Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders

18. CHAPTER XVIII. (continued)

"Grammer's a nervous disease, too--how singular!" he answered, accompanying her to the door. "One moment; look at this--it is something which may interest you."

He had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage, and she saw a microscope on the table of the confronting room. "Look into it, please; you'll be interested," he repeated.

She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle of light patterned all over with a cellular tissue of some indescribable sort. "What do you think that is?" said Fitzpiers.

She did not know.

"That's a fragment of old John South's brain, which I am investigating."

She started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it should have got there. Fitzpiers laughed.

"Here am I," he said, "endeavoring to carry on simultaneously the study of physiology and transcendental philosophy, the material world and the ideal, so as to discover if possible a point of contrast between them; and your finer sense is quite offended!"

"Oh no, Mr. Fitzpiers," said Grace, earnestly. "It is not so at all. I know from seeing your light at night how deeply you meditate and work. Instead of condemning you for your studies, I admire you very much!"

Her face, upturned from the microscope, was so sweet, sincere, and self-forgetful in its aspect that the susceptible Fitzpiers more than wished to annihilate the lineal yard which separated it from his own. Whether anything of the kind showed in his eyes or not, Grace remained no longer at the microscope, but quickly went her way into the rain.