THE CALL OF THE LAND 



more than the doses he gives ; that his pow- 

 ders, pellets, salves and lotions are as good 

 as impotent unless administered with a cer- 

 tain virtue of sympathy going out of him, 

 quickening and healing. It is a measure- 

 less credit to the profession that so vast a 

 majority of its members keep up a genuinely 

 humane spirit while all the time dealing 

 with abnormal and morbid conditions. 



Physic is sometimes stigmatized as by 

 eminence the inspiration of unbelief. The 

 dissecting room is called the school of 

 atheism. A limb here, a head there, the 

 body dismembered, desecrated, the ques- 

 tion "Where is the soul that unified, vital- 

 ized, inspirited?" is not always answered 

 as a modern poet* answers it: 



"Death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust. 



'Dissolve!' says Death. The Spirit, 



'Sir, I have another trust.' 



Death doubts it, argues from the ground ; the Spirit 



turns away, 

 Just laying off, for evidence, an overcoat of clay." 



But reflection reveals even to the anato- 

 mist that the poet is right, or at least as likely 



* Emily Dickinson. 



350 



