Chapter 1 - Page 2

single-minded, I mean just that, and no more. He
had an End to attain--the advancement of science, and he went straight
towards the End, looking neither to the right nor to the left for
anyone. An American millionaire once remarked to him of some ingenious
appliance he was describing: "Why, if you were to perfect that
apparatus, Professor, and take out a patent for it, I reckon you'd make
as much money as I have made." Sebastian withered him with a glance. "I
have no time to waste," he replied, "on making money!"

So, when Hilda Wade told me, on the first day I met her, that she wished
to become a nurse at Nathaniel's, "to be near Sebastian," I was not at
all astonished. I took her at her word. Everybody who meant business in
any branch of the medical art, however humble, desired to be close to
our rare teacher--to drink in his large thought, to profit by his clear
insight, his wide experience. The man of Nathaniel's was revolutionising
practice; and those who wished to feel themselves abreast of the modern
movement were naturally anxious to cast in their lot with him. I did not
wonder, therefore, that Hilda Wade, who herself possessed in so large a
measure the deepest feminine gift--intuition--should seek a place
under the famous professor who represented the other side of the same
endowment in its masculine embodiment--instinct of diagnosis.

Hilda Wade herself I will not formally introduce to you: you will learn
to know her as I proceed with my story.

I was Sebastian's assistant, and my recommendation soon procured Hilda
Wade the post she so strangely coveted. Before she had been long at
Nathaniel's, however, it began to dawn upon me that her reasons for
desiring to attend upon our revered Master were not wholly and solely
scientific. Sebastian, it is true, recognised her value as a nurse from
the first; he not only allowed that she was a good assistant, but he
also admitted that her subtle knowledge of temperament sometimes enabled
her closely to approach his own reasoned scientific analysis of a case
and its probable development. "Most women," he said to me once, "are
quick at reading THE PASSING EMOTION. They can judge with astounding
correctness from a shadow on one's face, a catch in one's breath, a
movement of one's hands, how their words or deeds are affecting us. We
cannot conceal our feelings from them. But underlying character they
do not judge so well as fleeting expression. Not what Mrs. Jones IS in
herself, but what Mrs. Jones is now thinking and feeling--there lies
their great success as psychologists. Most men, on the contrary, guide
their life by definite FACTS--by signs, by symptoms, by observed data.
Medicine itself is built upon a