For Dermot, resolute to defend his friend, and declaring that his
sister's heart should not be broken, was the prime mover in Harold
going up to consult the most eminent men of the day on mental
disease, Prometesky going with him as having been his only attendant
during his illness, to give an account of the symptoms, and Dermot,
who so comported himself in his excitement as to seem far more like
the lover whose hopes might have depended on the verdict on his
doubtful sanity, than did the grave, quiet, self-contained man, who
answered all questions so steadily.
The sentence was so far satisfactory that the doctor confirmed
Prometesky's original view, that concussion of the brain, aggravated
by circumstances, had produced the attack, and that there was no
reasonable ground for apprehension of its recurrence, certainly not
of its being hereditary. But he evidently did not like the
confession of the strange horror of dogs, which Harold thought it
right to mention as having been brought on by the circumstances of
his accident, and he would not venture to say that any "exciting
cause" might not more easily affect the brain than if nothing had
ever been amiss. Yet when Dermot tarried, explaining that he was the
brother of a young lady deeply concerned, the doctor assured him that
whereas no living man could be insured from insanity, he should
consider the gentleman he had just seen to be as secure as any one
else, since there was no fear of any hereditary taint, and his having
so entirely outgrown and cast off all traces of the malady was a sign
of his splendid health and vigour of constitution.
Pages:
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337