CHAPTER V.


Evadne was never a great reader in the sense of being omnivorous in her
choice of books, but she became a very good one. She always had a solid
book in hand, and some standard work of fiction also; but she read both
with the utmost deliberation, and with intellect clear and senses
unaffected by anything. After studying anatomy and physiology, she took up
pathology as a matter of course, and naturally went on from thence to
prophylactics and therapeutics, but was quite unharmed, because she made
no personal application of her knowledge as the coarser mind masculine of
the ordinary medical student is apt to do. She read of all the diseases to
which the heart is subject, and thought of them familiarly as "cardiac
affections," without fancying she had one of them; and she obtained an
extraordinary knowledge of the digestive processes and their ailments
without realizing, that her own might ever be affected. She possessed, in
fact, a mind of exceptional purity as well as of exceptional strength, one
to be enlightened by knowledge, not corrupted; but had it been otherwise
she must certainly have suffered in consequence of the effect of the
curiously foolish limitations imposed upon her by those who had charge of
her conventional education. Subjects were surrounded by mystery which
should have been explained. An impossible ignorance was the object aimed
at, and so long as no word was spoken on either side it was supposed to be
attained. The risk of making mysteries for an active intellect to feed
upon was never even considered, nor did anyone perceive the folly of
withholding positive knowledge, which, when properly conveyed, is the true
source of healthy-mindedness, from a child whose intelligent perception