"Dr. Lindhorst has been an intimate friend of my father from the time they were both together at Heidelberg. The Doctor was born in Switzerland, and, after finishing the study of medicine, came back to his native town to practise it. Before this, however, he had become enthusiastically devoted to geology and its kindred sciences, botany and mineralogy; and, indeed, to all those pursuits which have direct relation to nature and her operations. His father dying soon after, and leaving him a handsome patrimony, he had abundant opportunity to indulge in them; which he did, without, however, neglecting his profession. Indeed, he soon acquired a reputation for being skilful and attentive, while every one spoke in terms of commendation of the young Doctor Paul. Suddenly there was a change. He declined any longer to visit the sick, excepting only the most poor and miserable. He absented himself for days and weeks in the mountains, pursuing his favorite objects with an unnatural enthusiasm. Then he left Thun for foreign countries, and was gone two or three years, and returned with an accumulation of various specimens in almost every department of natural science: with note-books, herbariums, cabinets, strange animals stuffed to resemble life, birds, fishes, petrifactions--in short, the air, the water, and the earth had furnished their quota to satisfy his feverish zeal for acquisition. He was still a young man, scarce five-and-twenty, yet he bore the appearance of a person at least forty years old--" "But the cause of this strange metamorphose?"