University of Virginia Library

2. II.
THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.

MY first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments.
These I obtained, after a couple of days'
search, in Fourth Avenue; a very pretty second-floor unfurnished,
containing sitting-room, bedroom, and a smaller
apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and
then devoted all my energies to the adornment of the temple
of my worship. I visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and
passed in review his splendid collection of microscopes, —
Field's Compound, Higham's, Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular,
(that founded on the principles of the stereoscope,) and
at length fixed upon that form known as Spencer's Trunnion
Microscope, as combining the greatest number of improvements
with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along
with this I purchased every possible accessory, — draw-tubes,
micrometers, a camera-lucida, lever-stage, achromatic
condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers,
polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes,
with a host of other articles, all of which would
have been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist,
but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest
present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases.
He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as
some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he inclined
to the latter belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great
genius is mad upon the subject in which he is greatest.
The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.

Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few
scientific students have ever equalled. I had everything to

learn relative to the delicate study upon which I had embarked,
— a study involving the most earnest patience, the
most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand, the most untiring
eye, the most refined and subtile manipulation.

For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the
shelves of my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished
with every possible contrivance for facilitating my
investigations. The fact was that I did not know how to
use some of my scientific accessories, — never having been
taught microscopics, — and those whose use I understood
theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I could
attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was
the fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of
my experiments, that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the
course of one year I became theoretically and practically an
accomplished microscopist.

During this period of my labors, in which I submitted
specimens of every substance that came under my observation
to the action of my lenses, I became a discoverer, — in
a small way, it is true, for I was very young, but still a discoverer.
It was I who destroyed Ehrenberg's theory that
the Volvox globator was an animal, and proved that his
“monads” with stomachs and eyes were merely phases of
the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they
reached their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation,
or any true generative act, without which no organism
rising to any stage of life higher than vegetable can be said
to be complete. It was I who resolved the singular problem
of rotation in the cells and hairs of plants into ciliary
attraction, in spite of the assertions of Mr. Wenham and
others, that my explanation was the result of an optical
illusion.

But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and
painfully made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At
every step I found myself stopped by the imperfections of
my instruments. Like all active microscopists, I gave my
imagination full play. Indeed, it is a common complaint

against many such, that they supply the defects of their instruments
with the creations of their brains. I imagined
depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power
of my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at
night constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable
power, with which I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes
of matter down to its original atom. How I cursed
those imperfect mediums which necessity through ignorance
compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the secret
of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be
limited only by the resolvability of the object, and which at
the same time should be free from spherical and chromatic
aberrations, in short from all the obstacles over which the
poor microscopist finds himself continually stumbling! I
felt convinced that the simple microscope, composed of a
single lens of such vast yet perfect power, was possible of
construction. To attempt to bring the compound microscope
up to such a pitch would have been commencing at
the wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful
endeavor to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument,
which, if conquered, would leave nothing to be
desired.

It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive
microscopist. After another year passed in this new pursuit,
experimenting on every imaginable substance, — glass,
gems, flints, crystals, artificial crystals formed of the alloy
of various vitreous materials, — in short, having constructed
as many varieties of lenses as Argus had eyes, I found myself
precisely where I started, with nothing gained save an
extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost dead
with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent
want of progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended
one lecture since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses
of my mad pursuit had been so great as to embarrass me
very seriously.

I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in
my laboratory on a small diamond, — that stone, from its

great refracting power, having always occupied my attention
more than any other, — when a young Frenchman, who
lived on the floor above me, and who was in the habit of occasionally
visiting me, entered the room.

I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits
of the Hebrew character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of
good living. There was something mysterious about him.
He always had something to sell, and yet went into excellent
society. When I say sell, I should perhaps have said
peddle; for his operations were generally confined to the
disposal of single articles, — a picture, for instance, or a
rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the
dress of a Mexican caballero. When I was first furnishing
my rooms, he paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing
an antique silver lamp, which he assured me was a Cellini,
— it was handsome enough even for that, —and some
other knickknacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He
apparently had plenty of money, and had the entrée of the
best houses in the city, — taking care, however, I suppose,
to drive no bargains within the enchanted circle of the
Upper Ten. I came at length to the conclusion that this
peddling was but a mask to cover some greater object, and
even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to be
implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of
my affair.

On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a
state of considerable excitement.

“Ah! mon ami!” he cried, before I could even offer
him the ordinary salutation, “it has occurred to me to be
the witness of the most astonishing things in the world. I
promenade myself to the house of Madame —. How
does the little animal — le renard — name himself in the
Latin?”

“Vulpes,” I answered.

“Ah! yes, — Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house
of Madame Vulpes.”

“The spirit medium?”

“Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman!
I write on a slip of paper many of questions concerning
affairs the most secret, — affairs that conceal
themselves in the abysses of my heart the most profound;
and behold! by example! what occurs! This devil of a
woman makes me replies the most truthful to all of them.
She talks to me of things that I do not love to talk of to
myself. What am I to think? I am fixed to the earth!”

“Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs.
Vulpes replied to questions secretly written by you, which
questions related to events known only to yourself?”

“Ah! more than that, more than that,” he answered,
with an air of some alarm. “She related to me things —
But,” he added, after a pause, and suddenly changing his
manner, “why occupy ourselves with these follies? It was
all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without saying that
it has not my credence. But why are we here, mon ami?
It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing
as you can imagine, — a vase with green lizards on it, composed
by the great Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment;
let us mount. I go to show it to you.”

I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were
far from Palissy and his enamelled ware, although I, like
him, was seeking in the dark after a great discovery. This
casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame Vulpes, set me
on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be really
a great fact? What if, through communication with subtiler
organisms than my own, I could reach, at a single
bound, the goal which perhaps a life of agonizing mental
toil would never enable me to attain?

While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon,
I was mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.