I am unutterably unhappy because my nature is an unhappy
one.
My father died with full consciousness. Saturday evening he felt a
little worse. I sent for the doctor, that he might be at hand in case
we should want him. The doctor prescribed some physic, and my father,
according to his habit, disputed the point, demonstrating that the
physic would bring on a stroke. The doctor calmed my fears, and said
though there was always fear of another stroke, he saw no immediate
danger, and that my father most likely would live for many years to
come. He repeated the same to the patient, who, hearing of the many
years to come, incredulously shook his head and said: "We will see."
As he has always been in the habit of contradicting his doctors, and
proving to them that they know nothing, I did not take his words
seriously. Towards ten at night, when taking his tea, he suddenly rose
and called out:--
"Leon, come here, quick!"
A quarter of an hour later he was in his bed, and within an hour he
was dying.
24 March.
I am convinced that people preserve their idiosyncracies and
originality to the last minute of their life. Thus my father, in the
solemn dignity of thoughts at the approaching end, still showed a
gratified vanity that he, and not the doctor, had been right, and that
his unbelief in medicine was well founded.
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