community in which the love of knowledge has not always been
accompanied by leisure and opportunity.  It was an element in Dr.
Sloper's reputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly
balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet
there was nothing abstract in his remedies--he always ordered you to
take something.  Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he was
not uncomfortably theoretic, and if he sometimes explained matters
rather more minutely than might seem of use to the patient, he never
went so far (like some practitioners one has heard of) as to trust to
the explanation alone, but always left behind him an inscrutable
prescription.  There were some doctors that left the prescription
without offering any explanation at all; and he did not belong to
that class either, which was, after all, the most vulgar.  It will be
seen that I am describing a clever man; and this is really the reason
why Dr.  Sloper had become a local celebrity.  At the time at which we
are chiefly concerned with him, he was some fifty years of age, and
his popularity was at its height.  He was very witty, and he passed
in the best society of New York for a man of the world--which,
indeed, he was, in a very sufficient degree.  I hasten to add, to
anticipate possible misconception, that he was not the least of a