Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle | Page 2

to the purpose and
well said. He is a great favourite of Lady Mary's, who it seems,
consults him upon many things, and thinks him the most happy and
blessed person on earth. Little knows she about him.
The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, and has, they say sixty thousand
pounds in the funds. He is a charitable man. He is most anxious to be
actively employed in his sacred profession, and yet though always
tolerably well elsewhere, when he goes down to his vicarage in
Warwickshire, to engage in the actual duties of his sacred calling, his
health soon fails him, and in a very strange way. So says Lady Mary.
There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings' health does break down in,
generally, a sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in the very act of
officiating in his old and pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his heart, it
may be his brain. But so it has happened three or four times, or oftener,
that after proceeding a certain way in the service, he has on a sudden
stopped short, and after a silence, apparently quite unable to resume, he
has fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his hands and his eyes uplifted,
and then pale as death, and in the agitation of a strange shame and
horror, descended trembling, and got into the vestry-room, leaving his

congregation, without explanation, to themselves. This occurred when
his curate was absent. When he goes down to Kenlis now, he always
takes care to provide a clergyman to share his duty, and to supply his
place on the instant should he become thus suddenly incapacitated.
When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, and beats a retreat from the
vicarage, and returns to London, where, in a dark street off Piccadilly,
he inhabits a very narrow house, Lady Mary says that he is always
perfectly well. I have my own opinion about that. There are degrees of
course. We shall see.
Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentlemanlike man. People, however,
remark something odd. There is an impression a little ambiguous. One
thing which certainly contributes to it, people I think don't remember;
or, perhaps, distinctly remark. But I did, almost immediately. Mr.
Jennings has a way of looking sidelong upon the carpet, as if his eye
followed the movements of something there. This, of course, is not
always. It occurs now and then. But often enough to give a certain
oddity, as I have said, to his manner, and in this glance travelling along
the floor there is something both shy and anxious.
A medical philosopher, as you are good enough to call me, elaborating
theories by the aid of cases sought out by himself, and by him watched
and scrutinised with more time at command, and consequently
infinitely more minuteness than the ordinary practitioner can afford,
falls insensibly into habits of observation, which accompany him
everywhere, and are exercised, as some people would say,
impertinently, upon every subject that presents itself with the least
likelihood of rewarding inquiry.
There was a promise of this kind in the slight, timid, kindly, but
reserved gentleman, whom I met for the first time at this agreeable little
evening gathering. I observed, of course, more than I here set down; but
I reserve all that borders on the technical for a strictly scientific paper.
I may remark, that when I here speak of medical science, I do so, as I
hope some day to see it more generally understood, in a much more
comprehensive sense than its generally material treatment would

warrant. I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression
of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life. I
believe that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an organised
substance, but as different in point of material from what we ordinarily
understand by matter, as light or electricity is; that the material body is,
in the most literal sense, a vesture, and death consequently no
interruption of the living man's existence, but simply his extrication
from the natural body--a process which commences at the moment of
what we term death, and the completion of which, at furthest a few
days later, is the resurrection "in power."
The person who weighs the consequences of these positions will
probably see their practical bearing upon medical science. This is,
however, by no means the proper place for displaying the proofs and
discussing the consequences of this too generally unrecognized state of
facts.
In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly observing Mr. Jennings, with
all my caution--I think he perceived it--and I saw plainly that he was as
cautiously observing me. Lady Mary happening to address me by my
name, as Dr. Hesselius, I saw that he glanced