hours from
nine to ten
Living in the middle of the nineteenth century , and in a hemisphere completely antipodal to that in which Utopia was situated , or `` Bensalem '' dreamed of , the appearance of a good-looking , well-educated , affluent bachelor could not fail to stir all gossipdom to its dreg ; and society , ever tenderly concerned about the individual affairs of its prominent members , was all agog -- busily arranging for the _ ci-devant _ United States Surgeon a programme , than which he would sooner have undertaken the feats of Samson or the Avatars of Vishnu . His published card , announcing the fact that he had permanently located in the city and was a patient candidate for the privilege of setting fractured limbs and administering medicine , somewhat dashed the expectations of many who conjected that the Grey estate could not possibly be worth the amount so long reputed , or the principal heir would certainly not soil his fingers with pills and plasters , instead of sauntering and dawdling with librettos , lorgnettes , meerschaums , and curiously-carved canes cut in the Hebrides or the jungles of Java . Over the door of that office , where the Angel of Death had smitten his father thirty-five years before , a new sign swung in the breeze , and showed the citizens the name of `` Dr. Ulpian Grey . Office hours from nine to ten , and from two to three . '' The members of the profession called formally to welcome him to a share of their annual profits , and collectively gave him a dinner ; the `` best families '' invited him to tea or luncheon , croquet or `` German , '' and thus , having accomplished his professional and social _ début _ , Ulpian Grey , M.D. , henceforth claimed and exercised the privilege of selecting his associates , and employing his time as inclination prompted . In the comprehensive course of study to which he had so long devoted his attention , he had not omitted that immemorial stereotyped volume -- Human Nature -- which , despite the attempted revisions of sages , politicians , and ecclesiastics , remains as immutable as the everlasting hills ; printing upon the leaves of the youngest century phases of guilt and guilelessness which find their prototypes in the gray dawn of time , when the `` morning stars sang together , '' -- yea , busy to-day as of yore , slaughtering Abel , stoning Stephen , fretting Moses , crucifying Christ . Finding much that was admirable , and more that seemed ignoble , he gravely and reverently sought to possess himself of the subtle arcana of this marvellous book , rejecting as equally erroneous and unreliable the magnifying zeal of optimism and the gloomy jaundiced lenses of sneering pessimism , -- thoroughly satisfied that it was a solemn duty , obligatory upon all , to study that complex paradoxical human nature , for the mastery of which Lucifer and Jesus had ceaselessly battled since the day when Adam and Eve were called `` to dress and to keep '' the Garden by the Euphrates , -- that heaven-born , heaven-cursed , restless human nature , which now , as then , -- `` Grasps at the fruitage forbidden , The golden pomegranates of Eden , To quiet its fever and pain . ''