Hilda Wade | Page 2

for the head of the English Socialists; in
Russia, they declared he was a Nihilist emissary. And they were not far
wrong--in essence; for Sebastian's stern, sharp face was above all
things the face of a man absorbed and engrossed by one overpowering
pursuit in life--the sacred thirst of knowledge, which had swallowed up
his entire nature.
He WAS what he looked--the most single-minded person I have ever
come across. And when I say single-minded, I mean just that, and no
more. He had an End to attain--the advancement of science, and he
went straight towards the End, looking neither to the right nor to the
left for anyone. An American millionaire once remarked to him of
some ingenious appliance he was describing: "Why, if you were to
perfect that apparatus, Professor, and take out a patent for it, I reckon
you'd make as much money as I have made." Sebastian withered him
with a glance. "I have no time to waste," he replied, "on making
money!"
So, when Hilda Wade told me, on the first day I met her, that she
wished to become a nurse at Nathaniel's, "to be near Sebastian," I was
not at all astonished. I took her at her word. Everybody who meant
business in any branch of the medical art, however humble, desired to
be close to our rare teacher--to drink in his large thought, to profit by
his clear insight, his wide experience. The man of Nathaniel's was
revolutionising practice; and those who wished to feel themselves
abreast of the modern movement were naturally anxious to cast in their
lot with him. I did not wonder, therefore, that Hilda Wade, who herself
possessed in so large a measure the deepest feminine
gift--intuition--should seek a place under the famous professor who
represented the other side of the same endowment in its masculine
embodiment--instinct of diagnosis.
Hilda Wade herself I will not formally introduce to you: you will learn
to know her as I proceed with my story.
I was Sebastian's assistant, and my recommendation soon procured
Hilda Wade the post she so strangely coveted. Before she had been

long at Nathaniel's, however, it began to dawn upon me that her reasons
for desiring to attend upon our revered Master were not wholly and
solely scientific. Sebastian, it is true, recognised her value as a nurse
from the first; he not only allowed that she was a good assistant, but he
also admitted that her subtle knowledge of temperament sometimes
enabled her closely to approach his own reasoned scientific analysis of
a case and its probable development. "Most women," he said to me
once, "are quick at reading THE PASSING EMOTION. They can
judge with astounding correctness from a shadow on one's face, a catch
in one's breath, a movement of one's hands, how their words or deeds
are affecting us. We cannot conceal our feelings from them. But
underlying character they do not judge so well as fleeting expression.
Not what Mrs. Jones IS in herself, but what Mrs. Jones is now thinking
and feeling--there lies their great success as psychologists. Most men,
on the contrary, guide their life by definite FACTS--by signs, by
symptoms, by observed data. Medicine itself is built upon a collection
of such reasoned facts. But this woman, Nurse Wade, to a certain extent,
stands intermediate mentally between the two sexes. She recognises
TEMPERAMENT--the fixed form of character, and what it is likely to
do--in a degree which I have never seen equalled elsewhere. To that
extent, and within proper limits of supervision, I acknowledge her
faculty as a valuable adjunct to a scientific practitioner."
Still, though Sebastian started with a predisposition in favour of Hilda
Wade--a pretty girl appeals to most of us--I could see from the
beginning that Hilda Wade was by no means enthusiastic for Sebastian,
like the rest of the hospital:
"He is extraordinarily able," she would say, when I gushed to her about
our Master; but that was the most I could ever extort from her in the
way of praise. Though she admitted intellectually Sebastian's gigantic
mind, she would never commit herself to anything that sounded like
personal admiration. To call him "the prince of physiologists" did not
satisfy me on that head. I wanted her to exclaim, "I adore him! I
worship him! He is glorious, wonderful!"
I was also aware from an early date that, in an unobtrusive way, Hilda

Wade was watching Sebastian, watching him quietly, with those
wistful, earnest eyes, as a cat watches a mouse-hole; watching him with
mute inquiry, as if she expected each moment to see him do something
different from what the rest of us expected of him. Slowly I gathered
that Hilda Wade, in the most literal sense, had come to Nathaniel's, as
she herself expressed it,