ver
seemed to satisfy me when I saw them. Well, that was a sort of frenzy
with me.

It was a frenzy that now I can hardly realize. I can understand it
intellectually. You see, in those days I was interested in people with
"hearts." There was Florence, there was Edward Ashburnham--or, perhaps,
it was Leonora that I was more interested in. I don't mean in the way of
love. But, you see, we were both of the same profession--at any rate as
I saw it. And the profession was that of keeping heart patients alive.

You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just as
the blacksmith says: "By hammer and hand all Art doth stand," just as
the baker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morning
delivery of rolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he alone
is the preserver of society--and surely, surely, these delusions are
necessary to keep us going--so did I and, as I believed, Leonora,
imagine that the whole world ought to be arranged so as to ensure the
keeping alive of heart patients. You have no idea how engrossing such a
profession may become--how imbecile, in view of that engrossment, appear
the ways of princes, of republics, of municipalities. A rough bit of
road beneath the motor tyres, a couple of succeeding "thank'ee-marms"
with their quick jolts would be enough to set me grumbling to Leonora
against the Prince or the Grand Duke or the Free City through whose
territory we might be passing. I would grumble like a stockbroker whose
conversations over the telephone are incommoded by the ringing of bells
from a city church. I would talk about medieval survivals, about the
taxes being surely high enough. The point, by the way, about the missing
of the connections of the Calais boat trains at Brussels was that the
shortest possible sea journey is frequently of great importance to
sufferers from the heart. Now, on the Continent, there are two special
heart cure places, Nauheim and Spa, and to reach both of these baths
from England if in order to ensure a short sea passage, you come by
Calais--you have to make the connection at Brussels. And the Belgian
train never waits by so much the shade of a second for the one coming
from Calais or from Paris. And even if the French train, are just on
time, you have to run--imagine a heart patient running!--along the
unfamiliar ways of the Brussels station and to scramble up the high
steps of the moving train. Or, if you miss connection, you have to wait