letter will on the following day be found on a raw and painful wound
not only in the place we selected but on the other arm, in the exactly
corresponding spot, and reversed as though seen in a looking-glass;
and we very justly consider that a physician who does not know this and
similar facts is dangerously behind the times, since the knowledge is
open to all. The inductive reasoning of many thousands of years has
been knocked to pieces in the last century by a few dozen men who have
reasoned little but attempted much. It would be rash to assert that
bodily death may not some day, and under certain conditions, be
altogether escaped. It is nonsense to pretend that human life may not
possibly, and before long, be enormously prolonged, and that by some
shorter cut to longevity than temperance and sanitation. No man can say
that it will, but no man of average intelligence can now deny that it
may.

Unorna had hesitated at the door, and she hesitated now. It was in her
power, and in hers only, to wake the hoary giant, or at least to
modify his perpetual sleep so far as to obtain from him answers to her
questions. It would be an easy matter to lay one hand upon his brow,
bidding him see and speak--how easy, she alone knew. But on the other
hand, to disturb his slumber was to interfere with the continuity of the
great experiment, to break through a rule lately made, to incur the risk
of an accident, if not of death itself.

She drew back at the thought, as though fearing to startle him, and then
she smiled at her own nervousness. To wake him she must exercise her
will. There was no danger of his ever being roused by any sound or touch
not proceeding from herself. The crash of thunder had no reverberation
for his ears, the explosion of a cannon would not have penetrated into
his lethargy. She might touch him, move him, even speak to him, but