Doctor Hudson’s Secret Journal Read Free

organized the company that put up the new office building. Because he had conceived the project, his board of directors deferred to his judgment in many matters including the selection of a site, he urged the purchase of our old hospital.
    So that’s the way we got the new hospital. But I couldn’t recite any of this even to Nancy, who would have been stirred and mystified by the story. I can hear the way she would have murmured, “Well, of all things!”
    I did not detain her. I simply smiled, nodded, and told her to go to bed; that she had earned a good night’s rest. A remarkable woman. Sometimes I wonder how much she knows about my odd investments. She has witnessed my signature, occasionally, on papers that must have excited her curiosity. Perhaps she thinks I am living a double life. I should like to set her mind at ease about that. But it is impossible. My lips are sealed. She will have to draw her own conclusions.
    ♦
    I suppose I should be content with the rewards of my dynamic discovery, even if not permitted to disclose it to others. It has brought me innumerable satisfactions; an excellent rating in a difficult field of surgery, a position of influence in civic affairs, a comfortable home, and, above all, the enduring gratitude of a large number of persons whose lives have been reconditioned through these investments.
    But it is a lonesome sensation, sometimes, to feel that one is in league with a catalytic force as versatile as electricity, prompt as dynamite, stirring as a symphony, warm as a handclasp, but available only on condition that one does not tell. To confide what one has done to achieve this peculiar power might be very costly, not only to oneself but to others whose welfare is integrally related to one’s own success.
    Not to confide it, especially to one’s close and trusted friends, seems unconscionably selfish; yet there is no way, so far as I know, for confiding the theory unless one divulges the practice, which would necessitate a narrative of specific events.
    But for a long time I have had it in mind to record at least a few of these facts for the guidance and encouragement of someone who might wish to experiment with this thing after I am gone. To record some of these events in a private journal and deposit the book in my safe would seem entirely feasible, except for the risk that the book might fall into the hands of some person who would read it without imagination or the slightest glimmer of sympathetic understanding. Hence my decision to write the book in cipher. I do not think that anyone will go through the drudgery of decoding it unless he is interested in the contents. Whenever he finds that the job isn’t worth the bother, the reader can quit. And the sooner he quits, the safer the secret.
    I would give a good deal to know, at this writing, what sort of person will have the time, patience, and disposition to translate this book. I hope he will not be in too much of a hurry to learn the secret. I intend to approach the matter with a deliberation that may exasperate my reader. But if he isn’t concerned enough to persevere, he probably would not know how to use the secret even if he discovered it.
    If you have got this far, my friend, perhaps you will have decided that I am crazy. This will be incorrect. I have contrived to lay hold upon a principle that has expanded my life and multiplied my normal energies. I have a consuming curiosity to know more about this thing; and if you are still engaged in deciphering this book you share this curiosity. If I am crazy for writing it, you are equally crazy for reading it. I warn you that if you go much farther, it will get you, as it got me. But I am not crazy.
    Eventually the time may come, though I shall not live to see it, when mental aberrations are regarded with the same sympathy now bestowed upon physical disabilities. As the matter stands at present, while it is no disgrace to have an ailment of the heart, you are viewed with