Tributes to Godfrey Roger Pisek, M.D., Sc.D / [F. Brush, S. Knopf].

  • Brush, Frederic, 1873-
Date:
[1921]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tributes to Godfrey Roger Pisek, M.D., Sc.D / [F. Brush, S. Knopf]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    portrayal of the man—Pisek (for so we called him, ever in best way, and shall). Thru these enwreathing public and official distinguishments we press in then to know, while yet we may, the core-fibres of the man —the secrets of our friend’s so high suc¬ cess with a little life. A while ago I was brooding upon the future of our so-called civilization—the trends of the race, within conceivable time; and came out, as have others, upon a person with dominant head carrying luminous wide eyes, that glanced pregnant messages to and from the higher developed brain. A swift play of special senses beyond our ken was evident. The body seemed slight, but ample for the poise and ministration of the exhalted intelligence. Movement, speech and thought gave constant impression of a singular assurance and harmony. Utter kindness, even gaiety, pervaded all. Quite naturally, I thought back for be¬ ginnings, and is it not notable that after a time I settled upon our Dr. Pisek, as car¬ rying, more than any other personally known, the clear indications of the coming man—the racial hope; not in mass so much as in quality and adjustment. Dr. Pisek won, aided, inspired and led us, and thousands of all classes, by virtue of this triune endowment, symmetry and harmonic balance, sensibilities of the keenest and truest, and an inexhaustible cheer and kindness. A few of these signal men and women are always about us presages of the future. When they drop alongside we begin to understand. We thus come at our friend; we see him now partially, as im¬ mured in Time and Fate, and wish our sons to grow up like him. What a congruous and shapely man. None of our national self-making or self¬ madeness was apparent. He came made—as first met in the Medical School, laughing down the corridor with the serious-looking Moorhead, thru groups of sombreness and doubt—all ready for life as it was in ’94. He was born thirty-five years old and stayed so with the playfulness of youth, the will and constructive urge of midde-age, and the judgment and synthesis of senescence; age transformations lessen with the higher types. Such all-roundness of personality is very uncommon: investigator, teacher, author, builder, naturalist, woodsman, wit, comrade and ideal host and home-maker; with the humanities never scrimped. In¬ deed, a full harmonic life, made possible by a complete Osler-like entry with closed door, into every hour. Each morning was taken in the mood of Howell’s fine last line of an obscure sonnet, “Well, anyhow it is another day”; or as another has written, “For this may be the white high day of life, the richest or the holiest or the last.” There never came to him DeMaupassant’s “Ter¬ rible middle-age from which one first fore¬ sees the end of the journey.” How validly all ages early associated with him, from babe to patriarch—the mark of an advanced be¬ ing. Pisek’s dauntless cheer and courage will perhaps be longest remembered of all. By sick-bed, in the troubled meeting or council, on the sweaty forest trail—everywhere, always he gave the half-humorous, heart¬ ening word or gesture that carried over. And in full self-knowledge of the crippled heart that was bound to shorten things, there is but one record of a brief depression— when he could not go with his old friends to the World War. The last of speech was a joke that eased and brightened a friend. He would not wish this occasion to pass without smiles. As we were near quitting, exhausted by night-and-day turmoils of a July hot-spell in hospital, he rallied us (I can see his haggard face) with quip and