“Stay awhile, stay awhile!” said the Earl, as I was about to follow the Count. “_You_ are not a guest, you know! Arthur’s friend is at _home_ here!” “Thanks!” I said, as, with true English instincts, we drew our chairs together round the fire-place, though no fire was burning—Lady Muriel having taken the heap of music on her knee, to have one more search for the strangely-vanished song. “Don’t you sometimes feel a wild longing,” she said, addressing herself to me, “to have something more to do with your hands, while you talk, than just holding a cigar, and now and then knocking off the ash? Oh, I know all that you’re going to say!” (This was to Arthur, who appeared about to interrupt her.) “The Majesty of Thought supersedes the work of the fingers. A Man’s severe thinking, _plus_ the shaking-off a cigar-ash, comes to the same total as a Woman’s trivial fancies, _plus_ the most elaborate embroidery. _That’s_ your sentiment, isn’t it, only better expressed?” Arthur looked into the radiant, mischievous face, with a grave and very tender smile. “Yes,” he said resignedly: “that is my sentiment, exactly.” “Rest of body, and activity of mind,” I put in. “Some writer tells us _that_ is the acme of human happiness.” “Plenty of _bodily_ rest, at any rate!” Lady Muriel replied, glancing at the three recumbent figures around her. “But what you call activity of _mind_——” “—is the privilege of young Physicians _only_,” said the Earl. “We old men have no claim to be active! _What can an old man do but die?_” “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!”