I quite recognise the f force of your objection that an invalid or a woman in weak health would get no good from stories which attempt to treat some features of medical life with a certain amount of realism. If you deal with this life at all, however, and if you are anxious to make your doctors something more than marionettes, it is quite es­sential that you should paint the darker side, since it is that which is principally presented to the surgeon or phy­sician. He sees many beautiful things, it is true, fortitude and heroism, love and self-sacrifice; but they are all cal­led forth (as our nobler qualities are always called forth) by bitter sorrow and trial. One cannot write of medical
life and be merry over it.