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tlbe VOL. IV. OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1894. NO. 2. COMPETITIONS THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. OCTOR, did I ever tell sician he feared a good mechanic was you what I know about spoiled. medicine ?" And so I liked the Doctor's " claret No," responded the and cigars, and for that matter also the a Doctor, dryly, taking Doctor himself, for he was a kindly old of and sip claret, open- gentleman who loved St. Mary's, archi- his in ing eyes my direction as much as tecture and mechanics, and who never to ' I wonder what say, you know about hated anyone or anything. medicine.' I give up all claim to popular sym- You the Doctor and I see, had con- pathy, but many of my professional tracted a sort of acquaintance; not to brethren doubtless know what a ter- say friendship, while I was building St. rible thorn in the side of the architect Mary's, and he, next to the is a man of the Doctor's Rector, fig- description ; ured as the and most strongest influen- and then you see I cannot fight him any tial member of the Building Committee. more than I could a woman or a child. After our morning inspection of the And if I try it by gentle logic or scien- works, he often invited me to his frugal tific or artistic reasoning, it is of no lunch, which included a glass of wine earthly use, for the Doctor does not and a cigar. know when he is down in an argument, On these occasions the Doctor gave and no man of courage can kick a me his reminiscences of the English fellow when he is down whether he cathedrals, nearly all of which he had knows it or not. visited in flighty summer trips to So I made up my mind I would tell Europe, and quoted Ruskin and Fergu- him some day what I knew of medicine, son when our architectural discussions and when I saw him open his eyes wide, seemed to need reference to authority I plunged into it at once. " on his part. To begin with, Doctor, I inherit The Doctor enjoyed quite a reputa- medical knowledge from my grand- tion as a critic of architectural art, also father, who was a physician, and so as an expert mechanic, because he were my uncles for that matter. It's spent many of his leisure hours in a in the blood, you see, on my mother's workshop attached to his house, where side. We must grant that there is he was known to perfect a machine for something in heredity and environ- stamping pill boxes out of sheet metal ment and early training. Darwin does ' on a Japanese principle of two elliptic as much " " cups of slight eccentricity fitted over Fiddlesticks," said the Doctor, you each other. The Doctor often told me may inherit from your grandfather when I praised his mechanical in- mental and physical vigor or defects, medical and let me genuity, that when he was made a phy- but not knowledge ; Copyright, 1894, by CLINTON W. SWEBT. All rights reserved. Vol. IV. 2. 1. 148 THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. tell that if did, would be "My dear fellow," said the Doctor, you you you " worse off than if he had been a shoe- your conceit is not incompatible with maker, for you would inherit the medi- common honesty. It may be explained cal errors of the times, i venture to as the result of profound ignorance. For I have devoted say your grandfather bled, cupped forty years myself and leechdd his 1 patients copiously, to the study 'and practice of medicine. and suffocated persons suffering from Forty years ago I graduated with fever in closed rooms. If your honors, and then I spent five years in mind is in any sense affected by Vienna and Berlin at clinical lectures. this sort of heredity, it must be disin- Since that time I have had a large and fected before it can be said to be re- lucrative practice, and acquired, as you It a not ceptive of true knowledge. some- know, respectable reputation, only times occurs that the ancestors of with laymen, but also among my eminent men in various walks of life professional brethren. During these were of the same profession and more forty years I have devoted much of my as a time to I will not boast of or less distinguished ; but, rule, reading. but I that I con- great men develop spontaneously with- native genius, may say out a grain of heredity to show for scientiously applied myself to the study themselves. So, if you want to show of medicine. And what is the result ? me what you know about medicine I am now convinced, and have been begin with yourself, and don't talk so convinced for the last ten years, that about your ancestors." to study medicine with success a man " Well, Doctor, my parents being poor should devote himself to some specialty they boarded a number of medical stu- in order to keep abreast with modern dents, and I may say that I was brought progress, and if possible add something up in an atmosphere of anatomy." to its acquisitions. How can you talk 41 Good," said the Doctor, "you doubt- of what you know of medicine, you who with the bones but will have life in archi- less played ; spent your studying you tell me what you know of the os tecture, and never had the time to in a of tibia, and what is its condition a child acquire even smattering anything and in a grown person ?" else. I might as well talk of what I " Well, Doctor, I must confess that it know of architecture." " has slipped from my mind, if I ever That is just what you do talk about. I to knew it; but then think of the practical That is just the point desired bring experience I gathered as one of a large you to by my impudent assertion of family of children, who all went through what I know of medicine. Please the measles, and the whooping cough, accept it as a compliment, a profound broke their arms and ribs walking on trust in your sense of justice, a thorough picket fences and swinging on gates, conviction of your love of fair play, and of the large family of children I and my utter despair to make you have brought up myself, to say nothing understand the case by any other of my personal sufferings with dyspepsia method. I trust you will forgive me and rheumatism. Why, I have tried when you realize the enormity of the experimentally on my own person most case. You talk to me of Ruskin and medicines to be found in the * Materia Ferguson, why the Humors of Hip- Medica.' And then I have read much on parchus are exact science compared the Humors of Hipparchus and the with the speculations of Ruskin on con- Methodism of Gallen, to say nothing struction, and the ravings of Ferguson of the practice of Sangrado, of modern on the subject of beauty. If you will Water Cures, of the Faith, and Walking be good enough to consider that the Cures. I have visited many of the cele- anatomy of architecture involves the brated baths, and have swallowed many whole range of mathematics in its ap- waters from Saratoga to Carlsbad. I plication to statical mechanics, that its should think you might admit that I physiology comprehends a philosophic, know something of medicine without historical and ideal conception of the doing violence to your professional functions of monuments, that its technic pride." in structural combinations and decor- THE VICISSITUDES OF ARCHITECTURE. '49 ative expression demands a laborious head and legs, not from malice to the training, to be hard acquired only by hod-carrier, nor for the it will work and self-denial of money many years, and bring him, but purely from a desire to that to compose buildings means a show to the world that he can heal the of which mastery organisms, have no sick and mend the broken of limb. model in nature, but must be scientifi- Now this young doctor has and spent years cally artistically developed on in the study of medicine, he has walked natural laws and not collected, as lay- the hospitals, and he knows that he men always suppose, from the surface can render services to society as a phy- of existing monuments which almost sician. But to be employed it is neces- never an answer to the express problem sary that society shall know what he before the architect, you will admit at can do in he ; fact, must have a repu- once that the suggestions of laymen in tation. architecture are not " unlike those of the It is not so with the young archi- dear old ladies who are found around tect. He is not content to hang out the sick bed. And yet the doctor may his sign and wait for clients humble listen to them and them ignore when he clients at first, and others more im- writes the while prescription, the archi- portant afterwards, for very good rea- tect is asked to submit his design to sons. In the first place his announce- the judgment of just such a court and ment to the world that he will hence- jury." forth do the work of an architect does The Doctor was evidently ruffled. not imply that he knows how to do it.

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