"Oh, quite fair," said Lefevre, welcoming the question. "To put it in a word, I look to _electricity_,--animal electricity. I have been for some time working round, and I hope gradually getting nearer, a scientific secret of enormous--of transcendent value. Can you conceive, Julius, of a universal principle in Nature being got so under control as to form a universal basis of cure?" "Can I conceive?" said Julius. "And is that electricity too?" "I hope to find it is." "Oh, how slow!" exclaimed Julius,--"oh, how slow you professional scientific men become! You begin to run on tram-lines, and you can't get off them! Why fix yourself to call this principle you're seeking for 'electricity'? It will probably restrict your inquiry, and hamper you in several ways. I would declare to every scientific man, 'Unless you become as a little child or a poet, you will discover no great truth!' Setting aside your bias towards what you call 'electricity,' you are really hoping to discover something that was discovered or divined thousands of years ago! Some have called it 'od'--an 'imponderable fluid'--as you know; you and others wish to call it 'electricity.' I prefer to call it 'the spirit of life,'--a name simple, dignified, and expressive!" "It has the disadvantage of being poetic," said Dr Rippon, with grave irony; "and doctors don't like poetry mixed up with their science." "It _is_ poetic," admitted Julius, regarding the old doctor with interest, "and therefore it is intelligible. The spirit of life is electric and elective, and it is 'imponderable:' it can neither be weighed nor measured! It flows and thrills in the nerves of men and women, animals and plants, throughout the whole of Nature! It connects the whole round of the Cosmos by one glowing, teasing, agonising principle of being, and makes us and beasts and trees and flowers all kindred!" "That is all very beautiful and fresh," said Lefevre, "but--" "But," interrupted Julius, "it is not a new truth: the poet divined it ages ago! Buddha, thousands of years ago, perceived it, and taught that 'all life is linked and kin;' so did the Egyptians and the Greeks, when they worshipped the principle of life everywhere; and so did our own barbaric ancestors, when the woods--the wonderful, mystic woods!--were their temples. Life--the spirit of life!--is always beautiful; always to be desired and worshipped!" "Yes," said old Dr Rippon, who had listened to this astonishing rhapsody with evident interest, with sympathetic and intelligent eye; "but a time will come even to you, when death will appear more beautiful and friendly and desirable than life." Courtney was silent, and looked for a second or two deadly sick. He cast a searching eye on Dr Rippon.