l...."

"If that is meant for me," replied the girl, "all I can tell you is that
the one thing on which I still can pride myself is my health. Say what
you will--the very worst for aught I care. I want something to-day to
rouse me from lethargy, even if it should make me angry."

"Very well then," replied the leech, "though I am plunging into deep
waters!--As to health, as it is commonly understood, a fish might envy
you; but the higher health--health of mind: that I fear you cannot boast
of."

"This is a serious beginning," said Paula. "Your reproof would seem to
imply that I have done you or some one else a wrong."

"If only you had!" exclaimed he. "No, you have not sinned against us in
any way.--'I am as I am' is what you think of yourself; and what do you
care for others?"

"That must depend on whom you mean by 'others!'"

"Nothing less than all and each of those with whom you live--here, in
this house, in this town, in this world. To you they are mere air--or
less; for the air is a tangible thing that can fill a ship's sails and
drive it against the stream, whose varying nature can bring comfort or
suffering to your body."

"My world is within!" said Paula, laying her hand on her heart.

"Very true. And all creation may find room there; for what cannot the
human heart, as it is called, contain! The more we require it to take
and keep, the more ready it is to hold it. It is unsafe to let the
lock rust; for, if once it has grown stiff, when we want to open it
no pulling and wrenching will avail. And besides--but I do not want to
grieve you.--You have a habit of only looking backwards...."

"And what that is pleasurable lies before me? Your blame is harsh and at
the same time unjust.--Indeed, and how can you tell which way I look?"

"Because I have watched you with the eye of a friend. In truth, Paula,
you have forgotten how to look around and forward. The life which lies
behind you and which you have lost is all your world. I once showed
you on a fragmentary papyrus that belonged to my foster father, Horus
Apollo, a heathen demon represented as going forwards, while his head
was turned on his neck so that the face and eyes looked behind him."

"I remember it perfectly."

"Well, you have long been just like him. 'All things move,' says
Heraclitus, so you are forced to float onwards with the great stream;
or, to vary the image, you must walk forwards on the high-road of life
towards the common goal; but y