holy.

_De la Cot._ One whose health is bad cannot be expected to look
cheerful.

_Phil._ Do you not know I am a physician, and have the skill to cure
you?

_De la Cot._ I did not know that you were skilled in the medical art.

_Phil._ Well, my friend, capacities often exist where they are not
suspected.

_De la Cot._ Why, then, have you not prescribed for me before now?

_Phil._ Because I did not sooner know the nature of your disease.

_De la Cot._ Do you think you know it now?

_Phil._ Yes, certainly--indubitably.

_De la Cot._ If you are learned in the medical art, sir, you know much
better than I do how fallacious and how little to be relied on are all
the symptoms that seem to indicate the causes of disease.

_Phil._ The indications of your disease are so infallible, that I am
confident there is no mistake, and on condition that you trust to my
friendship, you shall soon have reason to be content.

_De la Cot._ And by what process do you propose to cure me?

_Phil._ My first prescription shall be for you to abandon all intention
of going away, and to take the benefit of this air, which will speedily
restore you to health.

_De la Cot._ On the contrary, I fear this air is most injurious to me.

_Phil._ Do you not know that even from hemlock a most salutary medicine
is extracted?

_De la Cot._ I am not ignorant of the late discoveries, but your
allusion covers some mystery.

_Phil._ No, my friend; so far as mystery is concerned, each of us is now
acting his part; but let us speak without metaphor. Your disease arises
from love, and you think to find a remedy by going away, whereas it is
an act of mere desperation. You carry the arrow in your heart, and hope
to be relieved; but the same hand which placed it there must draw it
out.

_De la Cot._ Your discourse, sir, is altogether new to me.

_Phil._ Why pretend not to understand me! Speak to me as a friend who
loves you, and takes the same interest in you as if you were his son.
Consider: by dissembling you may destroy your happiness for ever. My
attachment to you arises from a knowledge of your merit, and from your
having spent several months with me; besides, I should be mortified for
you to have contracted in my house an unhappy passion; and therefore I
most zealously interfere in your favour, and am anxious to find a remedy
for you.

_De la Cot._ My dear friend, how have you discovered the origin of my
unhappiness?

_Phil._ Shall I say t