Page:The Harveian oration 1912.djvu/36

32 count it indeed happy and appropriate that on such a day, by the filial and devoted generosity of its President, Sir Thomas Barlow, the College should receive its latest and priceless benefaction of eleven recently discovered autograph letters, the very ipsissima scripta of William Harvey.

Alive as these are, with human interest, how the shade of Harvey seems to become re-embodied, and the passage of time to have been, for the moment, stayed!

The Past!

I sometimes think, Sir, that the mundane casket of our Harveian Librarian must be as full of ghosts as a queen bee is of embryonic honey. These walls are alive with memories of benefactors of the College. The dead herein still speak to us, and here is harboured the tomb of many a brilliant but buried thought, awaiting its emancipation that still tarries. And with Pavy, Hughlings Jackson, Wilks, Allchin, and others dear to us, all gathered to the Fathers of Medicine almost since St. Luke’s Day last, what an addition to the supporters of the Arms of this our ancient College, even within the bygone year! And of the less recent Past, who is there entering this Library, and making his obeisance, Sir, to your Presidential Chair, that does not experience the charm of a great contentment, when he remembers that the afterglow of Harvey and his followers still guides him on, to that yet more perfect day of ever-increasing knowledge and less disputable truth?