ancients understood them better than we do; and the Asiatics are still far in advance of us in that respect. But there may be something that no one has yet detected; and I may be destined to hit upon it. At all events, it will be something to do and to think about; and that is what I am in want of at present. I shall get my Indian toumril and set to work to-morrow.
I despise myself and my way of life! I am nothing: I think of nothing: I do nothing! A man who has never loved: a student who has made no discovery: a physician who has never earned his living! People say that I prescribe for Sophie Stubbs and Mrs. Hodge, and charge them no fees, out of benevolence; and that I refuse wealthy patients from pride and that I may devote my time to scientific research. But the truth is, I have no sense of human brotherhood: I cannot breathe and hope and work with my fellow-men. I am gradually getting benumbed out of existence: every year, every month, finds my scope of action and interest narrower. Yet I know that there is in me the power to be great. Oh for some torch to kindle me into a blaze! and I care not whether the torch be lighted at the higher or the nether fire! I sit and read the newspaper to my mother, when I might administer laws to a nation: I counsel my brother in the care of his estate, when I might direct the policy of an empire: I investigate the physiology of serpents, when I might solve and declare the secret of earthly immortality. I am a pygmy, when I could be a Titan. Is this insane vanity? I think not. It is not that I—that my private unaided self is great, but that I cannot rid myself of the conviction that I was born to be the instrument through which some great result shall be accomplished. I cannot escape a premonition that I am destined to render the name of Mainwaring forever famous. But such premonitions and convictions, though I cherish, I do not believe them. They are what is inmost in me, yet I laugh them to scorn. I know that no change will come, no kindling, no enlargement; and, nevertheless, all that preserves me from total spiritual death is the secret assurance that the impossible will occur. Well, if I prove great in no other way, I shall prove myself the greatest of fools. But at least I will keep my folly to myself. I may whisper it to my queen cobra,—my Sâprani,—perhaps, for she will not reveal it; but, unless it go far indeed, it shall go no further.
II.
I have inexcusably neglected Sâprani the last ten days; but she seems to flourish notwithstanding, and has established a comfortable basis of intercourse with the rattlesnakes. She is really a magnificent
