RUSTIC PHILOSOPHY. AN EXPERIMENT UPON MOONSHINE.
_Quien comienza en juventud
A bien obrar,
Señal es de no errar
En senetud._
PROVERBIOS DEL MARQUES DE SANTILLA.
It is not however for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born
to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has
brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is
his portion. Having nothing to desire for himself, Daniel's ambition
had taken a natural direction and fixed upon his son. He was resolved
that the boy should be made a scholar; not with the prospect of
advancing him in the world, but in the hope that he might become a
philosopher, and take as much delight in the books which he would
inherit as his father had done before him. Riches and rank and power
appeared in his judgement to be nothing when compared to philosophy;
and herein he was as true a philosopher as if he had studied in the
Porch, or walked the groves of Academus.
It was not however for this,—for he was as little given to talk of his
opinions as to display his reading,—but for his retired habits, and
general character, and some odd practices into which his books had led
him, that he was commonly called Flossofer Daniel by his neighbours.
The appellation was not affixed in derision, but respectfully and as
his due; for he bore his faculties too meekly ever to excite an
envious or an ill-natured feeling in any one. Rural Flossofers were
not uncommon in those days, though in the progress of society they
have disappeared like Crokers, Bowyers, Lorimers, Armourers, Running
Footmen and other descriptions of men whose occupations are gone by.
But they were of a different order from our Daniel. They were usually
Philomaths, Students in Astrology, or the Cœlestial Science, and not
unfrequently Empirics or downright Quacks. Between twenty and thirty
almanacs used to be published every year by men of this description,
some of them versed enough in mathematics to have done honor to
Cambridge, had the fates allowed; and others such proficients in
roguery, that they would have done equal honor to the whipping-post.
A man of a different stamp from either came in declining life to
settle at Ingleton in the humble capacity of schoolmaster, a little
before young Daniel was capable of more instruction than could be
given him at home. Richard Guy was his name; he is the person to whom
the lovers of old rhyme are indebted for the preservation of the old
poem of Flodden Field, which he transcribed from an ancient
manuscript, and which was printed from his transcript by Thomas Gent
of York. In his way through the world, which had not been along the
King's high Dunstable road, Guy had picked up a competent share of
Latin, a little Greek, some practical knowledge of physic, and more of
its theory; astrology enough to cast a nativity, and more acquaintance
with alchemy than has often been possessed by one who never burnt his
fingers in its processes. These acquirements were grafted on a
disposition as obliging as it was easy; and he was beholden to nature
for an understanding so clear and quick that it might have raised him
to some distinction in the world if he had not been under the
influence of an imagination at once lively and credulous. Five and
fifty years had taught him none of the world's wisdom; they had
sobered his mind without maturing it; but he had a wise heart, and the
wisdom of the heart is worth all other wisdom.
Daniel was too far advanced in life to fall in friendship; he felt a
certain degree of attractiveness in this person's company; there was
however so much of what may better be called reticence than reserve in
his own quiet habitual manners, that it would have been long before
their acquaintance ripened into any thing like intimacy, if an
accidental circumstance had not brought out the latent sympathy which
on both sides had till then rather been apprehended than understood.
They were walking together one day when young Daniel, who was then in
his sixth year, looking up in his father's face proposed this
question: “will it be any harm, Father, if I steal five beans when
next I go into Jonathan Dowthwaites, if I can do it without any one's
seeing me?”
“And what wouldst thou steal beans for?” was the reply, “when any body
would give them to thee, and when thou knowest there are plenty at
home?”
“But it wo'nt do to have them given, Father,” the boy replied. “They
are to charm away my warts. Uncle William says I must steal five
beans, a bean for every wart, and tie them carefully up in paper, and
carry them to a place where two roads cross, and then drop them, and
walk away without ever once looking behind me. And then the warts will
go away from me, and come upon the hands of the person that picks up
the beans.”
“Nay boy,” the Father made answer; “that charm was never taught by a
white witch! If thy warts are a trouble to thee, they would be a
trouble to any one else; and to get rid of an evil from ourselves
Daniel, by bringing it upon another, is against our duty to our
neighbour. Have nothing to do with a charm like that!”
“May I steal a piece of raw beef then,” rejoined the boy, “and rub the
warts with it and bury it? For Uncle says that will do, and as the
beef rots, so the warts will waste away.”
“Daniel,” said the Father, “those can be no lawful charms that begin
with stealing; I could tell thee how to cure thy warts in a better
manner. There is an infallible way, which is by washing the hands in
moonshine, but then the moonshine must be caught in a bright silver
basin. You wash and wash in the basin, and a cold moisture will be
felt upon the hands, proceeding from the cold and moist rays of the
moon.”
“But what shall we do for a silver basin,” said little Daniel?
The Father answered, “a pewter dish might be tried if it were made
very bright; but it is not deep enough. The brass kettle perhaps might
do better.”
“Nay,” said Guy, who had now begun to attend with some interest, “the
shape of a kettle is not suitable. It should be a concave vessel, so
as to concentrate the rays. Joshua Wilson I dare say would lend his
brass basin, which he can very well spare at the hour you want it,
because nobody comes to be shaved by moonlight. The moon rises early
enough to serve at this time. If you come in this evening at six
o'clock I will speak to Joshua in the mean time, and have the basin as
bright and shining as a good scouring can make it. The experiment is
curious and I should like to see it tried. Where Daniel didst thou
learn it?” “I read it,” replied Daniel, “in Sir Kenelm Digby's
Discourses, and he says it never fails.”
Accordingly the parties met at the appointed hour. Mambrino's helmet
when new from the armourers, or when furbished for a tournament, was
not brighter than Guy had rendered the inside of the barber's basin.
Schoolmaster, Father and son retired to a place out of observation, by
the side of the river, a wild stream tumbling among the huge stones
which it had brought down from the hills. On one of these stones sate
Daniel the elder, holding the basin in such an inclination toward the
moon that there should be no shadow in it; Guy directed the boy where
to place himself so as not to intercept the light, and stood looking
complacently on, while young Daniel revolved his hands one in another
within the empty basin, as if washing them. “I feel them cold and
clammy Father!” said the boy. (It was the beginning of November)
“Aye,” replied the father, “that's the cold moisture of the moon!”
“Aye!” echoed the schoolmaster, and nodded his head in confirmation.
The operation was repeated on the two following nights; and Daniel
would have kept up his son two hours later than his regular time of
rest to continue it on the third if the evening had not set in with
clouds and rain. In spite of the patient's belief that the warts would
waste away and were wasting, (for Prince Hohenlohe could not require
more entire faith than was given on this occasion) no alteration could
be perceived in them at a fortnight's end. Daniel thought the
experiment had failed because it had not been repeated sufficiently
often, nor perhaps continued long enough. But the Schoolmaster was of
opinion that the cause of failure was in the basin: for that silver
being the lunar metal would by affinity assist the influential virtues
of the moonlight, which finding no such affinity in a mixed metal of
baser compounds, might contrariwise have its potential qualities
weakened, or even destroyed when received in a brasen vessel, and
reflected from it. Flossofer Daniel assented to this theory.
Nevertheless as the child got rid of his troublesome excrescences in
the course of three or four months, all parties disregarding the lapse
of time at first, and afterwards fairly forgetting it, agreed that the
remedy had been effectual, and Sir Kenelm if he had been living, might
have procured the solemn attestation of men more veracious than
himself that moonshine was an infallible cure for warts.