Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

PROCESSION THROUGH THE WHITE HOUSE 307
side-whiskers and bright, serene eyes that radiated mellow
wisdom, received me pleasantly, and after an inquiry
about his old friend bade me strip. He then put me through
about the same experience as that of the night before, but
I cannot recall that he asked a single question, certainly
none about ancestors or "tendencies." I told him of the
previous examination, without mention of a name, and
of the conclusions pronounced. Once more it was my
privilege to see how expressive silence and the shrugging
of shoulders could be when executed by medical authority.
"I am going to give you a quinine tonic," he said, and
that was all.
On next page in facsimile is the little life-saver that was
his alternative to the prescription of exile upon a Colorado
sheep farm for the remainder of existence and the abrupt
relinquishment of the hopes of years. Doctor Flint's
treatment may be of interest to readers of the medical
persuasion, if I am fortunate enough to have any such.
I have affectionately kept the prescription for forty
years; it has proved good diagnosis and adequate therapeutics for at least that space of time. Nevertheless, so
lasting is the effect of an impressively delivered medical
opinion that I felt easier when the ten years originally
allotted to me for miserable existence had at last expired.
I have dwelt, perhaps unduly, on this personal incident,
not only because it was a determining point in the course
of one life, but also because there may be something in
it for others who are suddenly halted at an unexpected
fork in the road.
Heaven bless the optimists! in Doctor Flint's profession

and in every other, in the pulpit, in the sanctum, and at
the speakers' table after the half-cups are filled; for it is
the optimists who keep the world a-going. Doctor Flint
lived two years after that consultation so important to
myself. His son, Doctor Austin Flint, Jr., long afterward
became a friend and until his death in 1915 was a valued