By all means let him
go to the theatres in the evenings--and then let him come to me again in
a fortnight."
Had the doctor been less eminent in his profession I should have doubted
whether he was in earnest, but I knew him to be a man of business who
would neither waste his own time nor that of his patients. As soon as we
were out of the house we took a cab to Regent's Park, and spent a couple
of hours in sauntering round the different houses. Perhaps it was on
account of what the doctor had told me, but I certainly became aware of a
feeling I had never experienced before. I mean that I was receiving an
influx of new life, or deriving new ways of looking at life--which is the
same thing--by the process. I found the doctor quite right in his
estimate of the larger mammals as the ones which on the whole were most
beneficial, and observed that Ernest, who had heard nothing of what the
doctor had said to me, lingered instinctively in front of them. As for
the elephants, especially the baby elephant, he seemed to be drinking in
large draughts of their lives to the re-creation and regeneration of his
own.
We dined in the gardens, and I noticed with pleasure that Ernest's
appetite was already improved.
Pages:
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603