The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-06-30
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nat your physician heal the bodily evil!
How may this be unless you first lay
open to him the wound or trouble in
your soul?'
"Nol not to thee! not to an earthly
physicianI'' cried Mr.. Dimmesdale pas
sionately, and turning his eyes, full and
] bright and with kind of fierceness, on
old Roger Chillingworth. mot to thee!
But if it be the souls disease, then do
commit myself to the one Physician of
the soull He, if it stand with his good
pleasure, can cure, or he can kill! Let
him do with me as in his justice and
wisdom he shall see good But who art
thou, that meddlest in this 1natter-that
dares thrust himself between the sufferer
and his God?'
With frantic gesture he rushed out
of the room.
SIT is as we'll to have made this step,'
said Roger Chillingworth to himself,
looking after the minister with a grave
smile. 'There is nothing lost. We
shall be friends again anon. But see,
now, how passion takes hold upon this
man and hurrieth him out of HIMSELF
AS with one passion, so with another!
He hath done wild thing ere now, this
pious Master Dimmesda1e, in the hot
passion of his hearth
It proved not difficult to re-establish
the intimacy of the two companions on
the same footing and in the same degree
as heretofore. The young clergyman,
after few hours of privacy, was sensi-
bic that the disorder of his nerves had
hurried him into an unseemly outbreak
of temper, which there had been moth
palliate. He marveled, indeed, at the
violence with which he had thrust back
the kind old man when merely proffer-
ing the advice which it was his duty to
to bestow and which the minister him
self had expressly sought. With these
remorseful feelings, he lost no time in
making the amplest apologies, and be-
sought his friend to still continue the
care which, if not successful in restor-
ing him to health, had in all probability
been the means of prolonging his feeble
existence to that hour. Roger Chilling
worth readily assented, and went on
with his medical supervision of the min
lister, doing his best for him in all good
faith, but always quitting the patients
apartment at the close of a professional
interview with a mysterious and puzzled
smile upon his lips. This expression was
invisible in MIR. Dimmesdale's presence,
but grew strongly evident as the physi-
clan crossed the threshold.
"a rare caser' he muttered. Il must
needs look deeper into it. A strange
sympathy betwixt soul and bodyi Were
it only for the arts sake l must search
this matter to the bottom?'
1t came to pass not long after the scene
above recorded that the Reverend Mr.
Dimmesdale at monday and entirely I'M
awares fell into deep, deep slunber
sitting in his chair, with large black
letter volume open before him on the
table. It must have been a work of
vast ability in the somniferous school of
literature. The profound depth of the
minister's repose was the more remark
able inasmuch as he was one of those
persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light,
as fitful and as easily scared away as a
small bird hopping on twig. To sucn
an unwonted remoteness, however, had
his spirit now withdrawn into itself,
that he stirred not in his chair when old
Roger Chillingworth, without any ex-
traordinary precautiOn, came into the
room. The physician advanced directly
in front of his patient, laid his hand
upon his bosom and thrust aside the
vestment that hitherto had always COW
cred it even from the professional eye.
Then, indeed, Mr.. Dimmesdale shud-
dered and slightly stirred.
After a brief pause the physician
turned away.
But, with what wild look of wonder,
Joy and horror! With what CHASTITY
rapture, as it were, too mighty to be ex-
pressed only by the eye and features,
and therefore bursting forth through
the whole ugliness of his figure, and
making itself even riotously manifest
by the extravaganza gestures with which
he threw up his arms toward the ceiling
and stamped his foot upon the floor!
Had a man seen old Roger Chilling
worth at that moment of his ecstasy
he would have had no need to ask how
satan COMFORTS himself when a precious
human soul is lost to heaven and won
into his kingdom.
But what distinguished the physicians
ecstasy from satan's was the trait of
wonder in it!
-TTr