第39章 THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY(10)

What did you hand me that schoolbook for?Did you think I did n't know anything about the human body?""You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try you with an easy book,by way of introduction."The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction.

"I meant what I said,and I mean what I say.When I talk about my ignorance,I don't measure myself with schoolgirls,doctor.I don't measure myself with my teachers,either.You must talk to me as if Iwere a man,a grown man,if you mean to teach me anything.Where is your hat,doctor?Let me try it on."The doctor handed her his wide-awake.The Terror's hair was not naturally abundant,like Euthymia's,and she kept it cut rather short.Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard.She tried to put the hat on.

"Do you see that?"she said."I could n't wear it--it would squeeze my eyes out of my head.The books told me that women's brains were smaller than men's:"perhaps they are,--most of them,--I never measured a great many.But when they try to settle what women are good for,by phrenology,I like to have them put their tape round my head.I don't believe in their nonsense,for all that.You might as well tell me that if one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more,--a cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than Eclipse,that may have weighed a thousand.Give me a list of the best books you can think of,and turn me loose in your library.I can find what I want,if you have it;and what Idon't find there I will get at the Public Library.I shall want to ask you a question now and then."The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration,but thoughtfully,as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slight constitutional resource.

She returned,instinctively,to the apparent contradiction in her statements about herself.

"I am not a fool,if I am ignorant.Yes,doctor,I sail on a wide sea of ignorance,but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows and some of its depths.Your profession deals with the facts of life that interest me most just now,and I want to know something of it.

Perhaps I may find it a calling such as would suit me.""Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?"said the doctor.

"Certainly,I seriously think of it as a possibility,but I want to know something more about it first.Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine enough to practise it.Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough.No matter about that.I wish to study some of your best books on some of the subjects that most interest me.I know about bones and muscles and all that,and about digestion and respiration and such things.I want to study up the nervous system,and learn all about it.I am of the nervous temperament myself,and perhaps that is the reason.I want to read about insanity and all that relates to it."A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terror said this.

"Nervous system.Insanity.She has headaches,I know,--all those large-headed,hard-thinking girls do,as a matter of course;but what has set her off about insanity and the nervous system?I wonder if any of her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder.

Bright people very often have crazy relations.Perhaps some of her friends are in that way.I wonder whether"--the doctor did not speak any of these thoughts,and in fact hardly shaped his "whether,"for The Terror interrupted his train of reflection,or rather struck into it in a way which startled him.

"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?"she asked,looking at its empty place on the shelf.