 
 a reasonable distaste for the American line, he felt 
 very keenly that to change his ship would be a per- 
 sonal surrender of his principles, and of his just de- 
 mands. Mr. Bryan's advice to Americans, to avoid 
 the risk of British vessels, rankled in his breast. He 
 hated everything which could be construed into sub- 
 mission to Germany's insolent dictates. "It seems 
 to me," he writes in the diary, "that it is now the 
 duty of Americans, if they are unaccompanied by 
 women and children, to insist on the rights of safe 
 travel at sea on merchant ships. These rights their 
 country should secure for them. Every man who does 
 so insist is, to that extent, an example to others." 
 
 The Adriatic would have been a rich haul for sub- 
 marines. Sir Robert Borden, Premier of Canada, 
 General Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and 
 Defence, Sir Herbert Holt, President of the Royal 
 Bank of Canada, and Colonel Carrick were among 
 the passengers. There was also a "dear little Cana-
 
 THE GREAT WAR 253 
 
 dian girl of three" for Dr. White to play with. 
 The child's father was in command of a cavalry 
 regiment. Her baby brother and her grandmother 
 had been lost on the Lusitania. With such com- 
 panions, and with the creature comforts which, it 
 must be confessed, the doctor valued highly, the 
 voyage was a singularly agreeable one. He was glad 
 to be nearing home. The summer had been brimful 
 of honours and adventures ("bombarded towns, and 
 toppling houses, and shells blazing all around me 
 were new and thrilling experiences," he wrote to 
 Edward Smith) ; but there had also been lonely hours 
 in which he knew too well what was wanting. The 
 last page of his London diary contains a candid, and 
 most unusual, avowal of error. 
 
 "I made one mistake, not bringing Letty with 
 me. Against it, however, must be urged her freedom 
 from all risk especially now and also the oppor- 
 tunities I've had (which her affection might have 
 prevented) of learning much from actual experience, 
 which ought to make me able to think straighter, 
 write better, and altogether be more useful to the 
 cause as long as the war continues. That helps to 
 balance the account, though it does n't console me 
 in hours like these for her absence. If I had realized 
 how much I should miss her, I'd have let her take 
 all the risks and come along. So there's a frank con- 
 fession of having, for once, been wrong."
 
 CHAPTER XH 
 
 THE END 
 
 " TI THEN Dr. White returned from this exciting 
 V V and exhausting summer, he was, though he 
 did not know it, an ill man. He was not prepared to 
 make any concession to his increasing weakness and 
 pain. He attributed them to fatigue, to exposure, to 
 prolonged immersion in his swimming-pool during 
 the warm September days, to rheumatism, to neu- 
 ralgia, to any and everything except the ineradica- 
 ble disease which his physicians recognized, but were 
 unwilling to name. His courage was undaunted, his 
 energies unclogged. It seems grotesque that, after 
 his great experiences in Europe, his months of high 
 adventure, he should have been immediately en- 
 gulfed by an academic tempest which attracted more 
 attention than it deserved, and consumed more time 
 and strength than should have been wasted upon 
 it. But anything to be done for the University of 
 Pennsylvania was to him worth doing, and the Uni- 
 versity had involved itself in a particularly lively 
 row by summarily dismissing an instructor in the 
 Wharton School of Finance, on the charge of in- 
 cendiary language to his students. 
 
 The incident gamed importance from the fact that
 
 THE END 255 
 
 faculties and alumni all over the country were sharply 
 resenting the arbitrary measures of college presidents 
 and trustees. The University was accused of sup- 
 pressing academic freedom of speech. All the space 
 in Philadelphia papers, which was not taken up by 
 war news, was given over to earnest colloquies upon 
 this little local cause cSlebre. The New York press 
 devoted august attention to the matter. The "Trib- 
 une" opined that scant confidence could be placed 
 in the sincerity of a college which sought to muzzle 
 its teachers. The "New Republic" likened Dr. Scott 
 Nearing (the inflammatory instructor) to Martin 
 Luther, nailing his thesis to the church door. The 
 "Sun," always inclined to skepticism, pointed out 
 that, while the telling of unwelcome truths is right 
 and praiseworthy, the presentation, as truths, of 
 points which are open to doubt, is less deserving of 
 esteem. "Life" was of the opinion that a salaried 
 official is bound by the conditions of his employment, 
 and that a man who desires untrammelled liberty of 
 speech ought not to hire himself out to an organized 
 institution with a responsible directorate. 
 
 Echoes of this commotion had reached Dr. White 
 in Paris, and he confided both to his diary and to 
 Thomas Robins that the episode was assuming "pre- 
 posterous proportions." He doubted the wisdom of 
 the dismissal, and he doubted the wisdom of the 
 dismissed. When he returned home, and was called
 
 256 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D/, 
 
 upon to defend his assaulted Alma Mater, he found 
 himself in a curious and difficult position. He was, 
 and he had been all his life, enamoured of free speech. 
 He was, and he had been all his life, intolerant of 
 foolish talk. He had no respect for orthodoxy, but a 
 great deal for the settled order of society. He loved 
 bold and outspoken views, but he valued common 
 sense above all things. It was a divided allegiance. 
 
 For these reasons, perhaps, there is an unwonted 
 gentleness in his vindication of the trustees, pub- 
 lished in the "Old Penn Weekly Review." Like 
 Carlyle, he was always disposed to stand for men 
 rather than for measures; but he recognized that 
 many of Dr. Nearing's adherents stood for measures 
 rather than for men. With them it was a matter of 
 abstract principle, and they were wholly indifferent 
 to the man who represented the principle they up- 
 held. With him it was a matter of practical expe- 
 diency, and all that concerned him was the fitness 
 or unfitness of this particular man to be a teacher of 
 youth. 
 
 Dr. Nearing had announced that, having served 
 three weeks on a jury, he had left the panel with his 
 faith in courts and the law "utterly destroyed." This 
 was to Dr. White a matter of no moment. He did not 
 care a rap what Dr. Nearing believed or disbelieved, 
 nor by what process of elimination he had reached 
 his conclusions; but he objected to the immature
 
 THE END 257 
 
 student mind being muddled with crude revolution- 
 ism on the strength of this somewhat inconclusive 
 evidence. Dr. Nearing's hostility to "private wealth" 
 neither interested nor repelled him; but he failed to 
 see its place, as a basis for instruction, in a School 
 of Finance. 
 
 The paper of ten thousand words, in which Dr. 
 White analyzed and defended the action of the trus- 
 tees, was the last piece of sustained work he ever did. 
 Dr. Nearing was called to the University of Toledo, 
 where he had a brief and stormy career. The entrance 
 of the United States into the war tested him, as it 
 tested better men, and proved of what metal he was 
 made. He was indicted under the Espionage Act for 
 obstructing government measures. The ranks of pro- 
 German pacifism opened to receive him, and in its 
 friendly arms he found his comfort and support. 
 
 Throughout the autumn, letters and reviews 
 praising the English edition of the "Text-Book'* 
 followed Dr. White over the sea. The "Spectator" 
 said truly that its author was, if not a leader, at least 
 a "challenger of opinion." Lord Sydenham, who still 
 cherished the generous vision of good Germans, un- 
 tainted by militarism, dwelling in some unknown 
 corner of the Fatherland, wrote that he hoped these 
 blameless anchorites would read the "Text-Book," 
 and be enlightened. Mr. James's congratulations 
 related chiefly to the safe passage of the Adriatic,
 
 258 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 which had relieved his heart of a heavy load of care. 
 "I see," he wrote, "the glory of your return only 
 bedimmed a little by damnably dreary things; the 
 Arabic, the Hesperian, the offensive ass of a Dumba, 
 and the so zealously co-operating knave of a Bern- 
 storff." 
 
 At home, Dr. White was called upon so often to 
 gratify public curiosity that he lived his life in a 
 state of perpetual siege. Moreover, the Great War 
 had brought to him, as to thousands of his country- 
 men, new sets of sympathies and estrangements; it 
 had made and unmade friendships and enmities. 
 Nothing seemed the same, because nothing was the 
 same, while Europe rocked in the blast. Social inter- 
 course was dominated by this overwhelming fact. No 
 other points of agreement or disagreement counted 
 in the scale. 
 
 Two years before the war, Dr. WTiite, indignant at 
 "Life's" travesties of the medical profession, and at 
 its insistent vilification of Colonel Roosevelt, whom 
 it always pursued hi a spirit of sustained hostility, 
 dropped his subscription, and refused to allow the 
 paper to enter his house. He wrote to the editors a 
 frank and not unfriendly letter, giving them his rea- 
 sons for this step, and also his reasons for telling 
 them why he took it. "I do not suppose," he said, 
 "that either my subscription or my opinion is of 
 any importance to you; but I have a feeling of regard
 
 THE END 259 
 
 for 'Life' which leads me, in parting from it, to make 
 some explanation, as I should do if for what ap- 
 peared to me a good cause I decided to drop the 
 acquaintance of a man who had once been a friend." 
 
 "Life" published this letter with the following 
 graceful comment: "On the contrary, the loss of an 
 intelligent reader is always important to 'Life,' and 
 doubly important when we lose an old friend be- 
 cause of a difference of opinion." 
 
 The years sped by, and the war was fourteen 
 months old when Dr. White wrote again to "Life," 
 asking that the quarrel should be made up. The 
 paper's courageous unneutrality, its defence of hu- 
 man and civilized justice, its unremitting attacks 
 upon German propaganda, had won his heart. 
 "Life," he said, might continue to call doctors 
 quacks, and Colonel Roosevelt an impostor. He 
 would summon his philosophy, and utter no word of 
 protest. He would remain, even under such provo- 
 cation, its enthusiastic admirer, and its grateful 
 debtor. He asked humbly to be restored to the sub- 
 scription list. After all, what did anything matter 
 save the supreme struggle between right and wrong 
 on the battle-fields of Europe? 
 
 This letter established the last friendship of his life. 
 Mr. Edward Sandford Martin answered it at length, 
 admitting his own share of guilt, but claiming abso- 
 lution, because events had remodelled his standards,
 
 260 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 as they had remodelled the standards of many honest 
 men. All the staff of "Life," he said, were wild with 
 enthusiasm over France (the paper's editorials had 
 proved this much), and all were ready for war. They 
 were even then planning the famous "John Bull" 
 number, a heartfelt, humorous, noble tribute to 
 Britain's matchless valour. Mr. Martin's unshaken 
 belief that the war would end, not only aright, but 
 so very well as to have been worth its cost, was a 
 tonic to Dr. White's mind, and balm to his soul. 
 There was a power of vision in Mr. Martin which 
 strengthened many minds and souls. Saint Michael 
 could no more have doubted his final victory over 
 Lucifer, Saint George could no more have doubted 
 his final victory over the dragon, than this New York 
 gentleman could have doubted the final victory of 
 France and Britain over Germany. "This is a world 
 of promise beyond all the promise of a thousand 
 years," he wrote prophetically; "a world in which 
 whoever is strong in the faith may hope everything 
 that saints foresaw, or martyrs died to bring." 
 
 All this time Dr. White was raising money for the 
 Philadelphia Wards of the American Ambulance 
 Hospital, and all this time he was fighting the disease 
 which manifested itself more pitilessly day by day. 
 He lingered in the country until November, and was 
 then brought back to town, the wreck of his old gay, 
 dominant self. By the close of the month a second
 
 THE END 361 
 
 sum of fifteen thousand dollars had been sent to 
 Paris. "Let me take this opportunity," he said in his 
 announcement, "of reiterating and emphasizing my 
 former statement, made after weeks of personal ob- 
 servation of the workings of the hospital, namely, 
 that no money sent from America to relieve suffering, 
 and to aid the cause of the Allies, does more good 
 than that contributed to this institution. It is so 
 efficiently and economically managed that, with a 
 progressive decrease in the per capita expenses, 
 there is a corresponding increase in the care and at- 
 tention given to the wounded, and in the comforts 
 supplied to them. 
 
 "It is, moreover, the most conspicuously useful of 
 the attempts that America has made to repay in 
 some slight measure the debt of gratitude which she 
 incurred to France more than a century ago." 
 
 In December, Dr. White was taken to the Uni- 
 versity Hospital. Here he spent his Christmas; and 
 on Christmas eve, while he was under treatment in 
 the laboratory, his friends invaded his room, and set 
 up a tree hung with gifts, droll, fanciful, charming, 
 as the taste of the donors prompted. Miss Marian 
 Smith, the superintendent of the hospital, lent her 
 affectionate co-operation to the scheme. Everything 
 had to be done in haste, for the time was short. Every- 
 thing was ready before the invalid returned. Fruits 
 and flowers and books and boxes were heaped up in
 
 262 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 the big, spare hospital room. The tree, with its loving 
 remembrances, towered to the ceiling. The decorators 
 assumed a gaiety they did not feel. When the last 
 touch had been given, Mrs. White glanced around 
 the pretty, glittering scene, and said sadly: "If 
 friends could cure." 
 
 With the New Year came the last determined 
 effort of a resolute life, the last flicker of the flame 
 which was burning low in a wasted body. Colonel 
 Roosevelt was expected to speak in Philadelphia, 
 January 21st, on the stern necessity of military pre- 
 paredness; and Dr. White announced his intention 
 of being taken home, and of receiving the Colonel as 
 his guest. It seemed sheerly impossible, but his mind 
 was made up. The house on the Square was opened 
 wide, as in the old happy days. Its master, showing 
 no sign of his mortal illness, lay on a couch in the 
 library, welcoming his visitors, and watching with 
 the clear eyes of unalterable devotion the friend who 
 had been his beacon light through life. Political ani- 
 mosities were buried deep that day, for no one who 
 knew and loved the sick man failed to respond to 
 this, his last call on their regard. I remember Colonel 
 Roosevelt saying: "It would have seemed strange to 
 me to come to any other house than this"; and Dr. 
 WTiite replying: "It is a house of pain, but it is always 
 yours." 
 
 So absolutely did strength of purpose triumph
 
 THE END 263 
 
 over bodily infirmity, that to some of us it seemed as 
 though the sufferer had renewed his hopes and his 
 vigour in this brief contact with the world. Before 
 the strange buoyancy had faded, he wrote to Effing- 
 ham Morris: "I think the Colonel's visit has really 
 done me good. After his speech, he returned here 
 immediately, and we had a talk until 12.45 A.M. He 
 spent another hour with me before he went to the 
 Montgomery luncheon. I can scarcely expect you to 
 see him through my spectacles; but he is one of the 
 very best. The afternoon was for me a great success, 
 and your cheerful and affectionate presence was by 
 no means the smallest factor in it." 
 
 After Colonel Roosevelt's visit, Dr. White never 
 again left his bed-room; but his interest in all that 
 appertained to his friends, his profession, the Uni- 
 versity, and the war, remained unimpaired through- 
 out the winter. He wrote a self-forgetful letter to 
 the alumni of Pennsylvania's Medical School, on the 
 occasion of their annual dinner, regretting his inabil- 
 ity to be with them: 
 
 "I do not forget that among my most pleasant and 
 cherished memories are the hours I have spent in the 
 company of men whom you will have at table to- 
 night. I should find among them former co-workers 
 in every department of University activity, and es- 
 pecially in the department closest to our hearts 
 the Medical School which came to us with a
 
 264 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 reputation, a distinction, a history, that entitled it 
 to our devoted services. 
 
 "Unimportant as my personal share in this work 
 has been, it had for me the inestimable advantage of 
 throwing me into close and intimate contact with 
 successive circles of University men, and led to the 
 formation of changing, but always enlarging, groups 
 of very dear friends, with whom, in one way or an- 
 other, a close and affectionate relationship was 
 established, and has continued ever since. To these 
 friends, former students, fellow alumni, faculty 
 brothers, and to all the boys, I send my best wishes 
 for a successful and hilarious reunion, and my con- 
 gratulations on the present abounding health and 
 prosperity of our Alma Mater." 
 
 Dr. John Mitchell read this letter to the diners, 
 and wrote to Dr. White that it would have done his 
 heart good to have heard the cheers which greeted 
 it. Three weeks later, on University Day, came the 
 annual dinner of the General Alumni Society, an- 
 other gathering which he had been wont to love, and 
 to which his mind strayed longingly. That he was 
 not forgotten is shown by this line from Mr. Horace 
 Lippincott: 
 
 DEAR DR. WHITE: 
 
 The large and enthusiastic body of alumni, gath- 
 ered together for their annual dinner on the evening
 
 THE END 265 
 
 of University Day, heard with distress the news which 
 the Provost brought them of your suffering. Stilled 
 by the recital, they rose to their feet when he had 
 finished, and broke into three long hurrahs for you. 
 It was decided by acclamation to send you our greet- 
 ing, and our sincere hopes for your speedy recovery. 
 It is my privilege to write you this with the heartiest 
 and best wishes of your fellow alumni. 
 
 From England came loving letters, cheerful, op- 
 timistic letters from Sargent, and Lord Sydenham, 
 and Mr. Arthur Potter, who could not be brought to 
 believe that their friend was near to death; troubled 
 letters from Osier and Treves, who knew, or divined, 
 the truth. "There is something unusual in having 
 to write to you with a bedside manner," grumbled 
 Sargent; "instead of hurling jokes at you, jokes 
 that I warn you are merely delayed until a terror 
 treatment is prescribed." "You must cheer up," 
 wrote Mr. Potter affectionately. "We want you to 
 rejoice with us in our final victory, as you have helped 
 us in our hour of need." 
 
 From one friend, Dr. White was never to hear 
 again. Henry James lay very ill hi London, his keen 
 mind dimmed, his eager spirit groping in the dark. 
 The English Government had conferred upon him 
 the Order of Merit, and Lord Bryce carried it to his 
 bedside on New Year's Day. Happily, the sick man
 
 266 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 was fully conscious of the honour done him. "He 
 knew his old friends,'* wrote Miss Emily Sargent 
 to Dr. White, " and said a few words of thanks and 
 appreciation, quite in his old style. We are so very 
 glad he could grasp and enjoy this pleasure." 
 
 Osier, writing a few days later, expressed the same 
 generous satisfaction in this final recognition of great 
 qualities. "Was it not splendid that they gave Henry 
 James the O.M., really the highest literary dis- 
 tinction in England? Everybody is delighted. Mrs. 
 Asquith was asking for you the other day. Your 
 martial spirit made a great impression upon those 
 politicians. I wish you and Roosevelt were in the 
 Cabinet. This house is still a junk shop. A hundred 
 and ninety barrels of apples, and two thousand dollars, 
 came to Grace at Christmas from Canada and the 
 United States. We had the house full of men from 
 the front, chiefly relatives. Eighteen members of my 
 family are serving." 
 
 In February, Henry James died. His death was a 
 signal for a renewed attack upon him on the score of 
 his renunciation of American citizenship. Again Dr. 
 White came to his friend's defence. In grave and 
 measured words he repelled the flippant insinuations 
 of critics who betrayed more irritation than they 
 would confess to cherishing. His letter to the " Phila- 
 delphia Ledger " had in it a quiet depth of feeling, a 
 sincere and sorrowful understanding of the situation.
 
 THE END 267 
 
 He at least knew that no man was more passionately 
 loyal than Mr. James to the ideals which the United 
 States, in common with all free and democratic 
 countries, stood pledged to cherish and support. He 
 knew that it was the great novelist's cheerful and 
 unvarying acceptance of all the responsibilities of 
 life which made it hard for him to retain, among old 
 associates, and in the face of Germany's threats, the 
 safety and privileges of a neutral citizen. 
 
 Mr. James's death was the last break in Dr. 
 White's circle of intimate associates. He felt it 
 acutely, though he knew that his own end was near. 
 For eleven years these two men had been firm and 
 happy friends. They were as unlike as men could be. 
 The "rude imperious surge" and the deep land- 
 locked lake could offer no greater contrast. "I am 
 such a votary and victim of the single impression, 
 of the imperceptible adventure, picked up by acci- 
 dent, and cherished, as it were, in secret," wrote 
 James to Dr. White in the spring of 1914, "that your 
 scale of operation and sensation would be for me the 
 most choking, the most fatal of programmes, and I 
 should simply go ashore at Sumatra, and refuse ever 
 to fall in line again. But that is simply my contempt- 
 ible capacity, which does n't want a little of five 
 million things, but only asks three or four, as to 
 which, I confess, my requirements are inordinate." 
 
 It was the war which showed how closely akin in
 
 268 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 elemental qualities, in all the attributes which make 
 for simple, self-sustaining manhood, were these con- 
 trasting types. To no heart did this titanic struggle 
 strike more deeply than to Mr. James's, and to no 
 mind, outside of diplomatic circles, was it given to 
 see more clearly its true and final issues. He was not 
 eager to beckon his own country into the combat; 
 but he knew that, in the end, there could be no 
 escape from the "bitter-sweet cup"; and he knew, 
 too, being an American, that, when it was once pre- 
 sented to our lips, we should drain it to the dregs. 
 His spirits were not buoyant enough to bear the 
 burden of grief; but the breadth of his human sym- 
 pathy, the depth of his exhaustless compassion, were 
 a revelation to the world. In this regard, he and Dr. 
 White were indivisible. The counsel, old as life and 
 base as sin, 
 
 "Let us endure awhile, and see injustice done," 
 
 carried no persuasion to their souls. They knew their 
 helplessness; but there was not in the life of either 
 one minute of cowardly acquiescence. 
 
 The near approach of death was powerless to dull 
 Dr. White's human interests, to weaken his affec- 
 tions, to moderate his just resentments. On the 3d 
 of March, less than two months before his death, he 
 sent the following characteristic letter to Provost 
 Smith :
 
 THE END 269 
 
 DEAR EDGAR: 
 
 I have received a book by David Starr Jordan, 
 which, I regret to say, bears the imprint and motto 
 of the University of Pennsylvania. I think it a dis- 
 grace to the University to have the work of such a 
 man published under its patronage. 
 
 I am not yet aware whether or not he was invited 
 to give this lecture. I suppose, if he were, it was in- 
 cumbent upon us, under the terms of the Founda- 
 tion, to publish it. But if the date of his invitation 
 was later than eighteen months ago, I shall be ready 
 to vote for a censorship. 
 
 A man who, writing to-day, could put, as the first 
 of the duties now before the world, the keeping of 
 Americans out of the "Brawl in the Dark, in which 
 Europe is bleeding to death," with no mention of 
 the paramount duty of trying by every possible 
 means to see that, as a result of the "brawl," might 
 does not triumph over right, or barbarity over civi- 
 lization, is not entitled to speak before a University 
 audience, or to have what he says published by a 
 University. I regard him as one of the most mis- 
 chievous and harmful of the pacifist agitators. 
 
 It was Professor Jordan who ventured to say in a 
 college commencement address, given in the sum- 
 mer of 1909: "France is, by its own admission, deca- 
 dent." The remark was considered even then to be
 
 270 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 in questionable taste, and of questionable accuracy. 
 The events of the past five years have proved it as 
 false as it was foul. "War," says M. Halevy, "speaks 
 with authority. It lays the foundations of history. It 
 consecrates and dominates it forever." 
 
 On the 18th of March, less than six weeks before his 
 death, Dr. White sent his last letter to Effingham 
 Morris. Throughout the long months of his illness 
 longer they seemed to him than all the vigor- 
 ous years that had preceded them he had shared 
 with this friend the hopes he could not relinquish, 
 and the doubts that beset his soul. "WTien the pain 
 is bad, I know I am as ill as ever. In the blessed 
 moments when I am out of pain, I think I am going 
 to get well in a couple of weeks. And so it goes." 
 
 All hope was dead when he wrote for the last time, 
 and his concern was not then for himself, but for a 
 young physician whom he liked and trusted, and 
 for whom he sought a post on the visiting staff of 
 the Presbyterian Hospital. Enclosed with this letter 
 was a more formal communication, addressed to the 
 Board of Managers of the Hospital, in which he set 
 forth with all his old energy, and with more than 
 his old kindness, Dr. Carnett's fitness for the ap- 
 pointment. The shadow of death fell across his bed 
 when he made this brave effort to help a man whose 
 life lay bright before him; yet in April he roused 
 himself to write twice again. The first letter was
 
 THE END 271 
 
 to Provost Smith, urging him to interest himself in 
 Dr. Carnett's behalf, and ended with these pregnant 
 words: "I really want you to do this for me, and at 
 this juncture shall make no excuse for not doing more 
 myself." 
 
 The second letter was to Mr. Samuel Rea, and its 
 dictation must have cost the dying man a great and 
 painful effort: 
 
 "I have just heard, in reference to the candidacy 
 of my friend, Dr. J. B. Carnett, for the surgical 
 vacancy of the Presbyterian Hospital, that he has 
 been handicapped by the statement, widely made, 
 that Pennsylvania Railroad influences have been 
 lined up in his behalf through my individual efforts, 
 and that they are not to be taken at their face value 
 as testimony to Carnett's real ability, experience, and 
 general fitness for the place. 
 
 "I write at once to call attention to the impropri- 
 ety of this attitude so far as I am concerned. As the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad has done me the honour of 
 giving me an important position on its staff, and of 
 accepting my judgment in many surgical matters, it 
 is apparent that its directors think enough of my 
 knowledge and experience to justify the expectation 
 that they would also value my opinion of the work, 
 professional character, and standing of a man brought 
 up under my own eye, and whose career I have 
 watched with especial interest and attention."
 
 272 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 Nine days after writing this letter, Dr. White died. 
 He had suffered such appalling pain, he was so worn 
 and so profoundly helpless, that those who loved 
 him best were least desirous to prolong that brave 
 and broken life. To the end he was keen to see his old 
 associates, and to hear news of the world which was 
 slipping fast away from him. Every morning, Tom 
 Robins, his brother, and his cousin, Sam White, the 
 unchanging friend of his boyhood and his youth, 
 came to his bedside, and brought some breath of a 
 happier life. Every day, as the end drew near, Dr. 
 Alfred Wood, Dr. Martin, and Dr. Stengel issued 
 bulletins which were posted in the vestibule of his 
 home, and read by throngs of anxious visitors. At 
 the close, pneumonia intervened, and death came 
 mercifully to the man who had waited for it so long, 
 and whose only hope lay in its healing hand. 
 
 Dr. WTiite died in a time of supreme national de- 
 pression. He had seen nearly two years of war, and 
 every month had brought fresh evidence of Germany's 
 cruelty in Europe, her treachery in the United States, 
 her ruthlessness (punctuated by broken promises and 
 suave explanations) on the seas, her profound and 
 brutal contempt for the laws of civilized nations. 
 He had lived through the period when cranks of 
 every description proposed ingenious and blood- 
 less plans for bringing the struggle to an end; 
 when delegations of children .were sent to Washing-
 
 THE END 273 
 
 ton, to ask the President to keep us out of war; 
 when every fresh outrage was met by fresh apologists. 
 There were, indeed, Americans of a different type, 
 men who never consented to neutrality, who never 
 believed that a purifying ocean cleansed them from 
 all sense of human obligation. In December, 1914, 
 Mr. James M. Beck, speaking before the New Eng- 
 land Society of New York, urged that the United 
 States should call a conference of the neutral powers, 
 and voice a protest which would have stayed Ger- 
 many's bloody hand. "But I confess," wrote this 
 great lawyer to me, "that I did not advocate a 
 declaration of war by the United States until after 
 the Lusitania was sunk. Dr. White did. And as this 
 subjected him to a storm of ridicule at the time, it is 
 only just to his memory to note that he was, so far 
 as I am aware, the first wholly courageous soul in 
 America, the first with full vision." 
 
 There is no "full vision" in this darkened world. 
 Dr. White would have died more serenely had he 
 known what no one could know, that the soul of 
 the nation, seemingly inert under provocation, was 
 slowly hardening itself to meet an incredible situa- 
 tion. It was ready for the fight before the call came, 
 and the glad rush to the colours showed how bitter 
 the waiting had been. That we had no idea how to 
 wage war was natural enough; we had to learn, as 
 Britain learned, taught by our own blunders. But
 
 274 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 through the unutterable confusion of those first 
 months there was no faltering of the spirit. The 
 sense of relief was too profound, the escape from the 
 pit was too blessed. Alas, and alas, for the brave and 
 honest men who died before the day of deliverance. 
 
 It was a shadow of heroic grief resting upon the 
 close of a life which had been happy and prosperous, 
 dignified by achievement, crowned by success. Dr. 
 White had risen to eminence in his profession. He 
 had held for twelve years the John Rhea Barton 
 Chair of Surgery, in the University of Pennsylva- 
 nia. He had performed many delicate and dangerous 
 operations, and his patients had survived to call him 
 blessed. He had made important contributions to 
 the literature of surgery. He was an authority in his 
 chosen field. His enthusiasm for athletics triumphed 
 over the prejudice of teachers, and the indifference 
 of the public. He was a pioneer in this great move- 
 ment which has revolutionized and reformed student 
 life. The University Gymnasium stands as a per- 
 manent monument of his wisdom and devotion, of 
 his generous sympathy with youth, and his healthy 
 understanding of what it means to be young. 
 
 He was girt by inflexible limitations. There are pro- 
 found emotions which have moved the world, and 
 there are delicate nuances which define areas of 
 thought and taste, to which he held no clue. But the 
 essentials of manhood the things without which
 
 THE END 275 
 
 there is no man were all his. He was brave, truth- 
 ful, sincere, loyal to his friends and to his country, 
 and pitiful to the suffering. His personal feelings, his 
 likings and animosities, were very strong. 
 
 "A hedge around his friends, 
 A hackle to his foes." 
 
 Perhaps the number of foes was increased by the 
 fact that he never struck in the dark, no matter how 
 easy the chance; but waged an open warfare, pre- 
 senting himself as a shining target for missiles. On 
 the other hand, his friends loved him heartily and 
 tenaciously; his patients knew his kindness and his 
 worth; nurses and internes in the hospital were keen 
 for all his imperiousness to work under him; 
 and close professional associates, like Dr. Alfred 
 Wood, gave him unstinted devotion. 
 
 Above and beyond all other qualities must be 
 reckoned his courageous acceptance and enjoyment 
 of life. He feared it as little as he feared death. He 
 never held back his hand from its favours because 
 they carry danger in their wake. He never inquired 
 too curiously if the game were worth the candle. He 
 took royally what was his, and paid the price in full. 
 There is a matchless sentence of Mr. Chesterton's 
 which describes, as no words of mine can ever de- 
 scribe, this sane and valorous attitude: "The truest 
 kinship with humanity lies in doing as humanity has 
 always done, accepting with sportsmanlike relish the
 
 276 J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. 
 
 estate to which we are called, the star of our happi- 
 ness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth." 
 
 These gifts Dr. White took unshrinkingly from the 
 hand of fate, and of them he built the strong and 
 splendid fabric of his life. 
 
 THE END 
 
 I
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbey, Edwin Austin, 73, 107, 108, 
 
 109, 148, 165, 166, 168, 184, 185, 
 
 186, 195 
 Abbey, Mary Gertrude Mead, 195, 
 
 196 
 
 Adalbert, Prince, 206, 207 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 175 
 Adams, Robert, 42, 45, 46 
 Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Gary, 10, 
 
 17,24 
 Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe, 8, 
 
 13, 14, 17, 23, 24 
 Agnew, Dr. David Hayes, 39, 40, 
 
 41, 56, 64, 65, 71, 88, 189, 204 
 Albert, Heinrich Friedrich, 232 
 Alexandra, Queen, 108 
 Ashbridge, Dr. R. William, 42 
 Asquith, Emma Alice Margaret 
 
 Tennant, 240, 266 
 Asquith, Hon. Herbert Henry, 240 
 Audubon, John James, 11 
 Austen, Jane, 120 
 
 Baldwin, Edward, 33 
 Barbauld, Anna Letitia, 3 
 Bartholow, Dr. Roberts, 66 
 Beck, James Montgomery, 231, 273 
 Bell, John, 75 
 Bergmann, Dr. von, 56 
 Bernhard, Dr., 205 
 Bernstorff, Johann Heinrich, Count 
 
 von, 193, 227, 258 
 Biddle, Hon. Craig, 187 
 Biddle, Katharine, 188 
 Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine, 44 
 Bodley, Dr. Rachel L., 40 
 Borden, Sir Robert Laird, 252 
 Brown, Benjamin H., 52 
 Brownell, William Crary, 53, 197 
 Browning, Robert, 22 
 
 Buller, Gen. Rt. Hon. Sir Redvers 
 
 Henry, 250 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 93 
 
 Caesar, 93 
 
 Carlyle, 256 
 
 Carnett, Dr. J. B., 270, 271 
 
 Cassidy, Michael, 32 
 
 Cato, 93 
 
 Caudron, M., 245 
 
 Chambers, James S., 40 
 
 Chapman, John Jay, 234 
 
 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 275 
 
 Cicero, 93 
 
 Clark, Dr. John G., 181 
 
 Cleeman, Richard A., 68 
 
 Clement XIII, Pope, 154 
 
 Cret, Paul, 209 
 
 Crile, Dr. George W., 236 
 
 Cross, J. W., 185 
 
 Daly, Charles, 98 
 
 Darwin, Charles Robert, 18 
 
 Davidson, Most Rev. Randall 
 Thomas, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, 249 
 
 Davies, Hubert Henry, 242 
 
 Delaune, Gideon, 163 
 
 Delm6-Radcliffe,Brig.-Gen. Charles, 
 114, 115 
 
 Delme-Radcliffe, Enid Margery, 
 103, 115 
 
 Dernburg, Dr. Bernhard, 231, 232 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 93 
 
 Disfurth, General von, 234 
 
 Drexel, Anthony, 212 
 
 Du Cane, Col. Sir Edmund, 69 
 
 Dumba, Dr. Constantin Theodor, 
 258 
 
 Dunne, Peter Finley, 203
 
 280 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Eakins, Thomas. 40, 113 
 
 Edward VII. King, 99, 108, 151, 
 
 184, 193, 250 
 
 Eliot, Dr. Charles William, 91 
 Eliot, George, 185 
 
 Fagon, Gui Crescent, 54 
 
 Fisher, Alice, 48, 49, 50 
 
 Fitler, Mayor, 67 
 
 Foote, Samuel, 44 
 
 Ford, Henry, 237 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 71, 80, 81 
 
 Frazier, Dr. Charles H.. 140, 181 
 
 Fuller, Thomas, 169 
 
 Furness, Horace Howard, 144, 149, 
 
 158, 159, 190 
 Furness, Dr. William H., 237 
 
 Gaekwar of Baroda, 214, 215 
 Garretson, Dr. James E., 66 
 George V, King, 109, 215, 233 
 Gibbon, Edward, 53, 93 
 Gilbert, Sir William S., 94 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, 93 
 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 93 
 Goodell, Dr. William, 71 
 Guiteras, Dr. John, 70 
 
 Halevy, Daniel, 270 
 
 Hals, Frans, 111 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, 164 
 
 Harrison, Alfred, 57 
 
 Harrison, Charles Custis, 117, 123, 
 
 193 
 
 Harte, Francis Bret, 77 
 Havemeyer, Theodore, 75 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 53 
 Hays, Dr., 249 
 Heinemann, Dr., 130, 132 
 Held, Anna, 244 
 
 Henderson, Lt. Gen. Sir David, 240 
 Hill, Dr. Thomas, 8, 10, 14, 15, 24 
 Holland, Dr. J. W., 66 
 Holland, Hon. Sydney, 99 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 22, 69 
 Holt, Sir Herbert S., 252 
 Hope, Anthony, 240 
 
 Homer, Edith, 49 
 Howell, James, 53 
 Hughes, Gen. Sir Sam, 252 
 Hutchinson, Dr. James P., 236, 
 239 
 
 Imadate, Tosui, 220 
 Irvine, Major, 247 
 Ivens, Marion L., 141 
 
 James I, King, 163 
 
 James, Henry, 118, 119, 120, 129, 
 133, 144, 146, 151, 155, 161, 163, 
 169, 180, 184, 186, 195, 197, 202, 
 207, 222, 223, 234. 240, 244, 250, 
 251, 257, 265, 266, 267, 268 
 
 James, William, 184 
 
 Johnson, John G., 182, 183. 
 
 Johnson, Capt. Philip C., 24 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 44, 169 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, 269 
 
 Joseph, Sister Mary, 142 
 
 Jusserand, Jean Adrien Aubin Jules, 
 228, 232 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 93 
 
 Kauffmann, Maria Angelica, 163 
 
 Keen. Dr. William Williams, 71, 181 
 
 Kempis, Thomas a, 58 
 
 Keogh, Sur.-Gen. Sir Alfred, 251 
 
 Kernochan, James, 75 
 
 King, Mayor, 50 
 
 Kipling, J. Rudyard, 192 
 
 Kirk, John Foster, 133 
 
 Kitchener, Horatio Herbert, Earl 
 
 Kitchener of Khartoum, 196 
 Koch, Dr. Robert, 69 
 Kuhn, Hartman C., 55 
 
 Laking, Sir Francis Henry, 108, 163 
 
 Lambert, John, 113 
 
 Lane, Sir Hugh, 235 
 
 Larrey, Jean Dominique, Baron, 39 
 
 Lawson, Thomas William, 31 
 
 Lee, Richard, "Beaver Dick," 62, 
 
 63 
 Lee, Sir Sidney, 240, 251
 
 INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 Lesley, Station-Master, San Pablo, 
 
 23 
 
 Lippincott, Horace, 264 
 Lister, Joseph, Lord, 53, 55, 57, 144 
 Littre, Maximilien Paul Emile, 93 
 Long, Dr. Crawford Williamson,200 
 Louis XIV, King, 54 
 Luther, Martin, 255 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 5, 
 
 22 
 
 McCracken, Dr. Joseph, 220 
 McKenzie, Dr. R. Tait, 117, 118, 
 
 200 
 
 McLean, Billy, 83, 121, 122 
 McMurtrie, Richard, 68 
 McNally, Peter, 74 
 Mahmoud, dragoman, 213 
 Mahomet, 157 
 
 Makins, Col. Sir George, 246, 247 
 Maris, John M., 30 
 Marshall, Dr. Clara, 66 
 Martin, Anna Withers, 181 
 Martin, Dr. Edward, 88, 136, 140, 
 
 147, 167, 181, 182, 189, 222, 233 
 Martin, Edward Sandford, 259, 260 
 Mary, Queen of England, 215 
 Masefield, John, 82 
 Max MUller, Wanda Maria, 229 
 Mayo, Dr. William J., 139, 141, 142 
 Meynell, Alice, 116 
 Mitchell, Dr. John Kearsley, 264 
 Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 92, 113, 161, 
 
 219 
 
 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 184 
 Montgomery, Col. Robert, 263 
 Mordkin, Michael, 185 
 More, Hannah, 168 
 Morris, Effingham B., 104, 166, 
 
 173, 176, 177, 202, 240, 263, 270 
 Morris, Harrison S., 131 
 Morton, Mary F., 119, 120, 121 
 Moynihan, Sir Berkeley George 
 
 Andrew, 196 
 Munyon, James M., 178 
 Murillo, Bartolome Esteban, 72 
 Musser, Dr. John Herr, 70 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 215 
 Nearing, Scott, 255, 256, 257 
 
 Oelrichs, Charles, 74 
 
 Orthwein, W. J., 106, 107, 116, 171, 
 
 206 
 Osier, Grace Revere, Lady, 229, 
 
 266 
 Osier, Sir William, 104, 126, 131, 
 
 132, 133, 136, 162, 168, 195, 196, 
 
 228, 229, 250, 265, 266 
 
 Page, S. David, 52 
 Page, William Bird, 52 
 Paine, John, 106, 107, 116, 171 
 Pappenheim, Maximilian, Count 
 
 von, 55 
 
 Paul, Oglesby, 209 
 Pavlova, Anna, 185 
 Peirce, Benjamin, 7 
 Penn, William, 94, 166 
 Pennypacker, Samuel Whitaker, 
 
 233 
 
 Penrose, Boies, 2d, 177, 178 
 Penrose, Dr. Charles Bingham, 59, 
 
 61, 167, 177 
 
 Penrose, Katharine Drexel, 61 
 Pepper, George Wharton, 75, 199 
 Pepper, Dr. William, 64, 65, 70, 189 
 Peter the Great, 6 
 Phelps, William Lyon, 83 
 Pitkin, Dr., 25, 26 
 Pius X, Pope, 142 
 Potter, Arthur, 265 
 Pourtales, Count Francois de, 8 
 
 Ralston, Robert, 74 
 
 Rea, Samuel, 271 
 
 Roberts, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 
 
 Lord, 196 
 
 Roberts, Rev. William Henry, 193 
 Robins, Marie Ringold, 95 
 Robins, Thomas, 36, 91, 99, 123, 
 124, 125, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 
 142, 148, 152, 161, 166, 167, 170, 
 174, 193, 201, 202, 204, 210, 235, 
 243, 255, 272
 
 282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 5, 97, 98, 99, 
 123. 124, 174, 175, 176, 201, 202, 
 203, 204, 215, 245, 258, 259, 262, 
 263, 266 
 
 Root, Elihu, 183 
 
 Rush, Benjamin, 2 
 
 Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot 
 Gascoyne Cecil, Marquis of, 250 
 
 Samson, 93 
 
 Sargent, Emily, 266 
 
 Sargent, John Singer, 72, 73, 109, 
 113, 132, 144, 152, 162, 168, 169, 
 178, 179, 180, 184, 186, 196, 202, 
 210, 222, 223, 234, 235, 240, 251, 
 265 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 64, 93 
 
 Selkirk, Alexander, 19 
 
 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley 
 Cooper, Earl of, 226 
 
 Silly, General, 39 
 
 Simpson, Sir James, 200, 201 
 
 Sims, John Clark, 100 
 
 Siter, Mrs. Edward, 209 
 
 Smith, Edgar Fahs, 193, 208, 265, 
 268, 271 
 
 Smith, Edward B., 175, 242, 253 
 
 Smith, Marian E., 261 
 
 Smith, Rev. William, 149, 150 
 
 Socrates, 92 
 
 Stanford, Leland, 19 
 
 Steindachner, Dr. Franz, 24 
 
 Stengel, Dr. Alfred, 125, 140, 181, 
 272 
 
 Sternburg, Baron von, 123 
 
 Stevenson, Sara Yorke, 94 
 
 Stockton, Mary. 1 
 
 Stockton, Richard, 1 
 
 Sydenham, George Sydenham 
 Clarke, Lord, 257, 265 
 
 Taft, William Howard, 174, 202 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 92 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 92 
 Thayer, William Roscoe, 231 
 Thompson, Capt. R. C., 247 
 Townsend, Charles H., 42 
 
 Townsend, Edward, 32 
 
 Treves, Annie Mason, Lady, 102, 
 115, 164 
 
 Treves, Sir Frederick, 53, 55, 58, 
 59, 76, 77, 81, 82, 99, 101, 102, 
 103, 107, 108, 114, 115, 134, 140, 
 144, 148, 150, 161, 163, 164, 168, 
 233, 242, 265 
 
 Tyson, Dr. James, 70 
 
 Unwin, Fisher, 240 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry, 91 
 
 Van Valkenburg, Edward, 203 
 
 Vaux, Richard, 30 
 
 Velasquez, Diego Rodriguez de 
 
 Silva Y., Ill 
 Verne, Jules, 12 
 
 Waller, Edmund, 89 
 Walpole, Horace, 97 
 Washington, George, 123 
 Weightman, William, 117 
 Wells, Herbert George, 240 
 Weston, Edward Payson, 172 
 Wharton, Edith, 98, 244 
 Wharton, Dr. H. R., 68 
 Whistler, James McNeill, 195 
 White, Henry, 1 
 
 White, Dr. James William, 1, 67 
 White, Katherine E., 85, 187, 188 
 White, Letitia, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61, 
 72, 81, 83, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 
 111, 113, 116, 119, 125, 127, 128, 
 129, 139, 147, 148, 153, 155, 156, 
 164, 168, 171, 172, 177, 180, 187, 
 194, 206, 210, 211, 212, 214, 224, 
 238, 240, 251, 253, 262 
 White, Louis, 19, 20 
 White, Mary A. McClaranan, 2, 
 
 3.4 
 
 White, Samuel S., 272 
 White, Samuel S., Senior, 39 
 White, Samuel S., Junior, 143, 
 
 272 
 
 Whitney, Caspar, 75 
 Wilhelm (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor
 
 INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 Albrecht), German Emperor, 123, 
 
 193, 206, 227, 231 
 Wilson, Alan, 170 
 Wilson, Thomas Woodrow, 201 
 Wister, Owen, 113, 175, 201 
 Wood, Alexander, 42 
 
 Wood, Dr. Alfred C. f 139, 140, 141, 
 
 272, 275 
 
 Wood, Dr. Horatio C., 7, 71 
 Wordsworth, William, 93 
 
 Young, Brigham, 27
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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