A Straight Course

"A Straight Course" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming novella that explores themes of love, friendship, and the complexities of human relationships within the backdrop of small-town life in New England. The story follows the interactions between its characters as they navigate personal and social challenges, revealing the intricacies of their lives and emotions. Jewett's evocative prose and keen observation of rural community dynamics invite readers to reflect on the importance of connection and understanding in a rapidly changing world.

• Short story

								
The next year or two was spent in quiet life at home. It was made
evident that, beside her inclination and natural fitness for her
chosen work, our student was also developing the other most important
requisite, a capacity for hard study and patient continuance. There
had been as little said as possible about the plan, but it was not
long before the propriety of it became a favorite subject of
discussion. It is quite unnecessary, perhaps, to state that everybody
had his or her own opinion of the wisdom of such a course, and both
Dr. Leslie and his ward suffered much reproach and questioning, as the
comments ranged from indignation to amusement. But it was as true of
Nan's calling, as of all others, that it would be her own failure to
make it respected from which any just contempt might come, and she had
thrown herself into her chosen career with such zeal, and pride, and
affectionate desire to please her teacher, that the small public who
had at first jeered or condemned her came at last to accepting the
thing as inevitable and a matter of course, even if they did not
actually approve. There was such a vigorous determination in the minds
of the doctor and his pupil that Nan should not only be a doctor but a
good one, that anything less than a decided fitness for the profession
would have doomed them both to disappointment, even with such
unwearied effort and painstaking. In the earlier years of his practice
Dr. Leslie had been much sought as an instructor, but he had long
since begun to deny the young men who had wished to be his students,
though hardly one had ever gone from the neighborhood of Oldfields who
did not owe much to him for his wise suggestions and practical help.

He patiently taught this eager young scholar day by day, and gave her,
as fast as he could, the benefit of the wisdom which he had gained
through faithful devotion to his business and the persistent study of
many years. Nan followed step by step, and, while becoming more
conscious of her own ignorance and of the uncertainties and the laws
of the practice of medicine with every week's study, knew better and
better that it is resource, and bravery, and being able to think for
one's self, that make a physician worth anything. There must be an
instinct that recognizes a disease and suggests its remedy, as much as
an instinct that finds the right notes and harmonies for a composer of
music, or the colors for a true artist's picture, or the results of
figures for a mathematician. Men and women may learn these callings
from others; may practice all the combinations until they can carry
them through with a greater or less degree of unconsciousness of brain
and fingers; but there is something needed beside even drill and
experience; every student of medicine should be fitted by nature with
a power of insight, a gift for his business, for knowing what is the
right thing to do, and the right time and way to do it; must have this
God-given power in his own nature of using and discovering the
resources of medicine without constant reliance upon the books or the
fashion. Some men use their ability for their own good and renown, and
some think first of the good of others, and as the great poet tells
the truths of God, and makes other souls wiser and stronger and fitter
for action, so the great doctor works for the body's health, and tries
to keep human beings free from the failures that come from neglect and
ignorance, and ready to be the soul's instrument of action and service
in this world. It is not to keep us from death, it is no superstitious
avoidance of the next life, that should call loudest for the
physician's skill; but the necessity of teaching and remedying the
inferior bodies which have come to us through either our ancestors'
foolishness or our own. So few people know even what true and complete
physical life is, much less anything of the spiritual existence that
is already possible, and so few listen to what the best doctors are
trying their best to teach. While half-alive people think it no wrong
to bring into the world human beings with even less vitality than
themselves, and take no pains to keep the simplest laws of health, or
to teach their children to do so, just so long there will be plenty of
sorrow of an avoidable kind, and thousands of shipwrecked, and
failing, and inadequate, and useless lives in the fullest sense of the
word. How can those who preach to the soul hope to be heard by those
who do not even make the best of their bodies? but alas, the
convenience and easiness, or pleasure, of the present moment is
allowed to become the cause of an endless series of terrible effects,
which go down into the distance of the future, multiplying themselves
a thousandfold.

The doctor told Nan many curious things as they drove about together:
certain traits of certain families, and how the Dyers were of strong
constitution, and lived to a great age in spite of severe illnesses
and accidents and all manner of unfavorable conditions; while the
Dunnells, who looked a great deal stronger, were sensitive, and
deficient in vitality, so that an apparently slight attack of disease
quickly proved fatal. And so Nan knew that one thing to be considered
was the family, and another the individual variation, and she began
to recognize the people who might be treated fearlessly, because they
were safe to form a league with against any ailment, being responsive
to medicines, and straightforward in their departure from or return to
a state of health; others being treacherous and hard to control; full
of surprises, and baffling a doctor with their feints and follies of
symptoms; while all the time Death himself was making ready for a
last, fatal siege; these all being the representatives of types which
might be found everywhere. Often Dr. Leslie would be found eagerly
praising some useful old-fashioned drugs which had been foolishly
neglected by those who liked to experiment with newer remedies and be
"up with the times," as they called their not very intelligent
dependence upon the treatment in vogue at the moment among the younger
men of certain cliques, to some of whom the brilliant operation was
more important than its damaging result. There was, even in those
days, a haphazard way of doctoring, in which the health of the patient
was secondary to the promotion of new theories, and the young scholar
who could write a puzzlingly technical paper too often outranked the
old practitioner who conquered some malignant disorder single-handed,
where even the malpractice of the patient and his friends had stood
like a lion in the way.

But Dr. Leslie was always trying to get at the truth, and nobody
recognized more clearly the service which the reverent and truly
progressive younger men were rendering to the profession. He added
many new publications to his subscription list, and gleaned here and
there those notes which he knew would be helpful, and which were
suited to the degree of knowledge which his apprentice had already

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