done for us?"

"It has taught us to be very comfortable in this latter part of the
nineteenth century," Paul replied.

"Has it?" cried the old man, his eyes fixed full upon Henley's face.
"I admit," he continued, "that it has taught us to rely upon luxuries
that eat out the life while pampering the body. It has taught us to
depend upon the poison that paralyzes the will, and that personal
power we were speaking of. It has done much for man, I grant you, but
its efforts have been mainly directed to his destruction."

"No man can be happy without health," answered Paul, "and surely you
will admit that the discoveries of the last few decades have done
much to improve his physical condition."

He was nestling back into the corner of his lounge, where the shadow
of the mantelpiece screened his face, and enabled him to look
directly into Ah Ben's eyes, now fixed upon him with strange
intensity. There was a power behind those eyes that was wont to
impress the beholder with a species of interest which he felt might
be developed into awe; and yet they were neither large nor handsome,
as eyes are generally counted. Deep set, mounted with withered lids
and shaggy brows, their power was due to the manifestation of a
spiritual force, a Titanic will, that made itself felt, independent
of material envelopment. It was the soul looking through the narrow
window of mortality.

"Health?" said Ah Ben, repeating Henley's last idea interrogatively,
and yet scarcely above a whisper.