“That is just it, sir. If you had anything the matter with you I might have a chance of curing it. It is because I can’t see any reason why you do not gain strength that I want other opinion about you.” The doctor had frequently talked it over with Horace during the voyage. “I can see nothing bodily the matter with your father, Horace. I wish I could. There is nothing to account for his being in this feeble state. All that he says is that he feels tired. My opinion is that really this is a sort of reaction after mental excitement, just as there is reaction after great bodily fatigue. Your father has lived a smooth, easy, tranquil life, and the change, the excitement, the worry, and his utter disappointment with the Greeks themselves, have had the same sort of effect upon him as a climb up to the top of Ben Nevis might have on a man who did not stir out of his house for months together. As for that being the cause I have no doubt whatever. It is as to the cure that I want to consult with some big-wig. I don’t know whether quiet or movement would be the best for him. He could have had no quiet more complete than that he has had on the way home, and yet it has done him no good. If he were to go down home the inducement to arouse himself would be still less. But what sort of change would really suit him is more than I can say.” Horace thoroughly agreed with the doctor. If even the cheerful society on board the yacht did not rouse his father, he dreaded what it would be when he was at home, with no one to stir him up in any way. There were two or three consultations in town with some of the leaders of the profession. After hearing the whole circumstances they were unanimous in agreeing that there seemed no serious disease of any kind, but at the same time his condition gave cause of anxiety. “Your patient is evidently a man of highly nervous organization, and at present his nerves are a wreck. We quite agree with you that were he to go down to a lonely house in the country he would probably sink into the grave in a few months at the outside. If you could get him to go in that yacht of his on some expedition in which he feels what I may call a healthy interest, it might do him good. I should say a cold climate would be better for him than a warm one. He has had more than enough of that enervating work in Greek waters. Try and interest him in Polar expeditions. There have been a great many of them just lately. Ross and Parry and Franklin have all been trying their best to find the North-west Passage, which is not likely to be of any good if they do find it; but that is nothing to the point. Get him interested in the matter, and let him go and poke about for a bit among the icebergs. If you can get him to do that we see no reason why in time his mind should not recover its tone.”