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Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

"The Woodlanders"


It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed the distance
with a preoccupied mind. The idea of so modern a man in science
and aesthetics as the young surgeon springing out of relics so
ancient was a kind of novelty she had never before experienced.
The combination lent him a social and intellectual interest which
she dreaded, so much weight did it add to the strange influence he
exercised upon her whenever he came near her.
In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a
fearful consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his
return.
Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also. In his house there
was an old work on medicine, published towards the end of the last
century, and to put himself in harmony with events Melbury spread
this work on his knees when he had done his day's business, and
read about Galen, Hippocrates, and Herophilus--of the dogmatic,
the empiric, the hermetical, and other sects of practitioners that
have arisen in history; and thence proceeded to the classification
of maladies and the rules for their treatment, as laid down in
this valuable book with absolute precision.


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