LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1452, 11 October 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DR. CARRICK. By M. E. Braddon. [From "All the Year Round."] (Continued.) Dr. Carrick felt his now patient's pulse, and looked at him thoughfully for a minute or so, in the vivid light of the reading-lamp. He made none of the stereotyped enquiries. • What is the matter with you ?' he asked bluntly. 'You know much better than I can tell you." 'A restlessness that impels me to be continually shifting the scene of my life ; an indescribable disgust at everything, and a hatred of all places ; a feeling that I have lived too long, and yet that I don't quite want to die.' • You have made a mistake common to young men who have fine constitutions and fine fortunes. You have fancied both inexhaustible.' 'I have been extravagant, but I have hardly spent my income,' answered Mr Tregonnell frankly; « but I daresay I have used my constitution rather badly. I had a disappointment early in life—l daresay you have heard the story. I wanted to marry a woman whom my father was pleased to call my inferior, though she was as much my superior then as a woman, as she is now as a sinless soul in paradise. He gave me a yacht, for which I had been longing, and sent me abroad to cure mysell of my fancy. I was happy enough in the bustle and variety of my life_ thinking that things would work round in time, and that I should come home and find my darling true to me, and my father more indulgent. I wrote to her from every port, and in every letter told her the same story. We had only to be true to each other, and to wait for happier days. I should wait, if need were, till my hair grew gray. I was away a year, and my life during all that time was such a wandering one, that it was no surprise to me to find my letters unanswered. When I came back I found a grave, and discovered later, that my swfet girl had heen sent to drudge as an artie'ed pupil in a school at Exeter. Not one of my letters had been given to her. They would only have unsettled her, her wicked old hag of a grandmother told me. I knew afterwards, that my father had bought her people over to his interests. Sha had no mother. Her father was a weak-minded sot; her grandmother a jzreedy time-serving old harridan. Between them they kilied her, and broke my heart. That was the beginning of my wild career, Tr Carrick. ftot a very cheerful one, was it ?' • A common story, I fear.' ' Yes ; wrecked and ruined lives are common enough, I daresay. They fill the Haymarket, and keep gambling houses going, and swell the excise. I went to London after my father's death, and from London to Paris, and from Paris to Vienna. There is very little wildness or wickedness in those three cities, that I could not enlighten you about. A man cannot touch pitch without defilement. I didn't steep myself to the lips in pitch, or wallow in it, and enjoy it as some men do ; but I touched it and the taint cleaves to me. There is nothing in this world that men call pleasure, which has the faintest charm for me. My nights are restless, and troubled with feverish dreams. And sometimes —sometimes —I start up with a sudden thrill of horror going through me like an arrow, and feel as if the hair of my head were lifted up, like Job's, at a vision of hideous fear.'

• What is it you fear?' ' Madness,' answered Eustace Tregonnell, in a half-whisper. 'lt has appeared more than once in my family. My grandfather died mad. Sometimes I fancy that I can feel it coming. It has seemed near at hand, even. I have looked in the glass, started at my haggard face, hardly recognising myself, and have cried out involuntarily—' That is tho face of a madman!'

' A not unnatural result of sleeploss and troubled nights,' answered the doctor quietly. 'Do you know that a week's insomnia—one little week abs >lutely without sleep—has been known to result in temporary luuaoy ? That was an extreme case, of course ; but the man who can't sleep comfortably is always in a bad way. You must have refreshing sleep, Mr Tregonnell, or your fears may be realised.' ' Where are the drags that will give it me ? I have tried them all. The sole effect of opiates is to send me into a fever, and to make mc twice as wakeful as 1 am without them.'

' I should not recommend opiates in your case.'

' What would you recommend then ?' ' Mesmerism.' Mr Tregonnell smiled, a smile at once contemptuous aad impatient. 'I sent for a physician, whose sagacity I have heard highly lauded. I did not expect to meet '

'A quack,' said Br. Carrick. 'Yes, I know that mesmerism ranks with table-turn-ing and other juggleries. A striking proof of the ignorance of the popular mind upon all scientific questions outside the narrow range of old established orthodoxy.' And then Dr. Carrick went on to discourse eloquently upon mesmerism as a curative agent. He told Mr Tregonnell about Dr. Esdaile's experiments in the native hospital iu Calcutta ; ho argued warmly in favor of an inllnence which was evidently with him a favorite subject of study. ' Have you tried this wondeiful agent upon any of your Cornish patients V asked Mr Tregonnell. 'I am not such a fool. A century ago they would have punished mesmerism under the head of witchcraft ; to-day they would scout it as quackery. 1 talk freely to you, because I take you for a reasonable and enlightened being ' 'Do you think I am a subject for mesmerism ?'

' I know you are, and an excellent one.' ' Mesmerise me, then,' said Mr Tregonnell quietly, throwing himself back in his chair, nnd fixing his dark haggard eyes upon the doctor.

'ln tbis house? Impossible! I should throw you iuto a sleep which would last for hours; a sleep of deepest uuconsciousness, from which the loudest noises would not awaken you; a sleep in which you would be even insensible to pain. Your servants would take alarm. My coming and going might seem strange; and, iu short, if I am to cure you by means of mesmerism, as I know I can—yes, tame that wild fever of your blood, reduce that unhealthy restlessness to placid repose, banish fears which are not wholly groundlees ; in a word, give you that which ancient philosophy counted as the highest good, a sane mind in a sound body—if I am to do all this, Mr Tregounell, I must have the case in my own hands. I must have you under my care by day and niuht. My house is large and commodious. You must come and live with.' 1 Humph !' muttered Mr Tregonnell. 'ls

not that rather like going into a private lunatic asylum ?' ' My house is not registered as an asylum, and I never had a lunatic in my care. No, Mr TregonreU; you will be farther from lunacy under my roof than yon are here, eating your heart out by this dismal fireside.' ' Yes, it is dismal; the sort of house that ought to be occupied by a large family. Well, lam half inclined to come to you. I shall be a free agent in your house, I conclude , able to roam about as I like by day, provided I keep decent hours at night. You will put no restraint upon my movement ?' ' None,' ' Can you find room for my horse and for my servant ?' ' For both.' * Then I will come. Mind, Ido not promise to stay with you for any given time. I must be free as the wind. If you can give me sound and peaceful sleep with your mesmeric passes, I shall be grateful to yon, and mesmerism. But can you not give me a taste of your quality at once, here f 'No; I am expected home. If I mesmerised you to-night, I should want to stay with you to see the result of my experiment. Come to me for a week. If by the end of that time your spirits are not tranquillised. and your general health is not improved, call me a charlatan, and have done with me. ' I am very much inclined to believe in you,' said Mr Tregonnell, gazing steadily at the doctor. ' You look as if you were in earnest.' ' I have been in earnest all my life,' answered JDr. Carrick. And then inwardly he added—• But I never had an object worth being in earned about until to night.' {To be continued.)