The remarkable--I might even say amazing--personal adventures which I am
about to relate occurred quite recently.
They are so full of interest to myself and to my old mother, that I
hasten to write them down while yet vivid and fresh in my memory, in the
hope that they may prove interesting,--to say nothing of elevating and
instructive--to the English-speaking portions of the human race
throughout the world.
The dear old lady to whom I have just referred--my mother--is one of the
gentlest, meekest, tenderest beings of my acquaintance. Her regard for
me is almost idolatrous. My feelings towards her are tinged with
adoration.
From my earliest years I have been addicted to analysis.
Some of my younger readers may not perhaps know that by analysis is
meant the reduction of compound things to their elements--the turning of
things, as it were, inside out and tearing them to pieces. All the
complex toys of infancy I was wont to reduce to their elements; I turned
them inside out to see what they were made of, and how they worked. A
doll, not my own, but my sister Bella's, which had moveable eyelids and
a musical stomach, was treated by me in this manner, the result being
that I learned little, while my poor sister suffered much. Everything
in my father's house suffered more or less from this inquiring tendency
of my mind.
Time, however, while it did not abate my thirst for knowledge, developed
my constructive powers. I became a mechanician and an inventor.
Perpetual motion was my first hobby. Six times during the course of
boyhood did I burst into my mother's presence with the astounding news
that I had "discovered it at last!" The mild and trustful being
believed me. Six times also was I compelled to acknowledge to her that
I had been mistaken, and again she believed me, more thoroughly,
perhaps, than at first. No one, I think, can form the least idea of the
delight with which I pursued this mechanical will-o'-the-wisp.
Growing older, I took to chemistry, and here my love for research and
analysis found ample scope, while the sufferings of my father's
household were intensified. I am not naturally cruel--far from it.
They little knew how much pain their sufferings caused me; how earnestly
I endeavoured to lessen or neutralise the nuisances which the pursuit of
science entailed. But I could not consume my own smoke, or prevent
explosions, or convert bad and suffocating odours into sweet smells.
Settling down to this new pursuit with intense enthusiasm, I soon began
to flow in my natural course, and sought to extend the bounds of
chemical knowledge. I could not help it. The particular direction in
which my interest ultimately became concentrated was that of explosives.
After becoming acquainted with gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, dynamite,
lithofracteur, and other combinations of powerfully-explosive agents, I
took to searching for and inventing methods by which these might be
utilised. To turn everything to good account, is a desire which I
cannot resist.
Explosives naturally drew my attention to mines--tin-mines, coal-mines,
and other commercial enterprises. They also suggested war and
torpedoes.
At that time I had not reflected on the nature of war. I merely knew it
to be a science, cultivated chiefly by the human race, and that in its
practice explosives are largely used. To "blow-up" effectively, whether
in a literal or figurative sense, is difficult. To improve this power
in war, and in the literal sense, I set myself to work. I invented a
torpedo, which seemed to me better than any that had yet been brought
out. To test its powers, I made a miniature fortification, and blew it
up. I also blew up our groom, Jacob Lancey.