The Pools of Silence

d violent-looking sun, like the face of a bull

them up whilst the red, callous, cruel face took a last peep at the frost-bitten city, the frost-bound country-Montmartre and its windows, winking and bloodshot; Bercy a

t day of Félix Thénard's post-graduate c

he famous neurologist of the Beaujon, had a class which practically represented the whole continent of Europe and half the world. Men from Vienna and Madrid, Germany and Japan, London

ard, was just reaching the entrance of the Beaujon as the last rays of sunset were t

were slow and uncomfortable, cabs were dear, and money was, just at prese

s way up, literally from the soil, putting in terms as seaside café waiter to help to pay his college fees; putting aside everything but honour in

of the nation, was the mainspring of this big man whom Nature had undoubtedly designed with her eye on the vast plai

le. It was of the American type that approximates to the Red Indian, and you guessed the power that lay behind it by the set of the cheek-bones,

to the swing-door of the lecture theatre. It wanted five minutes to the hour. He peeped over the muffing of the glass; the place was nearly full, so he w

ce, and the air was suffocatingly hot after the crisp, cold air of the streets. It would be like this till about the middle

ajendie had cast their shadow on its walls; Flourens had lectured here on that subject of which he had so profound a knowledge-the brain; the echo

broadly braided frock-coat with satin facings, betraying himself to all men by the end of the clinical thermometer protruding from his waistcoat pocket; the two Japanese gentlemen-brown, incurious, and

e verge of bankruptcy; and as he entered and crossed to the estrade where the lecture table stood and the glass of water, he shouted some words vehemently and harshly to Alphonse, the

went on, one forgot him. It was not the profundity of the man's knowledge, great though it was, that impressed one; or the subtle

f his face, every gesture of his body, every w

of the course. It was on the "Brain Co

nce, speaking of religions, not religion, and utterly ignoring the idea whi

g in his simplicity, absolutely without prejudice, as ready to acknowledge the soul and its attributes as to refuse them, standing there twiddling his horsehair watch-chai

ll. I can only give some few sentences

take the path to the right, when my child is being threatened with death by a pterodactyl, or

n of time laid the foundation of the world's morality. Do we

her man on the right, found herself face to face with the question, 'Shall I court self-destruction in attempting to save

y as his dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? In prehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for the

u now, service is being held at the Madeleine, the Bourse is closed (looking at his watch), but other gam

me people are doing evil. We wonder at the origin of i

choose the Left. Whilst dwelling in the man's heart

ch will be the basis of all future religions and systems of ethics. I have already dimly demarcated a line

r scrolls of papyri, infinite developments of the simple basic Right and Left laid down by me shall combine to build a Pantheon of a million shrines to a million gods-who are yet

be the seat of the soul. 'There is nothing in here. Let us put someth

of an eye which once belonged to a reptile long extinct. That is th

k, and I suppose you are about to leave P

uring out of the theatre, and Adams was t

t present. Of course I shall practise in my own