Dr. Wright

“ Wright lived on rents derived from house property in London, but could neither read nor write, and soon found the youth useful in helping him with his accounts. Wright's wife, a believer in ‘vigils,’ died in 1624, of a cancer in the breast, and Lilly acted as nurse and amateur surgeon throughout the illness. In the summer of 1625 he remained in London during the plague. In February 1625–6 Wright married again, but he died on 22 May 1627, and Lilly accepted an offer of marriage made him by the widow, whose maiden name was Ellen Whitehaire, in the following September. ”

“ In 1837 he moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to prosecute a similar work in Boston.
Nothing is more remarkable in Mr. Wright's life than his perfect self- poise and peace of mind during such a long period of external agitation. It is doubtful, in spite of his highly nervous temperament, if he ever lost a night's sleep. When he was editing the Chronotype, and waiting for the telegraphic news to arrive, he would sometimes lie down on a pile of newspapers and go to sleep in less than half a minute. For mental relaxation he studied the higher mathematics and wrote poetry— much of it very good. ”

“ WRIGHT, THOMAS (1809–1884) , physician and geologist, was born on 9 Nov. 1809 at Paisley, Renfrewshire, and received his early education in the grammar school of that town, after which he was articled to his brother-in-law, a surgeon in practice there. On the removal of the latter to Ayrshire, Wright's medical studies were for a time interrupted, but their attraction was irresistible, so that he ultimately rejoined his relative and completed his time. Then he became a student at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, working also at the Peter Street Anatomical and Surgical School. ”

“ Let’s let up on me and talk about your trouble, and if I can help, please command me.”
“Father is very ill,” said Douglas soberly. “He has been working too hard for a long time and now his nerves have just given way and he has had to stop and go on a trip. Dr. Wright assures us that he has stopped in time and a sea trip and a year’s rest will completely restore him. It has come on us so suddenly that we have not had time to catch our breath even.”
“And who is this Dr. Wright?” asked Cousin Lizzie. ”

“ A car stopping at the door! The doctor and Bobby returning with the notary public! What must she do? Here she was in her father’s room, disobeying the stern commands of the physician who could see with half his professional eye that she had harmed his patient. She had time to get out before the doctor could get upstairs—but no! not sneak!
“I may be a murderess and am a selfish, headstrong, bad, foolish, vain, extravagant wretch, but I am not a sneak and I will stay right here [49] and take the ragging that I deserve—and no doubt will get,” remembering the lash that Dr. Wright had not spared. ”

“ The old man turned now to the doctor. "Someone needs me, David. We must go with the boy."
"But, Daniel, Daniel! Blast it all! The boy's not responsible. Where will he take us? Where do you want us to go, boy?"
"Not me; not me; nobody can't go nowhere, can they? You go with Pete, Mister."
"Yes, yes; go with Pete; but where will Pete take us?" persisted the Doctor.
"Pete knows."
"Now, look at that, Daniel! Look at that. Blast it all; we ought not go; not in the night this way. What would Sarah and the girls say?" Notwithstanding his protests, the doctor was ready even before the shepherd. ”

“ They had, in fact, to choose between a tried and an untried man. Dr Wright was known to have received a regular education in Oriental languages in Germany and in Holland, and to be thought highly of by the most competent judges in those countries. He had given proof of sound scholarship in various publications, and it was considered by several scholars in the University that the studies to which he had given special attention, viz.—Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic, and the Semitic group of languages generally—would be specially useful there. ”

“ The Wrights were startled. So great had been the secrecy about the visit of the Frenchmen that not many even in the French Government were permitted to know about their trip to Dayton. How did this mysterious Britisher know about it? The Wrights assumed that he must have been a volunteer worker in the British secret service. It was now obvious that he had crossed the Atlantic for no other purpose than to call on the Wrights and had hoped to burst in upon them while the Frenchmen were still there. After a stay of only one day in Dayton he hastened back to New York to sail on the next boat. ”

“ I reckon he won’t. Why should he be right in his diagnosis any more than Dr. Davis or Dr. Drew or Dr. Slaughter or any of the rest of them? Nervous prostration! Why, that is a woman’s disease. I bet Daddy will be good and mad when he finds out what this young idiot is giving him. How we will tease him!”
“But Dr. Wright is not an idiot and is not ugly and is doing the very best he can do. Do you [38] think he liked giving it to us so? Of course he didn’t. I could see he just hated it. He would have let us alone except he sees we haven’t a ray of sense among us, except maybe Douglas. ”

“ During the several days the correspondents were at Kitty Hawk, the Wrights knew they were being observed. From time to time they caught glimpses of men’s heads over the hilltop in the distance. Moreover, they heard each day, from members of a life-saving crew, just how many visitors had come. But they simply thought it was a good joke on the mysterious observers, whoever they were.
Arthur Ruhl, of Collier’s, had met the Wrights in Dayton about a year before. On May 14, before the final flight, he came over to the camp. ”

“ I remember you can see into the library from the path round the house!”
He darted out, the butler, protesting, lumbering along behind him.
“Mr. Wright,” he panted as he ran, “you didn’t reelly ought ... If any one should come ...”
But Bruce Wright was already at the window. The butler found him leaning on the sill, peering with an air of frightened curiosity into the empty room.
“The glazier from Stevenish”—Bude’s voice breathed the words hoarsely in Wright’s ear—“is coming to-morrow morning to put the window in. He wouldn’t come to-day, him being a chapel-goer and religious. ”

“ His long, thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe. At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. ”

“ The Doctor said nothing.
Then gazing up at the cast-iron figure posed stiffly with outstretched arm in the attitude of a public speaker, Dan asked: "Is that like him?"
"Like him! It's like nothing but the people who conceived it," growled the Doctor indignantly. "If that man were living he would not be always talking about issues that have no meaning at this day. He would be giving himself to the problems that trouble us now. This thing," he rapped the monument with his stick until it gave forth a dull, hollow sound, "this thing is not a memorial to the life and character of my friend. ”

“ It was Wright, coming up behind us. I thought I detected a little, cynical gleam in Mercedes' eyes, and laid my hand defiantly on Bill's arm.
"Are you tired?" I asked him gaily.
He laid his free hand over mine.
"Do men tire of life?" he counter questioned, gallantly, and I knew a swift admiration for his histrionic powers. For his voice went a little deep, quite suddenly, and the hand over mine shook.
"Nice answer," said Wright critically, "quite emotional, but open to argument. ”

“ The death of Wright is a sad commentary on these sad times. He was a genial gentleman, honest, frank, brave, the friend and protector of those who slew him. It is a sad commentary on the ingratitude of man, who in his earlier and lower estate seems fitted to be ruled by fear rather than by love. ”

“ A comparison of dates shows that Dr Wright was fifty-four years old at the time of his appointment in 1613, and the Foundress was then seventy-nine. The difference of a quarter of a century makes the truth of the story not indeed impossible but improbable ”

“ Wright and I have been down two or three times to arrange his house, and put up his curtains, and he had enclosed all his verandahs with branches of trees and flowers, so that it really looked very pretty. He is very popular from his extreme good-nature in attending anybody that wants him; he never takes any fee, and he takes a great deal of pains with his patients, and, moreover, he is a really well-informed man, and liked in society. ”

“ When they left the town far behind and—following the ridge road in the clear wine-like air of the early day—entered the woods, the Doctor laughed aloud as Dan burst forth with a wild boyish yell.
"I couldn't help it Doctor, it did itself," he said in half apology. "It's so good to be out in the woods with you again. I feel as if I were being re-created already."
"Yell again," said the physician with another laugh, and added dryly, "I won't tell."
Gordon's Mills, on Gordon's creek, lay in a deep, narrow valley, shut in and hidden from the world, by many miles of rolling, forest-covered hills. ”

“ I sincerely regret that the Institution employed to make the tests of 1914 an agent who had been an unsuccessful defendant in patent litigation brought against him by the Wrights.
2. I sincerely regret that statements were repeatedly made by officers of the Institution that the Langley machine was flown in 1914 “with certain changes of the machine necessary to use pontoons,” without mentioning the other changes included in Dr. Wright’s list.
3. I point out that Assistant Secretary Rathbun was misinformed when he stated that the Langley machine “without modification” made “successful flights.” ”

“ Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny, moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort, as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were to come. ”

“ The Wrights were more amused than disturbed by the lack of general recognition that flying was now possible. They inwardly chuckled when they heard people still using the old expression: “Why, a person could no more do that than he could fly!” But they knew they had only begun to learn about handling a flying-machine. ”

“ Wrightson. To the left of the white house stood the surgery, which was marked by a glaring red lamp and several bells, and over this surgery presided a helpless and timid young man named Titmas, the doctor’s only assistant.
Many wondered how it was that Dr. Wrightson did not engage a partner in his business; but that gentleman invariably turned a deaf ear to all hints of this nature. He was strong and well, he said, and able to do his work himself without any help at present. There would be time enough to talk about a partner when he grew to be an old man. ”

“ Wright said, "now, friend—"
Paul remarked, "You're elected."
"I will not be a god."
[50]
6
Mijok released the hands of his deity and sat back on his haunches, foggy-eyed. Wright stroked the great furry head, troubled and amazed. "It won't do," Wright said. "We'll have no gods on this planet. Unless human nature can make itself a little godlike. And no final Armageddon—for that's within too, and always was. Well, he'll learn language fast. As he does, the first thing he must discover is that we're all one flesh." ”

“ For, in the young life of the schools, as in the country, there is a spirit that names men with names that fit.
Secretly the Doctor had hoped that Dan would choose the profession so dear to him. What an ideal physician he would make, with that clean, powerful, well balanced nature; and above all with that love for his race, and his passion to serve mankind that was the dominant note in his character. The boy would be the kind of a physician that the old Doctor had hoped to be. ”

“ To the Doctor's astonishment, Martha stammered, "I—maybe I will go some day." Then her manner underwent a change as if she had suddenly remembered something. "You'll excuse me now while I put the dinner on," she said stiffly. "Just make yourself to home; preachers always do in this house, even if Doctor don't belong." She hurried away, and Dan looked at his host with his mother's questioning eyes. The Doctor knew what it was. Dan had felt it even in the house of his dearest friend. ”

“ The shepherd arose to see the sky above the eastern rim of the Hollow glowing with the first soft light of a new day. Away over Compton Ridge one last, pale star hung, caught in the upper branches of a dead pine. Not a leaf of the forest stirred. In awe the man watched the miracle of the morning, as the glowing colors touched cloud after cloud, until the whole sky was aflame, and the star was gone.
Again he seemed to hear, faint and far away, the roar and surge of the troubled sea. With face uplifted, he cried aloud, "O God, my Father, I ask thee not for the things that men deem great. ”

“ He died at his residence in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, May 14, 1878.
General Wright was a man of true soldierly instincts, never permitting personal consideration to interfere with the discharge of duty, and of high professional skill; he was most fair and honorable in all his dealings and had many friends. ”