almost shone. It was a beaming, good, loving face, and the woman was honest, even if deluded. She radiated kindness and sympathy from her person. She had a way of screwing up her eyes when speaking, stepping back a few paces, and then coming suddenly forward again as though she meant to jump across the room, her voice ringing, and her eyes opened so wide that I thought the bags underneath them must burst with a pop.
The young doctor living in the boarding-house also interested me, reviving indeed my desire to follow his own profession myself. He was about twenty-six years old and very poor; the exact antithesis of myself, being clear-minded, practical, cynical and a thorough sceptic on the existence of a soul and God and immortality. He was well-read and had the true scientific temperament, spending hours with his microscope and books. The fact of his being at the opposite pole to myself attracted me to him, and we had long talks in his consulting-room on the ground floor back--where everything was prepared for the reception of patients, but where no patient ever came. Our worlds were so far apart, and it was so hard to establish a mutual coinage of words that our talks were somewhat futile. He was logical, absorbed in his dream of original research; he used words in their exact meaning and jumped to no conclusions rashly, and never allowed his judgment to be influenced by his emotions; whereas I talked, no doubt, like a child, building vast erections upon inadequate premises, indulging in my religious dreams about God and the soul, speculative and visionary. He argued me out of my boots every time, and towards the end of our talks grew impatient and almost angry with my vague mind and "transcendental tommy-rot," as he called it; but at the same time he liked me, and was always glad to talk and discuss with me.
Nothing he said, though much of it was cogent and unanswerable, ever influenced my opinions in the least degree, because I felt he was fundamentally wrong, and was trying
to find by scalpel and microscope the things of the spirit.
