On another day he was standing outside the Foundling
Hospital with a friend, a small man. Now, a kind of stone cradle
for foundlings was built outside the door, and, when a baby was
placed therein, a bell rang. Lever lifted up his friend, popped him
into the cradle, and had the joy of seeing the promising infant
picked out by the porter.
It seems a queer education for a man of letters; but, like Sir
Walter Scott when revelling in Liddesdale, he "was making himself
all the time." He was collecting myriads of odd experiences and
treasures of anecdotes; he was learning to know men of all sorts;
and later, as a country doctor, he had experiences of mess tables,
of hunting, and of all the ways of his remarkable countrymen. When
cholera visited his district he stuck to his work like a man of
heart and courage. But the usual tasks of a country doctor wearied
him; he neglected them, he became unpopular with the authorities, he
married his first love and returned to Brussels, where he practised
as a physician. He had already begun his first notable book, "Harry
Lorrequer," in the University Magazine. It is merely a string of
Irish and other stories, good, bad, and indifferent--a picture
gallery full of portraits of priests, soldiers, peasants and odd
characters. The plot is of no importance; we are not interested in
Harry's love affairs, but in his scrapes, adventures, duels at home
and abroad.
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