Excerpt from The Old Doctor, or Stray Leaves From My Journal: Being Sketches of the Most Interesting Reminiscences of a Retired Physician Gentle, pious soul - her inclination led to the church as the profession in which she would have chosen to see her son figure; but my father had a great idea that a lawyer had a better chance of pushing his way upwards in the world. They had doubtless held many secret consultations upon this subject before; but the first inti mation I received of the destiny that was in store for me, was on the night of my eleventh birth-day. 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.