“A good many other things, I should hope,” Arthur said earnestly.
“Well, maybe. Still you have the advantage of me in many ways, dear boy! Not only that your day is dawning while mine is setting, but your interest in Life—somehow I ca’n’t help envying you that. It will be many a year before you lose your hold of that.”
“Yet surely many human interests survive human Life?” I said.
“Many do, no doubt. And some forms of Science; but only some, I think. Mathematics, for instance: that seems to possess an endless interest: one ca’n’t imagine any form of Life, or any race of intelligent beings, where Mathematical truth would lose its meaning. But I fear Medicine stands on a different footing. Suppose you discover a remedy for some disease hitherto supposed to be incurable. Well, it is delightful for the moment, no doubt—full of interest—perhaps it brings you fame and fortune. But what then? Look on, a few years, into a life where disease has no existence. What is your discovery worth, then? Milton makes Jove promise too much. ‘Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.’ Poor comfort, when one’s ‘fame’ concerns matters that will have ceased to have a meaning!”
“At any rate, one wouldn’t care to make any fresh medical discoveries,” said Arthur. “I see no help for that—though I shall be sorry to give up my favorite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain, sorrow, sin—I fear they’re all linked together. Banish sin, and you banish them all!”
“Military science is a yet stronger instance,” said the Earl. “Without sin, war would surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in this life any keen interest, not in itself sinful, will surely find itself some congenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no more battles to fight—and yet—
‘We doubt not that, for one so true,
There must be other, nobler work to do,
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be!’”