I
FROM a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations
had been toward 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 resemblance 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 marvelous 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 toward my
companions as the seer might feel toward 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 housekeeper 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 advantage 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 with my own--in short, all things necessary to
ensure 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 hope that I left my New England
home and established myself in New York.