The Corner of Harley Street: Being Some Familiar Correspondence of Peter Harding, M.D.Bashford, H. H. (Henry Howarth), Sir
General
The Corner of Harley Street: Being Some Familiar Correspondence of Peter Harding, M.D.
Bashford, H. H. (Henry Howarth), Sir
England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Physicians -- Fiction
Of the other invalids, none were sufficiently apparent to disclose
themselves to me in a cursory tour round the ship with Bettany; and
after making the poor cancer patient as cosy as possible in the special
train that was waiting for us at Boulogne, I repaired to the very
comfortable carriage reserved for us, and shared an excellent lunch with
Bettany, his lady secretary, and another member of the committee. The
journey to Paris was uneventful, and after manoeuvring round its
southern suburbs, we found ourselves about seven o'clock in the Gare
d'Orléans, where a portion of the refreshment-room had been reserved for
our dinner. During this meal I was introduced by Bettany to the Bishop
who is leading the pilgrimage--one of those rare men of whose essential
saintliness one becomes instantly aware, yet a man, too, of abundant
strength, and one, as I have since found out, capable of ensuring, with
the profoundest personal humility, the utmost tribute of respect to the
high office that he represents. I suppose every Church contains such
men. It is at any rate pleasant to think so. But not all are wise enough
to make them bishops--and missionary bishops at that.
The same train left Paris with us about nine o'clock on the long journey
to Lourdes; and after some desultory conversation we made ourselves
comfortable for the night. Fortunately, since our train was not of the
corridor type, the sick persons seemed to settle down pretty easily, and
the chief impressions that remain to me of the journey are a peep into a
cool and cloudless sunrise over some vineyards between Poitiers and
Angoulême and a very satisfactory _café complet_ at Bordeaux. Two or
three times during the morning, both before and after reaching this
place, we were jeered at by onlookers at various wayside stations, who
had read the inscription _Pèlerinage_ upon our carriage; and one or two
of these had even gone so far as to throw stones. They were reminders,
I suppose, that here in Lourdes seem almost incredible, of the enormous
extent to which the anti-clerical movement has permeated elsewhere in
France. The latter part of our journey, climbing slowly into the
Pyrenees, was enlivened for us by the presence of the Bishop, who had
given up his own carriage to some indignant Irish pilgrims that had been
so unfortunate as to have spent a sleepless night. Haymaking was already
in full swing in these steaming valleys, with men and boys and
bare-legged, brown-faced women all backs down over what seems to be a
very plentiful crop.
* * * * *
I have just here been tapped on the shoulder by an immaculately
apparelled American Catholic, who has just joined the pilgrimage from
Florence. He had learned, he told me, that I was a physician willing to
oblige. He suffered a little from gout, he said, and then proceeded to
pose me with the rather difficult question as to how often he ought to
take the waters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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