Amador ledger., 1906-09-21
A HUMAN WEAKNESS
UNDER LIMELIGHT
lOriginal.l

WnOle ana deprive the BODY OF the
power of doing its work. Moral man
is fashioned in the same way. A per-
son may have every attribute for
splendid career except one, which will
throw the rest out of gear and pro-
duce collapse.
Rodney Bell led his class at college
and at the medical school and was one
of the picked men at both for whom
splendid career was predicted. When
at sixteen Rodney left home for the
university he was in the midst of
youthful love affair. The object of his
attachment was Luella Oliver nearly
his own age, a pretty, spirituelle, fem
mime creature who seemed to require
the most tender handling if she was to
develop into a woman. When they
parted, Rodney hung about her neck
gold locket in, which was a picture of
himself that she had asked for, telling
her that if ever she was dissatisfied
with his treatment of her to send it
back to him. Il am very ambitious"
he said, "and may be so absorbed in
my career as to offer you some slight
neglect. The sight of this gift will
bring me to my senses"
Rodney was at college and the med
ical school eight years, and then took q
postgraduate course at Paris. He
spent his vacations during his college
career at home, but it happened that
at both Luella was absent. In eight
years, from sixteen to twenty-four,
there is time for many changes. He
was passing away from the influence
of his early love, and their correspond
ence had nearly dropped. When Rod
ney wrote, Luella did the same. If he
failed to write, Luella was silent
Finally while abroad he remembered
one day that no letter had passed be-
tween them for four months. He re-
membered the locket he had given her
and argued, IF she is dissatisfied with
HE she will send it to me-" But to
make sure he wrote her asking if she
had sent it. This made him feel COM
paratively easy, though he could not
quite get rid of fear that he might
have hurt her.
When DIR. Bell was thirty-five he was
q celebrated surgeon. He was in love
with his profession and used to say
that he had not time to be in love with
any one or anything else. If he was,
1t was certainly the remembrance of
his child love. Many prominent wom-
en-, both rich and beautiful, tried to
win him, but they all failed.
One day he was called to hospital
to perform an operation on woman.
Her hair was almost white; her cheeks
were sunken; her skin was wrinkled.
She appeared to be about fifty years
old. The surgeon was informed that
she had been a hard worker, support
ing her aged mother for years, and that
she had some time before been advised
that If she did not take rest she must
suffer the consequences. The woman
was laid on the operating table, the
assistant physicians and nurses gath
cred round, each drilled in the per-
Torrance of his or her duties, and the
work of life saving commenced.
But it turned out not to be a case of
saving life The surgeons work was
successfully accomplished, but the wo-
man had been so enfeebled by over
work and the suffering resulting from
her ailment that she had not the
strength to rise above the influence of
the anaesthetic. In ten minutes after
the operation was completed she passed
away.
DR.. Bell, knowing that he had done
his part and done it we'll, was only af-
fected by the result as any surgeon
would be affected at losing a patient.
One by one the doctors and nurses left
the room, leaving the body on the ia
BILE for removal. Dr. Bell, having for
gotten one of his instruments, went
back for it. The sun, shining through a
window, glistened on something on the
bosom of the dead woman, which had
become exposed by a disarrangement
Of her dress. The doctor, without be-
Ing able to define a reason for doing
SO, stepped to the table and took up
the shining object. 1t was a small
locket. Hastily opening it. he beheld
the likeness of handsome boy, full of
life, Of hope, of love. He recognized
himself at sixteen and knew that the
dead woman was Luella.
There was nothing in the woman's
face or figure to reawaken that youth
m 10 nd hi Of
her he had known. He did not stoop to
kiss the lips. He did not touch the
body even to remove the token. He
did not see Luella, the flesh. He saw
far in the past his child love- who had
been too self sacrificing to send him
the token to remind him of what now
loomed up before him as a contempti-
bic moral weakness. He saw only
Luella as an angel of goodness and him
self devil of corruption. Perhaps he
was too condemnatory of himself.
Who knows? No living being could
have induced him to grant himself one
iota Of excuse or forgiveness.
That was the last operation Dr. Bell
ever performed. In his prime, of I'M
Impaired nerve, possessing undiminish-
ed skill, he was still no longer fitted
to practice his profession. He had
aspired to be a perfect man, and it
was suddenly revealed TO him that in
him was an imperfection so ignoble
in his sight that he no longer respected
himself. In the life of this delicate,
hardworking woman he had seen that
which put him to shame for the rest of
his life. He went abroad and became