“So he is,” said Glencore, gravely.
“One of those men of original mould who leave cultivation leagues behind, and arrive at truth by a bound.”
“He certainly treated me with considerable skill.”
“I'm satisfied of it; his conversation is replete with shrewd and intelligent observation, and he seems to have studied his art more like a philosopher than a mere physician of the schools. And depend upon it, Glencore, the curative art must mainly depend upon the secret instinct which divines the malady, less by the rigid rules of acquired skill than by that prerogative of genius, which, however exerted, arrives at its goal at once. Our conversation had scarcely lasted a quarter of an hour, when he revealed to me the exact seat of all my sufferings, and the most perfect picture of my temperament. And then his suggestions as to treatment were all so reasonable, so well argued.”
“A clever fellow, no doubt of it,” said Glencore.
“But he is far more than that, Glencore. Cleverness is only a manufacturing quality,—that man supplies the raw article also. It has often struck me as very singular that such heads are not found in our class,—they belong to another order altogether. It is possible that the stimulus of necessity engenders the greatest of all efforts, calling to the operations of the mind the continued strain for contrivance; and thus do we find the most remarkable men are those, every step of whose knowledge has been gained with a struggle.”
“I suspect you are right,” said Glencore, “and that our old system of school education, wherein all was rough, rugged, and difficult, turned out better men than the present-day habit of everything-made-easy and everybody-made-any-thing. Flippancy is the characteristic of our age, and we owe it to our teaching.”
“By the way, what do you mean to do with Charley?” said Upton. “Do you intend him for Eton?”
“I scarcely know,—I make plans only to abandon them,” said Glencore, gloomily.
“I'm greatly struck with him. He is one of those fellows, however, who require the nicest management, and who either rise superior to all around them, or drop down into an indolent, dreamy existence, conscious of power, but too bashful or too lazy to exert it.”