The Darrow Enigma | Page 4

in fact, he didn't mind saying that
he was at work upon a table of atomical pitches to match Dalton's
atomic weights; if he succeeded in what he had undertaken he would
have solved the secret of the love and hatred of atoms, and unions
hitherto unknown could easily be effected.
I do not know how long he would have continued had not my interest
in the subject caused me to interrupt him. I was something of an
experimenter myself, and here was a man who could help me.
It was a dream of mine that the great majority of ailments could be
cured by analysing a patient's blood, and then injecting into his veins
such chemicals as were found wanting, or were necessary to counteract
the influence of any deleterious matter present. There were, of course,
difficulties in the way, but had they not already at Cornell University
done much the same for vegetable life? And did not those plants which
had been set in sea sand out of which every particle of nutriment had
been roasted, and which were then artificially fed with a solution of the
chemicals of which they were known to be composed, grow twice as
rank as those which had been set in the soil ordinarily supposed to be
best adapted to them? What was the difference between a human cell
and a plant cell? Yes, since my patient was a chemist, I would cultivate
his acquaintance.
He proceeded to tell me how he felt, but I could make nothing of it, so I
forthwith did the regulation thing; what should we doctors do without it!
I looked at his tongue, pulled down his eyelid, and pronounced him
bilious. Yes, there were the little brown spots under his skin - freckles,
perhaps - and probably he had an occasional ringing in his ears. He was
willing to admit that he was dizzy on suddenly rising from a stooping
posture, and that eggs, milk, and coffee were poison to him; and he
afterward told me he should have said the same of any other three

articles I might have mentioned, for he looked so hale and vigorous,
and felt so disgracefully well, that he was ashamed of himself. We have
had many a laugh over it since. The fact of the matter is the only
affliction from which he was suffering was an inordinate desire to make
my acquaintance. Not for my own sake - oh, dear, no! - but because I
was John Darrow's family physician, and would be reasonably sure to
know Gwen Darrow, that gentleman's daughter. He had first met her,
he told me after we had become intimate, at an exhibition of paintings
by William T. Richards, - but, as you will soon be wondering if it were,
on his part, a case of love at first sight, I had best relate the incident to
you in his own words as he told it to me. This will relieve me of
passing any judgment upon the matter, for you will then know as much
about it as I, and, doubtless, be quite as capable of answering the
question, for candour compels me to own that my knowledge of the
human heart is entirely professional. Think of searching for Cupid's
darts with a stethoscope!
"I was standing," Maitland said, "before a masterpiece of sea and rock,
such as only Richards can paint. It was a view of Land's End, Cornwall,
and in the artist's very best vein. My admiration made me totally
unmindful of my surroundings, so much so, indeed, that, although the
gallery was crowded, I caught myself expressing my delight in a
perfectly audible undertone. My enthusiasm, since it was addressed to
no one, soon began to attract attention, and people stopped looking at
the pictures to look at me. I was conscious of this in a vague, far-off
way, much as one is conscious of a conversation which seems to have
followed him across the borderland of sleep, and I even thought that I
ought to be embarrassed. How long I remained thus transported I do
not know. The first thing I remember is hearing someone close beside
me take a quick, deep breath, one of those full inhalations natural to all
sensitive natures when they come suddenly upon something sublime. -I
turned and looked. I have said I was transported by that canvas of sea
and rocks, and have, therefore, no word left to describe the emotion
with which I gazed upon the exquisite, living, palpitating picture beside
me. A composite photograph of all the Madonnas ever painted, from
the Sistine to Bodenhausen's, could not have been more lovely, more
ineffably womanly than that young girl, radiant with the divine glow of

artistic delight - at least, that is my