he heart in classes and gradations of mankind, a keen observer and a
quick actor. In fact, to get on well, he must possess in a high degree
many of those elements, any one of which would insure success in a dozen
other walks in life.

And the Spa doctor must have all these virtues, as Swift says, 'for
twenty pounds per annum'--not literally, indeed, but for a very
inadequate recompense. These watering-place seasons are brief intervals,
in which he must make hay while the sun shines. With the approach of
winter the tide turns, and the human wave retires faster than it came.
Silent streets and deserted promenades, closed shutters and hermetically
sealed cafes, meet him at every step; and then comes the long, dreary
time of hibernation. Happy would it be for him if he could but imitate
the seal, and spend it in torpor; for if he be not a sportsman, and in
a country favourable to the pursuit, his life is a sad one. Books are
generally difficult to come at; there is little society, there is no
companionship; and so he has to creep along the tedious time silent and
sad, counting over the months of his durance, and longing for spring.
Some there are who follow the stream, and retire each winter to the
cities where their strongest connection lies; but this practice I should
deem rather dictated by pleasure than profit. Your Spa doctor without
a Spa is like Liszt or Herz without a pianoforte. Give him but his
instrument, and he will 'discourse you sweet music'; but deprive him of
it, and he is utterly helpless. The springs of Helicon did not suggest
inspiration more certainly than do those of Nassau to their votaries;
but the fount must run that the poet may rhyme. So your physician must
have the odour of sulphurets in his nose; he must see the priestess
ministering, glass in hand, to the shivering shades around her; he must
have the long vista of the promenade, with its flitting forms in flannel
cased, ere he feel himself 'every inch a doctor.' Away from these, and
the piston of a steam-engine without a boiler is not more helpless. The
fountain is, to use Lord Londonderry's phrase, the 'fundamental feature
on which his argument hinges,' and he could no more exist without water
than a fish.

Having said so much of the genus, let me be excused if I do not dilate
on the species; nor, indeed, had I dwelt so long on the subject, but
in this age of stomach, when every one has dyspepsia, it is as well to
mention those who rule over o