“ Have you ever proposed, doctor?
Dr. Van Hyde: Never.
Rose: Why don’t you? You can not have lacked opportunity.
Dr. Van Hyde: I fear that I have.
Rose: You are young, rich, good-looking, and successful.
Dr. Van Hyde (aside) : Heavens!
Rose: You should marry.
Dr. Van Hyde: I have not the time—
Rose: There is no time like the present.... We are alone.
Dr. Van Hyde (nervously) : Alone?
Rose: Yes; papa and Aunt Susan were discreet enough to retire. Do not be afraid.
Dr. Van Hyde: Afraid of what?
Rose: Of proposing to me. If you are, I will propose to you.
Dr. Van Hyde (aside) : I must humor her. ”

“ Dr. Van Hyde (joyfully) : Can it be true? Oh, Miss Valdingam, I begin to look upon myself as the most ridiculous as well as the happiest of men.
Rose: But I could not resist teasing you. And still, in spite of this confession, I have one mania—only one.
Dr. Van Hyde: A gentle mania?
Rose: Very gentle, as you have said. It is love—
Dr. Van Hyde (advancing) : Love!
Rose (mischievously) : For my father.
Dr. Van Hyde (disappointedly) : Oh!
Rose: He is a good, kind father. Since my mother’s death I have been his closest companion. Oh, doctor, I am so happy that you have come to our house. ”

“ It is but a dim and perilous way at the best—it is easier to deride those who attempt to traverse it than to follow them. The herd of the profession eschew it for the most part. Present-day materialists will have nothing, accept nothing, which cannot be seen, tasted, handled, brayed in a mortar, fitting fate for themselves as purblind fools! See how reluctantly, how incredulously, the results of even such a coarsely unmistakable remedy as electricity are received by the profession. Yet electrical energy, in medicine, is a clumsy weapon compared with others in the armoury of transcendentalism. ”

“ Murder! There was nothing in Jim which could make it possible that he could have to do with a murder. If he was hasty in temper, poor fellow, his nature was sweet, notwithstanding all his errors. Even he, Arnold Barrère, a man contemptuous of the manner of folly which had ruined Jim, a man with whom wrath and revenge might have awakened more sympathy—even he had come to have a tenderness for the erring young man. And to think that Jim could have lain in wait for any one, could have taken a man at a disadvantage, was, he declared to himself with indignation, impossible. ”

“ Barrère, as half a Frenchman, as too great a theorist, as a man who had not been quite successful in his outset, began now to look upon him with increased respect, and his firmness, his high honour, his disinterestedness were commented upon on all sides. But in his heart the doctor was far from happy. His life, too, seemed in question as well as Jim’s. If the worst came to the worst, he asked himself, would society, however sympathetic for the moment, receive the family of a man who had been hanged—horrible words!—without prejudice? ”

“ After the first shock of their surprise was over, natural misgivings were lost in enjoyment of the grim humor of this very practical jest of their good doctor’s, that visitors now actually stop over a train to see. Many a village has its park, and many a one its illuminated clock; it was left for Leonard to have in its park a grave kept like a gorgeous flower-bed, and at the grave’s head a towering monument that is at once a tombstone, an illuminated clock and a residence. ”

“ The average American in London is a spectacle which has in it nothing inharmonious; on the contrary, in these days it is sometimes hard to distinguish him from the native. To picture the doctor in London, however, requires an effort of imagination from which the intellect shrinks. Of one thing I am sure, and that is, he would be very miserable. He would call in vain for glasses of cold water like that from the limpid spring under the poplar tree at home, of which the doctor consumes about a horse-troughful a day. ”

“ Doctor, would you mind standing in the hall till we get to our rooms—”
“Like the White Knight and Alice,” laughed Clara. “You remember he asked Alice to wait till he was out of sight, because her presence would cheer him—”
“Clara, you saucy girl!” cried her mother. “Doctor, I will send Bridget down to make up a bed on the lounge. Good night,” she called again, as she reached her room.
“Don’t treat the poor burglars too cruelly, Dr. Pennington,” cried Clara, looking over the baluster, and then with a laugh she vanished. ”

“ Barrère’s time and thoughts, and that was Jim—Jim alone in his prison, he who never had been alone, who had been surrounded all day long with his companions—the companions who had led him astray. No, they had not led him astray. Langton, who was dead, whom he had killed, had not led him astray, though he now thought so, or said so, bemoaning himself. Such a thing would be too heavy a burden for any human spirit. A man cannot ruin any more than he can save his brother. His own inclinations, his own will, his love for the forbidden, his idle wishes and follies—these were what had led him astray. ”

“ For while he healed the sores and the wounds of his patients, the sores, the wounds, the storm-rent gullies, the bare galls in his hillsides, grew worse and worse. The maize-stalks grew thinner, the tobacco lighter, the wheat-yield poorer, year by year. One has heard of famous painters, who perversely fancied themselves rather as musicians—of established authors who yearned rather to be praised as artists. So the doctor, who certainly had no local rival in his own profession, seemed to covet fame rather as the champion and exponent of a happily departing school of Southern agriculturists. ”

“ The warder who was standing rushed to fill it out, while Dr. Barrère bent over the fainting youth. It all passed in a moment, before the half-said sentence of the prayer was completed. The clergyman’s voice wavered, stopped—and then resumed again, finishing the phrase, notwithstanding the stir and hurried movement, the momentary breathless scuffle, which a sudden attack of illness, a fit or faint, always occasions. Then a sharp sound broke the stillness—the crash of the wine glass which the doctor let fall from his hand after forcing the contents, as it seemed, down the patient’s throat. ”

“ They have been strongly inclined to regard themselves as the salt of the earth—and perhaps they are; a good sturdy British foible this, intensified by isolation and the mutual admiration atmosphere which isolation creates. At any rate, gold lace and liveries and coronets are not indispensable adjuncts of honor and breeding. The doctor, however—if we can imagine him gazing on the stream of carriages rolling past Hyde Park corner on a summer evening—would be sensible, for the first time in his life, to a feeling somewhat akin to insignificance creeping over him. ”

“ Barrère became aware that the young man at the table behind made no sign, said not a word. He had told everything, and answered half a dozen hurried, faltering questions before Jim made any remark. Then he suddenly stirred behind backs (the group at the fireside having forgotten his presence) and asked, “What are you talking about? What’s happened?” in a deep, half growling voice, as of a man disturbed in his occupation by some fuss of which he did not grasp the meaning.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Surtees wiping her moist eyes, “did you not hear, Jim? The doctor has seen a murder committed. ”

“ It was raining hard when the Pentelows called for her, but Fanny did not care for that. Wrapped in her large waterproof cloak, she tripped along the muddy streets to the Athenæum, feeling very proud and very happy, and firmly convinced that if she had been forced to stay at home her heart must have broken at once. Mrs. Peirce saw her as she entered, and made her a sign to come and sit by her, and the old lady was so good and kind as to confide to Fanny her nervous fears for “Monty,” though, at the same time, she was quite sure his would be the best lecture of the season. ”

“ A moment of suspense; then he assured himself that they had heard nothing, and, securing pistol and poker, started for the library door. He reached it safely, and, opening it noiselessly, looked out into the hall. A narrow streak of light from the partly-opened dining-room door showed him where to steer, and, grasping the poker firmly in his right hand and the pistol in his left, he tiptoed across the hall. The rattling of silver in the dining-room continued, and almost drowned the nearer and solemn tick of an old eight-day clock, whose brass and iron nerves the doctor envied. ”

“ The doctor gave some brief, quick directions, and with the help of the warder lifted the helpless figure, all fallen upon itself like a ruined house, with difficulty to the bed. The limp, long, helpless limbs, the entire immobility and deadness of the form struck with a strange chill to the heart of the man who had been interceding wrapt in another atmosphere than that of earth. The clergyman got up from his knees, coming back with a keen and awful sense of his humanity. ”

“ Dr. Van Hyde: While your daughter is, without doubt, suffering from certain delusions—
Mr. Valdingam (turning to Susan) : Do you hear that, sister?
Dr. Van Hyde: Her trouble is not far enough advanced to occasion anxiety.
Mr. Valdingam: Heaven be praised!
Dr. Van Hyde: In fact, I promise you that within one month her mind will be as clear and vigorous as your own.
Mr. Valdingam (grasping the doctor’s hands) : Sir, I regard you as our benefactor.
Dr. Van Hyde: But you must be very patient and kind; and, with your permission, I will take charge of her. ”

“ Surely, if I were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott Bartine, I should guess that he was hanged at eleven o’clock in the evening, and that he had been allowed several hours in which to prepare for the change.
As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes, and—Heaven forgive me!—my victim for eternity, there is no more to say. He is buried, and his watch with him; I saw to that. May God rest his soul in Paradise and the soul of his unfortunate Virginian ancestor, if, indeed, they are two souls. ”

“ Doctor Santos always said that the elixir of long life was a very easy and simple thing to obtain, that it was not necessary to knock one’s head against the wall in order that the electric spark of an idea should spring out of the brain, and that even the most stupid could give a solution of the problem to those who discussed it learnedly, but that not even this elixir nor any other could be applied in every case, that it was just as difficult to unite a head to the body from which it had been severed as to repair the ravages of some illnesses. ”

“ You have had the misfortune to slip down yourself, and your leg has been broken. It is now set, and will, we trust, under the blessing of Providence, be ere long restored to use.”
“Nonsense! Don’t tell me,” cried the Doctor, angrily, “Halliday must and shall be sent for. He will come directly he knows I am ill. My leg shall not be set till Halliday comes. Let no one dare to meddle with it.”
“Oh! my dear, dear father,” said Fanny, throwing her arms around him, “do be good and let Mr. Peirce doctor your leg; it will soon be better, if you will only lie still and be patient. ”

“ Two small farmers, jogging down the road, pull up their horses and yell with the peculiar shrill scream that is traditionally as much a part of Virginia fox-hunting as the familiar cries of the British hunting-field are with us. The doctor, though his voice is not what it was thirty years ago, catches the infection, and standing up in his wooden, leather-capped stirrups, halloos at his hounds in what he would call “real old Virginia fashion.” ”

“ It was, however, a real old characteristic Virginia house of its kind. There were squared chestnut logs, black with rain and sun, against which the venetian shutters of the windows banged and thumped in gusty spring days as against walls of adamant. These same logs were got out of the woods and squared, the doctor would tell you, in days “when men had plenty of time and plenty of force (i. e., slaves) to do those things properly.” ”

“ The doctor’s first care was for the victim. He was not an avenger of blood, but a healer of men.
Presently there appeared around him two or three startled people—one from the nearest house carrying a small lamp, which made the strangest, weird appearance in the misty night; a passer-by on his way home; a vagrant from the deserted fields. They helped the doctor to turn over the murdered man, who was still living, but no more, and who, it was evident to Dr. Barrère’s experienced eyes, was on the point of death and beyond all human help. ”

“ Into the wood plunge the eager and undisciplined hounds, the dry leaves crackling and rustling under their joyous feet as they scamper and race amid the tall oak and poplar trunks, and one by one disappear beyond the very limited horizon. The doctor toots and toots till not only the forest but the hills and valleys beyond echo to the appeals of the familiar cow-horn. ”

“ If Dick had been a quick man, he never would have done it, knowing well that the only way to get Mary Alice to do like he wanted her to was for him to come out strong on the opposite side. But it takes a hundred years to learn some men anything; and what did Dick do that Sunday but laugh at Kate’s notions on healing. Ever since Mary Alice had shook the red rag at Satan by getting up and shouting in church one time when Dick had told her point-blank she shouldn’t, she had enjoyed a heap of liberty, and Dick he had been diminished, like the Bible says. ”

“ The doctor, happily, had been spared all these trials and his faith remained pure and unimpaired. The only capital he had ever visited was the charming little city of Richmond, where every third man or woman he met was his cousin; where most of society call one another by their Christian names, dine in the middle of the day, and sit out on chairs in the street after supper. ”

“ The doctor’s satisfaction is quite as great as if he had cut down a whole Leicestershire field in the fastest thing of the season. His heart warms towards those undersized, harsh-coated, slab-sided little friends of his as he stands watching the negro woman breaking up their supper of hot corn-bread with buttermilk as a treat, on the back porch. ”