Quite so. The mob did not like Marie Antoinette's carriages to run over them in the streets of Paris just because they were only _canaille_. Our Radical friends have not found out just yet how we run over them scientifically. When they do, be sure they will find their remedy.
Our mistress is a little given to philosophy: what disputations shall we have here by-and-by!--_Gil Blas._
They add up nature to a nought of God And cross the quotient. --_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._
Voilà de l'erudition.--_Les Femmes Savantes._
Dr. Day had introduced Elsworth to a rather singular society, founded by himself and daughter, in the West End of town, and much frequented by medical, literary, musical, and artistic young folk of "advanced" views. One of its members, Arthur Devaux, was a rising physician at the hospital, and his sister Linda soon became impressed with the attentions of young Elsworth, and they met frequently and studied many things together. Both were addicted to philological research; Linda worked at Anglo-Saxon in the library of the British Museum, and, as Elsworth had pronounced tastes in that direction, they were much thrown together. Her father was an artist of French extraction, and, sharing his daughter's tastes for comparative languages and dialects, they found the young doctor a welcome addition to their family circle. Basque, and Caló, the dialect of the gipsies of Spain, were just now occupying some of their attention, and the whole history and customs of the latter interesting people had taken hold of young Elsworth to the extent of making him desirous to visit them as soon as his hospital work would permit. Such studies had by no means interfered with his professional duties, but had assisted them by relaxing the mind when wearied with the strain of long-continued effort in one direction. Philology was one of his modes of unbending the bow, and a latent Bohemianism gave him a strange sympathy with a gipsy's life. Have not a large proportion of the solemn and respectable folk dwellers in our great cities a taint of this same disorder? Would not that calm, awe-inspiring judge upon the bench, when the fit is on him, like to pitch off his wig and crimson robe, and betake him to a Bedouin's life, if it were possible? Is it too much to imagine there may possibly be a bishop or two who now and again have to smother a temptation, just the least spice of a desire, say, to doff apron and shovel hat, and have a season or two in a quiet, well-ordered sort of way, where Mrs. Grundy could not find them? Certes, we have known more than a dozen doctors who have neat broughams, and whose manner of entering them is dignified and becoming; who wear well-cut clothes, spotless linen, and the shiniest of hats; who speak in measured tones, and look the very impersonations of propriety; who yet are so heartily sick of your tongues and pulses, your livers and your hearts, your pills and potions, and your horrible stair-climbing, that were it not for the overpowering sense of duty to Mrs. Leech and the little Leeches, they would long ere now have been off out of walled cities, and away from the galling proprieties of civilisation, and betaken themselves to the forest, the moor, and the mountain.