with a
scientific process little known, and but recently discovered?"

"I well acquainted! not so. But I am fond of all experiments that relate
to animal life. Electricity, especially, is full of interest."

On that I drew him out (as I thought), and he talked volubly. I was
amazed to find this young man, in whose brain I had conceived thought
kept one careless holiday, was evidently familiar with the physical
sciences, and especially with chemistry, which was my own study by
predilection. But never had I met with a student in whom a knowledge so
extensive was mixed up with notions so obsolete or so crotchety. In one
sentence he showed that he had mastered some late discovery by Faraday
or Liebig; in the next sentence he was talking the wild fallacies
of Cardan or Van Helmont. I burst out laughing at some paradox about
sympathetic powders, which he enounced as if it were a recognized truth.

"Pray tell me," said I, "who was your master in physics; for a cleverer
pupil never had a more crack-brained teacher."

"No," he answered, with his merry laugh, "it is not the teacher's fault.
I am a mere parrot; just cry out a few scraps of learning picked up here
and there. But, however, I am fond of all researches into Nature; all
guesses at her riddles. To tell you the truth, one reason why I have
taken to you so heartily is not only that your published work caught my
fancy in the dip which I took into its contents (pardon me if I say dip,
I never do more than dip into any book), but also because young ----
tells me that which all whom I have met in this town confirm; namely,
that you are one of those few practical chemists who are at once
exceedingly cautious and exceedingly bold,--willing to try every new
experiment, but submitting experiment to rigid tests. Well, I have an
experiment running wild in this giddy head of mine, and I want you,
some day when at leisure, to catch it, fix it as you have fixed that
cylinder, make something of it. I am sure you can."

"What is it?"

"Something akin to the theories in your work. You would replenish or
preserve to each special constitution the special substance that may
fail to the equilibrium of its health. But you own that in a large
proportion of cases the best cure of disease is less to deal with the
disease itself than to support and stimulate the whole system, so as to
enable Nature to cure the disease and restore the impaired equilibrium
by her own agencies. Thus, if you f