we must go by general laws, and not by exceptions."

"Have you never known instances--do you not at this moment know one--in
which a patient whose malady baffles the doctor's skill, imagines or
dreams of a remedy? Call it a whim if you please, learned sir; do you not
listen to the whim, and, in despair of your own prescriptions, comply with
those of the patient?"

Faber changed countenance, and even started. Margrave watched him and
laughed.

"You grant that there are such cases, in which the patient gives the law
to the physician. Now, apply your experience to my case. Suppose some
strange fancy had seized upon my imagination--that is the doctor's cant
word for all phenomena which we call exceptional--some strange fancy that
I had thought of a cure for this disease for which you have no drugs; and
suppose this fancy of mine to be so strong, so vivid, that to deny me its
gratification would produce the very emotion from which you warn me as
fatal,--storm the heart, that you would soothe to repose, by the passions
of rage and despair,--would you, as my trusted physician, concede or deny
me my whim?"

"Can you ask? I should grant it at once, if I had no reason to know that
the thing that you fancied was harmful."

"Good man and wise doctor! I have no other question to ask. I thank
you."

Faber looked hard on the young, wan face, over which played a smile of
triumph and irony; then turned away with an expression of doubt and