The Convalescent (Willis)/Dedicatory Preface
DEDICATORY PREFACE
To sickness I have always found I had much reason to be indebted; but, among the other blessings which have come to me under its apparent untempting veil, I number two of the most precious memories of the past—two of the habitual and most unfailing sources of my happiness at the present hour—the friendships of two eminent men, to whose medical care and counsel, under Providence, I have, at different times, owed my recovery.
By Dr. William Beattie, the English poet and physician, so well known to our countrymen, I was first attended, in 1835, when dangerously ill in London; and, with the acquaintance thus formed upon a sick-bed, commenced a confidential intercourse, maintained subsequently by a correspondence, which, after twenty-four years of almost constant separation, still retains its first interest and cordiality. My last and just-received letter from the venerable man (now near eighty years of age, if I am not mistaken), came accompanied with a present of ten or twelve rare books from his choice library, and an invaluable manuscript of Campbell the poet, whose most intimate friend he was during that afflicted man's troubled life, and to whom he performed so devotedly the last services and honors.
By Dr. John F. Gray, of New York, I have been more lately attended, through the years of my critical experience of disease; and to his admirable skill, and watchful and patient care, I owe, like so many others, a recovery, by all others thought impossible. For even so weary an illness, since it brought within reach treasures I might otherwise have lost—the intimate knowledge of such a man, and the privileged assurance of a place in his heart—I thank God as for a blessing.
Looking upon the well-tried and affectionate friendships of these two eminent and admirable men—friendships first won in sickness, but confirmed and strengthened in after health—as among the choicest privileges and honors of my varied life, let me, by gratefully inscribing their names together on the first leaf of this record of convalescence, link the two jewels found so far apart, to be left, as it were, in a casket of memory to my children.