human
Why, what's the matter? he demanded.
gpt
Heard some bad news?
human
she choked out;
gpt
And where did you hear that?
human
Oh, doctor--I'm so ashamed! But if you'll only give me another chance! If you'll just not give me up for a little while yet!
gpt
Give you up! Now what kind of reviving fluid did Miss Lewis produce for you? What in the world are you talking about? Do you think you're any grand exception in not seeing your first operation through? Hum! Ask some of these nurses around here. Some of the doctors too, only they won't tell the truth. My first day in the dissecting room was a day of about thirty minutes. So you see you have plenty of company in your weak-mindedness.
human
But it's humiliating, doctor, to think you're going to accomplish some big thing and then be absolutely overcome by a little incidental thing that doesn't happen to appeal to your senses. It's awful to have your senses get ahead of your soul like that,
gpt
Hum! --Dr. Parkman had a
human
all his own.
gpt
There's nothing unique in that experience, either. The spirit is willing, but the stomach is weak--to put it in exact terms. As a matter of fact, that's what life is made up of--having great purposes overthrown by minor inconveniences. Many a man can get hold of a great idea, but very few of them can stick by it through the things that make them uncomfortable. That's the reason most dreamers fail--they're not willing to come down out of the clouds and get to work at things that turn their stomachs!
human
Well, I'm not like that!
gpt
You? I know you're not. Some ancestor of yours gave you a big bump of stubbornness--for which you should look back to him with gratitude. Stubborn people aren't easily put out of the race. Now I'll tell you why I wanted you to come down here, he went on, more seriously.
human
I want you to see the thing just as it is. I want you to get the conception of it as a whole. I don't want you to become short-sighted. Some people look so much through the microscope that they forget how to look any other way. That's the difference between Karl and some of those fellows you're associated with now. That Willard and Lane and young Beason are the scientific kind, too abominably scientific to forge ahead. Don't lose sight of what you are doing. All these things you are doing now are simply a means to an end. You are to be one of the instruments employed--as you put it yourself one day--but make yourself such a highly-organised, responsive instrument that you're fairly alive with the idea yourself. See? That's where your real value will come in. You know, --it was Dr. Parkman now who breathed the enthusiasm which draws one to a light out beyond obstacle and difficulty--
gpt
I'm beginning to see the thing more and more as actual fact. I caught the idea from the first, and then it seemed it simply had to be done because it was such a great thing to do, but I'm getting it more and more now just as a practical, matter-of-fact thing. And it isn't so far away,--not so very. You see, after all, Mrs. Hubers, you don't have to do it all. It would be stupid to set a race horse at a job that could be just as well accomplished by a plug. Any well-trained man can do certain things for Karl--but it's the touch of the artist--the things that make it real--it's making the blind man see--doing the impossible!--that's your work. Why, I can fairly see the whole thing, he went on--
human
Karl and you and some good assistant. He'll get both points of view then--he can't miss anything. The other fellow can give him certain technicalities you might miss--and then you'll turn in and bring it to his vision. A clear statement of facts could never make a blind man see. And then it will be your business to keep the spirit right--that's the real point, after all. Why, I can see it just as clearly as I could see that work to be done in there!