Download or read book Forty-Odd Years in the Literary Shop (Classic Reprint) written by James Lauren Ford and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Forty-Odd Years in the Literary Shop My determination to write these memoirs came about in this fashion. A' disaster, neither the first nor the worst, and I fear not the last, of a series that overtook me during my seventh decade, brought me to the operat ing table in Roosevelt Hospital where I heard the voice of one invisible saying: I am the sleep-doctor. Try to breathe three or four times through this piece of gauze. The fourth breath was superfluous for it needed only the third to bring me back to my bed in a private room, free from the pain that I had endured for many days and dimly conscious that I was permanently crippled. Such is the magic of modern surgery. Then, with my senses dulled by opiates, I entered upon a period Of rest and peace to which I had long been a stranger. Although, I have always loved life and contemplated with dread its inevitable finish, I now found myself strangely indifferent to the fact, which I fully realized, that another week might find me lying where lie the kin whom I have best loved, their faces turned toward the East as demanded by ancient, pious custom, there to await that which no man can foretell. For after all I had nearly run out my course, and there remained to me at best but a few more of the years allotted by the Psalmist. AS the drug began to lose its force, I found It pleas anter to turn my thoughts away from the uncertain future and follow them back through the changing years to past joys, to the friends who had helped me over the rough places, to everything that had made life worth the living. And it was while thus idly brooding that a desire, vaguely cherished for many years, to set down some Of the events, experiences and impressions of bygone days, renewed itself in my mind. The period Of convalescence in a hospital is not with out its compensations, one Of which is the getting better and better as the days roll on instead Of Sinking deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond. My door never opened save to admit someone I was glad to see, and of the many tried friends whom I had reason to expect, few failed me, while many, whom I had regarded as mere acquaintances, gladdened me by their generous sympathy. The rector and curate of a church in which I had never set foot, came more than once, and one afternoon I awoke to see close beside my bed the kindly face and grizzled beard of my old school room-mate. Gifts of flowers, fruit and cigarettes soon made the place look like a prima donna's dressing room and did much to dispel a long ingrained suspicion that women are in capable of gratitude. To recite the number and quality Of my visitors would be to confess myself eaten with the resultant vanity - a secret best locked in my own bosom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.