THE PURSUIT OF SCIENCE.
Many people seem to find the world grow worse, the more they have of it;
that they may be ready to go perhaps to a higher and better region. But
never has this been the case with me, although I am a staunch
Conservative. My settled opinion is that nature (bearing in her reticule
the human atom) changes very slowly, so that boys are boys, through
rolling ages; even as Adam must have been, if he had ever been a boy.
At any rate, the boys at Dr. Rumbelow's were not so much better than
boys are now, as to be quoted against them. They certainly seem to have
had more courage, more common-sense, and simplicity, together with less
affectation, daintiness, vanity, and pretension. But, on the other hand,
they were coarser, wilder, and more tyrannical, and rejoiced more freely
than their sons do now, in bullying the little ones. The first thing a
new boy had to settle was his exact position in the school; not in point
of scholarship, or powers of the mind, but as to his accomplishments at
fisticuff. His first duty was to arrange his schoolfellows in three
definite classes--those who could whack him and he must abide it, those
he would hit again if they hit him, and those he could whack without
any danger, whenever a big fellow had whacked him. Knowledge of the
world, and of nature also, was needed for making this arrangement well:
to over-esteem, or to undervalue self, brought black eyes perpetual, or
universal scorn.
But to me, alas, no political study of this kind was presented. All the
other boys could whack me, and expostulation led to more. Because I was
the smallest, and most peaceful, among all the little ones, and the
buoyancy of my nature made a heavy blow impossible. Yet upon the whole,
the others were exceedingly kind and good to me, rejoicing to ply me
with countless nicknames, of widely various grades of wit, suggested by
my personal appearance, and the infirmity of lightness. Tom-tit,
Butterfly-Upmore, Flying Tommy, and Skylark, were some of the names that
I liked best, and answered to most freely; while I could not bear to be
called Soap-suds, Bubbly, Blue-bottle, or Blow-me-tight. But whatever it
was, it served its turn; and the boy, who had been witty at my expense,
felt less disposed to knock me.
But, even as with the full-grown public, opinion once formed is loth to
budge, so with these boys it was useless to argue, that having flown
once, I could not again do it. If they would have allowed me simply to
maintain the opposite, or to listen mutely to their proofs, it would
have been all right for either side. But when they came pricking me up,
with a pin in the end of a stick, or a two-pronged fork (such as used to
satisfy a biped with his dinner, and a much better dinner then he gets
now), endeavouring also to urge me on high, by an elevating grasp of my
hair and ears, you may well believe me, when I say how sadly I lamented
my exploit above. I was ready to go up, I was eager to go up; not only
to satisfy public demand, but also to get out of the way of it; and more
than once I did go up, some few inches, in virtue of the tugs above, and
pricks in lower parts of me. But no sooner did I begin to rise, with
general expectation raised, and more forks ready to go into me, than
down I always came again, calling in vain for my father and mother,
because I could not help it.
Upon such occasions, no one had the fairness to allow for my
circumstances. Every one vowed that I could fly as well as ever, if I
tried in earnest; and I was too young to argue with them, and point out
the real cause; to wit the large and substantial feeding, in which I
employed my Sundays. By reason of this I returned to school, every
Monday morning, with a body as heavy as my mind almost; and to stir up
either of them was useless, for a long time afterwards.
As ill luck would have it, it was on a Monday, that science made her
next attack on me. And now let me say, that if ever you find me (from
your own point of view) uncandid, bigoted, narrow-minded, unsynthetical,
unphilosophical, or anything else that is wicked and low, when it fails
to square with theories,--in the spirit of fair play you must remember
what a torment science has been to me.
Five of them came, on that Monday afternoon, four in a four-wheeler, and
one on the dicky; and we had a boy who could see things crooked, through
some peculiar cast of eye, and though the windows were six feet over
his head, he told us all about it, and we knew that he was right.
Presently in came the doctor's page (a boy who was dressed like Mercury,
but never allowed in the schoolroom, unless he had urgent cause to
show); his name was Bob Jackson, and we had rare larks with his clothes,
whenever we got hold of him--and he waved above his head, as his orders
were to do, a very big letter for the doctor. Every boy of us rushed
into a certainty of joy--away with books, and away to play! But woe,
instead of bliss, was the order of the day. Dr. Rumbelow never allowed
himself to be hurried, or flurried, by anything, except the appearance
of his babies; and when he was made, as he was by and by, a Bishop, for
finding out something in Lycophron, that nobody else could make head or
tail of, he is said to have taken his usual leisure, in loosing the
button enforced by Mrs. Rumbelow, ere ever he broke the Prime Minister's
seal.
"Boys," he said now, after looking at us well, to see if anybody wanted
caning, "lads who combine the discipline of Sparta with the versatile
grace of Athens, Mr. Smallbones will now attend to you. Under his
diligent care, you will continue your studies eagerly. In these
degenerate days, hard science tramples on the arts more elegant. Happy
are ye, who can yet devote your hours to the lighter muses. At the stern
call of science (who has no muse, but herself is an Erinnys), I leave
you in the charge of Mr. Smallbones. Icarillus, you will follow me, and
bring the light cane, with the ticket No. 7. A light cane is sweeter for
very little boys."
My heart went down to my heels, while bearing my fate in my hands, I
followed him. Conscience had often reproached me, for not being able to
fly, to please the boys. Universal consent had declared that it all was
my fault, and I ought to pay out for it. What was the use of my trying
to think that the world was all wrong, and myself alone right? Very
great men, like Athanasius, might be able to believe it; but a poor
little Tommy like me could not. But I tried hard to say to the doctor's
coat-tails, "Oh, please not to do it, sir, if you can please to help
it."
Dr. Rumbelow turned, as we crossed a stone passage (where my knees
knocked together from the want of echo, and a cold shiver crept into my
bones), and, seeing the state of my mind and body, and no boy anywhere
near us, he could not help saying, "My poor Icarillus, cheer up, rouse
up, _tharsei_! The Romans had no brief forms of encouragement, because
they never required it. But the small and feeble progeny of this
decadent country--Don't cry, brave Icarillus; don't cry, poor little
fellow; none shall touch you but myself. What terror hath invaded you?"
The doctor stooped, and patted my head, which was covered with thick
golden curls, and I raised my streaming eyes to him, and pointed with
one hand at the cane, which was trembling in my other hand. My master
indulged in some Latin quotation, or it may have been Greek for aught I
know, and then translated, and amplified it, as his manner was with a
junior pupil.
"Boys must weep. This has been ordained most wisely by the immortal
gods, to teach them betimes the lesson needed in the human life, more
often than any other erudition. But, alas for thee, poor Icaridion! it
seems, as from the eyes afar, a thing unjust, and full of _thambos_. For
thou hast not aimed at, nor even desired, the things that are unlawful,
but rather hast been ensnared therein, by means of some necessity hard
to be avoided. Therefore I say again, cheer up, Tommy! Science may vaunt
herself, as being the mistress of the now happening day, and of that
which has been ordained to follow; but I am the master of my own cane.
Thomas Upmore, none shall smite thee."
A glow of joy came into my heart, and dried up my tears in a wink or
two, for we knew him to be a true man of his word, whether to cane, or
to abstain; and if the professors had kept in the background, I might
have soared up for them, then and there. But it never is their nature to
do that; and before I had time to be really happy, four out of the five
were upon me. Hearing the doctor's fine loud voice, they could no more
contain themselves, but dashed out upon us, like so many dragons, on the
back of their own eminence--Professors Brachipod, and Jargoon,
Chocolous, and Mullicles; than whom are none more eminent on the roll of
modern science. The fifth, and greatest of them all, whose name shall
never be out-rubbed by time, but cut deeper every year, Professor
Megalow, sat calmly on a three-legged stool, which he had found.
None of these learned gentlemen had seen my little self before; and an
earnest desire arose in my mind, that not one of them ever should see me
again. Their eyes were beaming with intellect, and their arms spread out
like sign-posts; and I made off at once, without waiting to think, till
the doctor's deep voice stopped me.
"Icarillus," he said, and though he could not catch them, my legs could
go no further, "Athena, the Muses, and Phoebus himself, command thee to
face the enemy. This new, and prosaic, and uncouth power, which calls
itself 'science,' as opposed to learning, wisdom, and large
philosophy--excuse me, gentlemen, I am speaking in the abstract--this
arrogant upstart is so rampant, because people run away from her. Tommy,
come hither; these gentlemen are kind, very kind--don't be afraid,
Tommy; you may stand in the folds of my gown, if you like. Answer any
question they may ask, and fly again, if they can persuade you.
Professors Brachipod, and Jargoon, Chocolous, and Mullicles, my little
pupil is at your service."
Beginning to feel my own importance, I began to grow quite brave almost,
and ventured to take down my hands from my face, and turn round a
little, and peep from the corners of my eyes at these great magicians.
And as soon as I saw, that the foremost of them had been carried out of
our house by father, and sent away over the cinder-heaps, there came a
sort of rising in my mind, which told me to try to stick up to them. And
when they fell out one with another, as they lost no time in doing, they
made me think somehow about the old women who came to pick over our
ash-heaps--until through the doorway I saw another face, the kindest and
grandest I ever had seen, the face of Professor Megalow.
Before I had time to get afraid again, there was no chance left to run
away; for the four professors had occupied all the four sides of my
body. They poked me, and pulled me in every direction, and felt every
tender part of me, and would have been glad to unbutton my raiment, if
the master had allowed it. And they used such mighty words as nobody may
reproduce correctly, unless he was born, or otherwise endowed, with a
ten-chain tape at the back of his tongue. Every one talked, as fast as
if the rest were listening eagerly; and every one listened, as much as
if the rest had nought to say to him. For all worked different walks of
science, and each was certain that the other's walk was crooked.
I assure you, that this was a very difficult thing for me to deal with,
having so many tongues going on about me, and so many hands going into
me, and a strong pull in one direction, crossed by a stronger push in
the other. Moreover, two learned gentlemen wanted to throw me up
perpendicular; while other two, of equal learning, would launch me on
high horizontally. Between, and among, and amid them all, there was like
to be nothing but specimens left of unfortunate Tommy Upmore.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" shouted Dr. Rumbelow; but they did not answer to
that name. "Professors, professors, forbear, I beseech you. Is this
scientific investigation? I will have no vivisection here"--for they
hurt me so much, that I now screamed out--"I am sorry to lay hands upon
you, but humanity compels me. Now, unless you all sit down, I shall send
Argeiphontes for the police. I grieve that you drive me to such strong
measures. But I cannot have my little Icarus treated like Orpheus, or
Actæon."
Luckily for me the doctor's body might vie with his mind in grasp of
subject; and he soon had Professors Brachipod, Jargoon, and Mullicles
seated in their chairs. But the fourth professor (whose name was
Chocolous, and himself a foreigner of some kind) entreated that he might
not be compelled to sit.
"Not for five, six, seven year, have I seet in ze shair," he cried, with
his arms spread out, and his back in a shake against some degradation;
"I must not, and I will not, seet. Herr Doctor, in many languages
laboriously excellent, present not to me zis grade indignity. I vill
keek, if you not leave off."
He was very angry, but his friends seemed to enjoy it.
"Oblige me, gentlemen," said Dr. Rumbelow, decorously quitting this
excitement, "by telling me, why your learned friend resists my kindly
efforts. When the body is seated, the mind is calm. What find we in
Plato upon that subject? Not only once, but even thrice, in a single
dialogue, we discover, directly and inferentially----"
"A flip for those old codgers, sir!" exclaimed Professor Brachipod.
"Chocolous knows more than fifty Platos, though his leading idea is
fundamentally erroneous"--("I say nah, I say non, I say bosh!" broke in
Professor Chocolous)--"his leading idea that the human race may recover
its primordial tail, by abstaining, for only a few generations----"
"Seven chenerations, first; and when he have attained one yoint, seven
more. I am ze first. But in two, tree, four hundred year, continued in
ze female line, wizout ever going upon ze shair----"
"Shut up, Chocolous!" broke in Professor Mullicles. "How can molecular
accretion ever be affected by human habitude? 'Tis a simple inversion
of the fundamental process. Every schoolboy now is perfectly aware, that
the protoplasmatic anthropomorphism was a single joint of tail.
Molecular accretion immediately commenced; and the result--is such a
fellow as you are."
"And such a fellow as Professor Megalow," the little German answered,
with quiet self-respect; "if I vos one, he vos ze oder. Professor
Megalow, vot for, you stay back so?"
"My reason for staying back so, as our learned friend expresses it,"
said the tall man, with the kind and noble face, at last advancing, "is
that the matter now in hand, though deeply interesting, and (to judge by
results) even highly exciting, is one that I have never dealt with. When
I was kindly asked to come, I was very glad to do so. But with your good
leave, I will form no opinion; until I find some grounds for it."
The four men of science were struck dumb, at the rashness of such a
resolution; while Dr. Rumbelow took advantage of their amazement, to say
a word.
"Professor Megalow, allow me the honour of shaking hands with you, sir.
You speak like a genuine acolyte of that glorious sage, Pythagoras. The
ereneuticon, in all truth, must precede the hermeneuticon. Whenever you
like to examine Tommy, he shall be at your service."
This offer was highly disinterested; but I did not enjoy its
magnanimity, especially as my protector now became so engrossed with the
great professor, that he quite forgot poor little me.
"Now is your time, to go through with the question," spake the
arch-enemy, Brachipod, "which, beyond all doubt, is nothing more than a
case of organic levigation----"
"Levigation be d--d!" cried Professor Jargoon. "Any fool can see, that
it is gaseous expansion."
"Gaseous expansion is bosh, bosh, bosh," shouted Professor Chocolous;
"ze babe, zat vos born a veek longer dis day, vill tell you--bacilli,
bacilli!"
"How pleasant it would be, to hear all this nonsense," declared
Professor Mullicles, "if ignorance were not so dogmatic! The merest
neophyte would recognise, at once, this instance of histic fluxion."
Without any delay, a great uproar arose, and the four professors rushed
at me, to save rushing at one another. My heart fell so low, that I
could not run away, though extremely desirous of doing so; and the
utmost I could manage was to get behind a chair, and sing out for my
father and mother. This only redoubled their zeal, and I might not have
been alive now to speak of it, had not Professor Brachipod pulled out an
implement like a butcher's steelyard, and swung back the others, with a
sweep of it.
"He belongs to me. It was I who found him out. I will have the very
first turn at him," he cried. "I'll knock on the head any man, who
presumes to prevent me from proving my theory. Just hold him tight,
while I get this steel hook firmly into his collar. Now are you
satisfied? This proves everything. Can this levigation be d--d, Jargoon?
All his weight is a pound and five ounces!"
He turned round in triumph, and a loud laugh met him. He was weighing my
jacket, without me inside it. For mother had told me, a hundred times,
that a child had much better be killed, than weighed. At the fright of
his touch, I slipped out of my sleeves, and set off at the top of my
speed away. In the passage, I found a side door open, and without
looking back dashed through it.
"Go it, little 'un!" a cabman cried, the very man who had brought mine
enemies; and go it I did, like a bird on the wing, without any knowledge
of the ground below. Some of our boys, looking out of a window, called
out, "Well done, Tommy! You'll win the--" something, it may have been
the Derby, I went too fast to hear what it was. Short as my legs were,
they flew like the spokes of a wheel that can never be counted; and I
left a mail-cart, and a butcher's cart too, out of sight, though they
tried to keep up with me. Such was my speed, on the wings of the wind,
with my linen inflated, and my hair blown out,--the nimblest professor,
that ever yet rushed to a headlong conclusion, were slow to me. In a
word, I should have distanced all those enemies, had I only taken the
right road home.
But alas, when I came to the top of a rise, from which I expected to see
my dear parents, or at any rate our cinder-heap, there was nothing of
the kind in sight. The breeze had swept me up the Barnet road; and
yonder was the smoke of our chimney, like a streak, a mile away down to
the left of me. All the foot of the hill, which is now panelled out into
walls, and streets, of the great cattle-market, remained to be crossed,
without help of the wind, ere ever I was safe inside our door. And the
worst of it was, that the ground had no cover,--not a house, nor a
tree, nor so much as a ditch, for a smallish boy to creep along; only
piles of rubbish, here and there, and a few swampy places, where snipes
sometimes pitched down, to have a taste of London.
Tired as I was, after that great run, and scant of breath, and
faint-hearted--for the sun was gone down below Highgate Hill, and my
spirits ever seem to sink with him--I started anew for my own sweet
home, by the mark of the smoke of our boiling-house. I could hear my
heart going pit-a-pat, faster than my weary feet went; for the place was
as lonely as science could desire, for a snug job of vivisection. Of
that grisly horror I knew not as yet the name, nor the meaning
precisely; but a boy at our school, who was a surgeon's son, used to
tell things, in bed, there was no sleeping after. And once he had said,
"If they could catch you, Tommy, what a treat you would be, to be
lectured on!"
As the dusk grew deeper in the hollow places, and the ribs of the naked
hills paler, I began to get more and more afraid, and to start back, and
listen at my own footstep. And before I could hear what I hoped to
hear--the anvil of the blacksmith down our lane--the air began to
thicken with the reeking of the earth, and the outline of everything in
sight was blurred, and a very tired fellow could not tell, at any
moment, what to run away from, without running into worse. At one time,
I thought of sitting down, and hiding in a dip of the ground, till night
came on, and my enemies could not see me; but although that might have
been the safest plan, my courage would not hold out for it. So on I
went, in fear and trembling, peeping, and peering, both behind me and
before, and longing with all my heart to see our own door.
But instead of that, oh, what a sight I saw--the most fearful that can
be imagined! From the womb of the earth, those four professors (whose
names are known all over it), Brachipod, Jargoon, Chocolous, and
Mullicles, came forth, and joined hands in front of me. They laughed,
with a low scientific laugh, like a surgical blade on the grindstone.
"Capital, capital!" Brachipod cried; "we have got him all snug to
ourselves, at last. Let me get my hook into my pretty little eel."
"Famous, famous!" said the deep voice of Jargoon; "now you shall see,
how I work my compressor."
"Hoch, hoch!" chuckled Chocolous; "ve have catch ze leetle baird at
last. I vill demonstrate his bacilli."
But the one that terrified me most of all was Professor Mullicles;
because he said nothing, but kept one hand, upon something, that shone
from his long black cloak.
"Oh, gentlemen, kind gentle gentlemen," I sobbed, dropping down on my
knees before them, "do please let me go to my father, and mother. They
live close by, and they think so much of me, and I am sure they would
pay you, for all your inventions, a great deal more than the Government.
I only flew once, and I didn't mean to fly, and I am sure it must have
been a mistake altogether; and I will promise, upon my Sammy, as Bill
Chumps says, not to do it any more. Oh, please to let me go! It is so
late; and I beg your pardon humbly."
"Eloquent, and aerial Tommy," replied that dreadful Brachipod, "this
case is too momentous, in the interests of pure science, for selfish
motives to be recognized. It will be your lofty privilege, to abstract
yourself, to revert to the age of unbroken continuity, when that which
is now called Tommy was an atom of protobioplasm----"
"Stow that rubbish," broke in Jargoon.
"Ach, ach, ach! All my yaw is on the edge!" screamed Chocolous, dancing
with his hands up.
"Proto-potatoes!" spoke Mullicles sternly, advancing to support his view
of me.
"D--n," exclaimed all of them, unanimous for once, when there was no
view of me to be had; "was there ever such a little devil? After him,
after him! He can't get away."
"Can't he?" thought I, though I did not dare to speak, having not a
single pant of breath to spare. For, while I was down on my knees for
mercy, through the tears in my eyes, I had seen a lamp lit. I knew where
that lamp was, and all about it, having broken the glass of it, once or
twice, and lamps were a rarity in Maiden Lane as yet. It was not a
quarter of a mile away, and the light of it shone upon my own white
pillow.
So when those philosophers parted hands, to shake fists at one another,
out of the scientific ring I slipped, and made off, for the life of me.
My foes were not very swift of foot, and none of them would let another
get before him; so that, if I had been fresh and bold, even without any
breeze to help me, I might have outstripped them easily. But my legs
were tired, and my mind dismayed; and the scientific terms, in which
they called on me to stop, were enough to make any one stick fast. And
the worst of it was, that having no coat on, I was very conspicuous in
the dusk, and had no chance of dodging to the right or left. So that I
could hear them gaining on me, and my lungs were too exhausted for me to
scream out for father.
Thus, within an apple-toss of our back door, and with nothing but a
down-hill slope, between me and our garden, those four ogres of grim
science had me lapsing back into their grasp again. Their hands were
stretched forth, in pursuit of my neck, and their breath was like flame
at the tips of my ears--when a merciful Providence delivered me. I felt
something quivering under my feet; over which I went lightly, with a
puff of wind lifting the hollows of my hair, and shirt-sleeves. In an
instant, I landed on a bank of slag; but behind me was a fearful
four-fold splash!
So absorbing was my terror, and so scattered were my wits, that for ever
so long I could not make out, what had happened betwixt me and my
pursuers, except that I was safe, and they were not. There they were,
struggling, and sputtering, and kicking--so much at least as could be
seen of them--throwing up their elbows, or their heels, or heads, and
execrating nature (when their mouths were clear to do it) in the very
shortest language, that has ever been evolved. At the same time, a smell
(even stronger than their words) arose, and grew so thick, that they
could scarcely be seen through it.
This told me, at once, what had befallen them, or rather what they had
fallen into,--videlicet, the cleaning of our vats, together with Mr.
John Windsor's; whose refuse and scouring is run away in trucks, upon
the last Saturday of every other month. It would be hard to say, what
variety of stench, and of glutinous garbage, is not richly present here;
and the men from the sewers, who conduct it to the pit, require brandy,
at short intervals. In the pit, which is not more than five feet deep,
yet ought to be shunned by trespassers, the surface is covered with
chloride of lime, and other materials, employed to kill smell, by
outsmelling it; and so a short crust forms over it, until the contents
become firm and slab, and can be cut out, for the good of the land, when
the weather is cold, and the wind blows away.
Now certain it is, that all the science they were made of, could never
have extricated those professors, without the strong arms of my father,
and mother, and even small me at the end of the rope. The stuff they
were in, being only half cooled (and their bodies grown sticky with
running so), fastened heavily on them, like tallow on a wick, closing so
completely both mouth and eyes, that instead of giving, they could only
receive, a lesson in materialism. Professors Brachipod, and Chocolous,
being scarcely five feet and a quarter in height, were in great danger
of perishing; but Mullicles, and Jargoon, most kindly gave them a jump
now and then, for breath. And, to be quit of an unfragrant matter, and
tell it more rapidly than we did it,--with the aid of a blue-man from
the Indigo works, and of two thickset waggoners, we rescued those four
gentlemen from their sad situation, and condoled with them.
Not for £5 per head, however, would any of our cabmen take them home;
though a man out of work had been tempted by a guinea, to relieve them a
little, with a long-handled broom, and to flush them with a bucket,
afterwards. Under heavy discouragement, they set forth on their several
ways, surveyed by the police at a respectful distance, on account of the
danger to the public health.