University of Virginia Library

1. I.
THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.

FROM a very early period of my life the entire bent
of my inclinations had been towards microscopic
investigations. When I was not more than ten
years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish
my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me,
by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop
of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This
very primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters,
presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but
still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination to a
preternatural state of excitement.

Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my
cousin explained to me all that he knew about the principles
of the microscope, related to me a few of the wonders which
had been accomplished through its agency, and ended by
promising to send me one regularly constructed, immediately
on his return to the city. I counted the days, the
hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
and his departure.

Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance
that bore the remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized
upon and employed in vain attempts to realize that instrument,
the theory of whose construction I as yet only vaguely

comprehended. All panes of glass containing those oblate
spheroidal knots familiarly known as “bull's eyes” were
ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining lenses of marvellous
power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline
humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead
guilty to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's
spectacles, with a dim idea of grinding them into lenses of
wondrous magnifying properties, — in which attempt it is
scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.

At last the promised instrument came. It was of that
order known as Field's simple microscope, and had cost
perhaps about fifteen dollars. As far as educational purposes
went, a better apparatus could not have been selected.
Accompanying it was a small treatise on the microscope, —
its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then for
the first time the “Arabian Nights' Entertainments.” The
dull veil of ordinary existence that hung across the world
seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments.
I felt towards my companions as the seer
might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations
with Nature in a tongue which they could not
understand. I was in daily communication with living
wonders, such as they never imagined in their wildest visions.
I penetrated beyond the external portal of things,
and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld
only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I
saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions
common to physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere
with struggles as fierce and protracted as those of men. In
the common spots of mould, which my mother, good house-keeper
that she was, fiercely scooped away from her jam
pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew, enchanted
gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits
glittering with green and silver and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind.
It was the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders
has been disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures
to none. Alone with my microscope, I dimmed my sight,
day after day and night after night poring over the marvels
which it unfolded to me. I was like one who, having discovered
the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive
glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray
to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life
was bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer.
I was ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute
intellects engaged in the same pursuit as myself, and with
the advantages of instruments a thousand times more powerful
than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek, Williamson,
Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schleiden
were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In
every fresh specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath
my instrument, I believed that I discovered wonders
of which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember well
the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me the
first time that I discovered the common wheel animalcule
(Rotifera vulgaris) expanding and contracting its flexible
spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas!
as I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my
favorite study, I found that I was only on the threshold of
a science to the investigation of which some of the greatest
men of the age were devoting their lives and intellects.

As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood
of anything practical resulting from the examination of bits
of moss and drops of water through a brass tube and a
piece of glass, were anxious that I should choose a profession.
It was their desire that I should enter the counting-house
of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant,
who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I

decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should
only make a failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.

But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My
parents were staid New England people, who insisted on
the necessity of labor; and therefore, although, thanks to
the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, I should, on coming
of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place me above
want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for this, I
should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
in rendering myself independent.

After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my
family, and selected a profession. I determined to study
medicine at the New York Academy. This disposition of
my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would
enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased, without fear
of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might
shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
the remotest intention of standing an examination, there
was no danger of my being “plucked.” Besides, a metropolis
was the place for me. There I could obtain excellent
instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with men of
pursuits kindred to my own, — in short, all things necessary
to insure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved
science. I had an abundance of money, few desires that
were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side
and my object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to
prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of the
veiled worlds? It was with the most buoyant hopes that I
left my New England home and established myself in New
York.