But his frame was delicate, a too long abode in London always occasioned pulmonary symptoms, and experience taught him that his native air was more healthful and animating than any other. The difficulties attending his studies were greatly increased by his residence in the country; but they were surmounted by his precaution, and by the general favour which his benevolence secured to him among the neighbouring people. Though there were not wanting some who considered him as a very strange, if not a dangerous and a wicked, man. It is curious yet an astonishing and an afflicting speculation that men should be most prone to suspect, and hate, those who are most unwearied in endeavouring to remove their evils. That a surgeon must be acquainted with the direction, site, and properties, of the muscles, arteries, ligaments, nerves, and other parts, before he can cut the living body with the least possible injury, and that this knowledge can only be acquired by experience, is a very plain proposition. It is equally self-evident that a dead body is no longer subject to pain; and that it certainly cannot be more disgraced by the knife of a surgeon than by the gnawing of worms. When will men shake off their infantine terrors, and their idiot-like prepossessions? CHAPTER X _The departure: Ejaculations: Present pleasures and future hopes: A strange dialogue in the dark; and a generous and beautiful defender_ The pleasure I this day received in the company of Mr. Evelyn was uncommon, the friendship with which he had inspired me was pure, and the respect that my heart paid to his virtues was profound. But eagerness of pursuit was my characteristic. My plan being formed, every moment of delay would have been torment; and he, entering into all my thoughts and sympathising with all my wishes, prompted me to follow my bent. It was therefore agreed that I and my companion should depart by one of the coaches which would pass an inn at some distance in the morning. A messenger was accordingly dispatched to take places in the first vacant coach, arrangements for money-matters were made with every possible delicacy by my friend, the night passed away, day returned, and we departed. I will leave the reader to image to himself the crowding sensations that pressed upon my heart on this occasion, the tumult of thought which incidents so sudden and unexpected produced, and the feelings which mutually passed between me and my noble benefactor. I shall live, said I, to acknowledge this in my old age. I shall have a story to tell, a man to describe, and a friend to revere, that will astonish and render common hearers incredulous. But this was the language of my heart: not of my tongue. That was dumb. A pressure of the hand, with eyes averted, was all the utterance I had.