It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done
if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look
at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital
aspect, the knowledge of the brain?
Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the fancy of
even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared
with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain knowledge would be
as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of
this, or I may be tempted. A good cause might turn the scale with me, for may
not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally?
How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope. I
wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the
account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How many of us begin a
new record with each day of our lives?
To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and
that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great Recorder sums
me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss.
Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend
whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work!
Work!
If I could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good,
unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness.
MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL
26 July.--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here. It is like
whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there is also
something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I
am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for
some time, and was very concerned, but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is
always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had
heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated
from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not
like Jonathan. I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy.
Then, too, Lucy , although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit
of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have
decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night.
Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of
houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall
over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place.
Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her
husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit, that he would get up in the night
and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped.
Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her
dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do
the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and
shall have to try to make both ends meet.
Mr. Holmwood, he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming, is
coming up here very shortly, as soon as he can leave town, for his father is
not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes.
She wants to take him up in the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him
the beauty of Whitby.
I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her. She will be all right when he
arrives.