Master of His Fate | Page 5

it came, daintily sniffed at his leg, and leaped on his lap, where he stroked and fondled it. And all the while he continued to discuss illusion, while Lefevre poured and drank tea (tea, which Julius would not share: tea, he said, did not agree with him).
"It bothers me," he said, "to imagine how a man like Embro gets any satisfaction out of life, for ever mumbling the bare dry bones of science. Such a life as his might as well be passed in the receiver of an air-pump."
"Still the old Julius!" said the doctor, with a smile. "Still dreaming and wandering, interested in everything, but having nothing to do!"
"Nothing to do, my dear fellow?" said Julius. "I've all the world to enjoy!" and he buried his cheek in the soft fur of the cat.
"A purpose in life, however," said Lefevre, "gives an extraordinary zest to all enjoyment."
"To live," said Julius, "is surely the purpose of life. Any smaller, any more obvious purpose, will spoil life, just as it spoils Art."
"I believe, my boy, you are wrong in both," said Lefevre. "Art without a purpose goes off into all sorts of madness and extravagance, and so does life."
"You really think so?" said Julius, his attention fixed for an instant, and looking as if he had set up the point and regarded it at a distance. "Yes; perhaps it does." But the next moment his attention seemed given to the cat; he fondled it, and talked to it soothingly.
"I am sure of it," said Lefevre. "Just listen to me, Julius. You have wonderful intelligence and penetration in everything. You are fond of science; science needs men like you more than the dull plodders that usually take to it. When you were in Charbon's class you were his favourite and his best pupil,--don't I remember?--and if you liked you could be the greatest physician of the age."
"It is treason to yourself to say such a thing."
"Your fame would soon eclipse mine."
"Fame! fame!" exclaimed Julius, for an instant showing irritation. "I would not give a penny-piece for fame if all the magicians of the East came crying it down the streets! Why should I seek fame? What good would it do me if I had it?"
"Well, well," said Lefevre; "let fame alone: you might be as unknown as you like, and do a world of good in practice among the poor."
Julius looked at him, and set the cat down.
"My dear Lefevre," said he, "I did not think you could urge such common twaddle! You know well enough,--nobody knows better,--first of all, that there are already more men waiting to do that kind of thing than can find occupation: why should I go down among them and try to take their work? And you know, in the next place, that medical philanthropy, like all other philanthropy, is so overdone that the race is fast deteriorating; we strive with so much success to keep the sickly and the diseased alive, that perfect health is scarcely known. Life without health can be nothing but a weariness: why should it be reckoned a praiseworthy thing to keep it going at any price? If life became a burden to me, I should lay it down."
"But," said Lefevre, earnestly, "your life surely is not your own to do with it what you like!"
"In the name of truth, Lefevre," answered Julius, "if my life is not my own, what is? I get its elements from others, but I fashion it myself, just as much as the sculptor shapes his statue, or the poet turns his poem. You don't deny to the sculptor the right to smash his statue if it does not please him, nor to the poet the right to burn his manuscript;--why should you deny me the right to dispose of my life? I know--I know," said he, seeing Lefevre open his mouth and raise his hand for another observation, "that your opinion is the common one, but that is the only sanction it has; it has the sanction neither of true morality nor of true religion! But here is the waiter to tell you the carriage is come. I'm glad. Let us get out into the air and the sunshine."
The carriage was the doctor's own; his mother, although the widow of a Court physician, was too poor to maintain much equipage, but she made what use she pleased of her son's possessions. When Lady Lefevre saw Julius at the carriage-door, she broke into smiles and cries of welcome.
"Where have you been this long, long while, Julius?" said she. "This is Julius Courtney, Nora. You remember Nora, Julius, when she was a little girl in frocks?"
"She now wears remarkable gowns," chimed in the doctor.
"Which," said Julius, "I have no doubt are becoming."
"My brother," said Nora, with a sunny