strange, mysterious force, which I have not yet succeeded in discovering.
I do not know if he is worth conquering and giving into your service even
as I gave you the ox and the horse, the wind and Steam. I do not know how
I am to conquer him. But I do know that it is not possible for one of us
to flee from the electric spirit. For he dwells not only in the amber as
you saw. He can take up his abode everywhere and in everything ... even in
me ... even in every one of you.”
They pressed close together and gazed at him in alarm.
“Watch me now,” said Two-Legs. “Dismiss all your fears and look in wonder
at what I shall show you.”
Two-Legs hung the little boy up between two ropes, so that he swung in the
air at some height above the ground. Before him, from another cord, hung
a glass tube. On the ground under him stood a bowl with little pieces of
paper.
“I shall now rub the glass until the spirit comes forth,” said Two-Legs.
“When that is done, the boy will touch the glass with one hand. The other
he will hold at a distance above the bowl with the shreds of paper.”
He rubbed the glass tube and the boy did as he said.
“Look ... look!” said Two-Legs.
They stared and shouted with surprise. All the bits of paper leapt up and
hung in the hand which the boy held over the dish.
“Do you see that?” asked Two-Legs. “He is electric. The spirit has taken
up his abode in him.... Can you all see it?”
The oldest and cleverest bent over the boy and stared and talked of the
remarkable thing that had happened. They did not understand it and shook
their heads. But the others were seized with frenzy and clamoured against
Two-Legs:
“It is magic!” they shouted. “Father Two-Legs is a magician! He is
tempting God and killing the poor boy with his tricks!”
“You are fools,” said Two-Legs. “You talk of what you do not understand.
Go away and leave me alone, while I enquire into the mighty spirit of
Electricity. You can come again in a twelvemonth. Then I shall show you
much stranger things than you have seen to-day.”
They went on clamouring and crowded round Two-Legs, threatened him with
their clenched fists and abusing him:
“Father Two-Legs must die!” they cried. “He will bring misfortune upon us
all, with his magic! He calls forth spirits whom he cannot lay! Let us
kill him before he has brought down God’s wrath upon us!”
[Illustration]
The elders placed themselves between Two-Legs and the infuriated people.
They reminded them of his venerable age and of all the good which he
had done to his kinsfolk. They talked until, at length, they persuaded
the others to go, though they still muttered and cast angry glances at
Two-Legs. The mother of the boy whom he had made electric ran and seized
him by his long white beard:
“If ever again you use my boy for your odious tricks, I’ll kill you!” she
screamed.
“You are only a silly woman,” said Two-Legs and pushed her away. “If I
taught your boy the secret of what you call my magic, he would make a name
for himself that would be spoken with respect so long as the world lasts.
However, go away and take him with you too. No harm has happened to him;
and to-morrow he will have forgotten all about it.”
She went, hand in hand with the boy, who did not cry, but kept his eyes
on Two-Legs. When they were gone, the elders told him he had better move
into another country if he wanted to continue searching for the electric
spirit, otherwise it would end in this, that the people would kill him one
day, when the elders were not there to defend him.
Two-Legs stood and rubbed the glass tube with a piece of leather and paid
no heed to them. They had to say it once more before he heard. Then he
merely nodded and said:
“I will go away this very night and seek another country where the people
are cleverer.”
4
By midnight he was ready to start. He had nothing with him but his sulphur
ball and some other things which he needed for his labours. He hid these
under his cloak, put out the light of his house and prepared to leave.
Suddenly he heard a noise in the alley where the others lived. He sat down
and waited, not because he was afraid of them, but because he did not
choose to talk with fools any more. And, while he sat and waited, he took
his sulphur ball from under his cloak and began to rub it with his hand,
as he had done thousands of times before. He gazed at it, though he could
see nothing, for the night was pitch-dark.
All at once, he started up with a cry.
He dropped the ball, found it again, with difficulty, on the floor and
began to rub and rub like mad.
Now he saw it quite plainly: light came against his hand when he rubbed.
Time after time, he rubbed and, each time, he saw the light.
He was so greatly excited that he could hardly breathe. He closed his eyes
and opened them again. No, it was not imagination: the light came as soon
as he rubbed the sulphur ball.
He held the ball up to his ear, while he rubbed and rubbed like mad....
Now he plainly heard a faint crackling....
Then he jumped up and sang and cried and laughed and danced round the room
like a young man crazy with delight:
“It’s the lightning!... It’s the thunder!” he shouted, exultantly. “I have
called them and they come at my bidding.”
The door opened and the little boy whom he had made electric stood on the
threshold:
“Father Two-Legs, will you take me with you where you are going?” he asked.
“Do you want to come?” asked Two-Legs.
“Yes,” said the little boy. “I want to stay with you and go where you go.
I am not afraid of you. You shall teach me your magic and, one day, I
shall become a wise and great man, like yourself.”
“You do not know what you are doing,” said Two-Legs. “I am no magician,
but I have seen what no other man has seen. You do not know what has
happened to me this night.... I have rubbed my sulphur ball and have
produced lightning from it and thunder. They lie in my hand. I can call
them forth when I please. They are only quite tiny as yet and weak, but
I know that, one day, they will grow strong, like those up there in the
clouds. Do you dare?”
“I dare,” said the boy.
“Then come,” said Two-Legs.
He took him by the hand and went out with him into the dark night, to find
a country where there were fewer fools.
[Illustration]
5
Two-Legs found a new country, where he and the boy settled. The people
honoured him for his age and wisdom and knew nothing about his magic
arts. But he occupied himself with them as before, sought and listened
and thought ... whether he could sooner or later lay hold of the strange
spirit who was so weak in the amber and the glass tube and the sulphur and
so powerful in the thunder-storm.
Every evening, when the day’s work was done, he sat and talked with the
boy, who grew in age and understanding. They were happiest when the
thunder pealed. Then they felt that the mighty spirit was nearer to
them: not only up there, where lightning crackled, but in the air and in
everything round about.
“There is much electricity up there and only a little here below with
us,” he said. “That is why the flashes strike down upon the ground....
Look, there is one darting from a cloud that has too much to one that has
too little.... Oh, I understand, I understand! It is like the water that
lies at a different level in two ponds: if I dig a canal between them, it
will flow from that which has more into that which has less and, a moment
after, it will be at the same height in both. Boy, boy, one day I will
collect so much electricity that I can use it for the greatest things!”
“That you will, since you say so, Father Two-Legs,” said the boy. “But
will you tell me how it is that the mighty spirit dwells in a fragile
glass tube like this and not in that thick iron bar? If I were the spirit,
I would rather dwell in the strong bar. But he is not there. I have rubbed
the iron till my arms ached, but the spirit did not come.”
“You may depend upon it that he is there,” said Two-Legs. “If only we
could find the right means to call him forth, I believe that there is more
of him in iron and in copper and other metals than in anything else. Just
look how weak he is in the glass tube and the amber: he comes when I rub,
catches the little fluffs and is gone again at once. No, if we can charm
him from the iron, then we shall see him in his might.”
6
One day, the boy went into the mountains and found a lodestone, which he
thought looked odd. He took it home to Two-Legs, who examined it long
and closely, as he examined everything. Without thinking of it further,
he began to rub the thick iron bar with the lodestone and saw, to his
surprise, that the stone clung to the iron:
“Boy, what have you found?” he cried.
Henceforth, he thought of nothing but iron and copper and other metals.
He forged himself bars of iron, large and small, rubbed them with the
lodestone and saw that they became electric. The spirit was in them and
the spirit came out of them, but differently and not as in the glass tube
and the amber and the sulphur ball.
It was no use for him to come with fluffs of down and little shreds of
paper. The spirit did not catch at them. But, when he came with iron, the
spirit caught hold of it and held it ever so tight.
“That is the proper, powerful spirit,” said the boy joyfully.
Two-Legs saw also that the spirit was only at the two ends of the bar
which he rubbed with the lodestone. The spirit ran into the ends and
stayed there and caught hold of the pieces of iron which he held out to
him. In the middle of the bar there was no spirit.
One day, as he was working with a very thick bar which he had rubbed, it
seemed to him that it moved without his touching it. Then he took a vessel
of water, put a cork in the water and the iron bar on top of the cork.
“Look, look, it’s turning!” cried the boy.
And so it was. It turned one end to the north and the other to the south.
Two-Legs shifted it, but it turned back to the same position as soon as
he let go. He experimented with the other bars, but they did exactly the
same. One day, he laid two side by side, each on its own cork, and saw
that the north end of the one and the south end of the other attracted
each other. When he brought the two north ends or the two south ends
together, they at once pushed each other away.
“Look, look!” cried the boy.
Two-Legs sat, plunged in thought, and looked. Then he made a little bar,
rubbed it with the lodestone and put it on a pivot, so that it could turn
easily as it pleased:
“Go and give this thing to the skipper,” he said. “When he goes far out to
sea and cannot sight land anywhere, he will always be able to see by it
which is north and which is south and direct his course accordingly.”
Thus Two-Legs invented the compass.
But he forgot it as soon as the boy had gone with it. He thought how much
stronger the spirit was in the iron than in the other things from which he
had produced it and pondered how he should make the spirit obey him with
all his power.
“I found the stone that did it,” said the boy, when he returned. “Give it
a name, Father Two-Legs.”
As the country where he was then living was called Magnesia, Two-Legs
called the stone the magnet. And he showed the boy how he could make any
piece of iron into a magnet by rubbing it with another iron in which the
spirit was:
“Oh, if I could only draw the spirit from up there, in the thunder-clouds,
down hither with a magnet!” said Two-Legs.
He made a kite, such as boys play with, and gave it a huge long string. At
the top of it he put an iron tip. Then he and the boy went and waited for
the thunder to come one day; and, at last, it came.
When the thunder-storm was exactly over head, he flew the kite in the
air. They stood and watched it till it disappeared right up in the
thunder-clouds.
“Now hold the string, boy, if you dare,” said Two-Legs.
“I dare,” said the boy.
The lightning crackled and the thunder crashed. In the midst of it,
Two-Legs, with his fingers, touched the string of the kite; and a great
spark leapt upon his finger. He touched it again and again; and, each
time, a new spark leapt out.
“Look, look!” he said. “I have drawn down the lightning from up there!”
“Oh, Father Two-Legs!” said the boy, shaking with fear. “Suppose the
lightning had killed you!”
“It could have done,” said Two-Legs. “To play with the mighty forces of
nature is dangerous. That is why I so often asked you if you were not
afraid. I once had a helper who was killed by the spirit of Steam before
I had learnt to conquer him. It may happen that you will fare as he did.
I know myself that I am never safe from death. But I would rather die
fighting to conquer the spirits than at home, in my bed, of disease.”
“So would I,” said the boy and drew himself up. “Only, I meant ... only,
I don’t understand.... The lightning once struck and burnt my mother’s
house. It killed my brother and my little sister; and all that we
possessed was burnt: that was a calamity. Is there always a calamity when
the lightning strikes? If so, why do you want to bring it down? Do you
think you can imprison it and use it as you used Steam?”
“No,” said Two-Legs. “I don’t think that. I don’t know how it is to
be done, but I dream, day and night, that, sooner or later, I shall
succeed in preparing lightning as strong as that up there, but different
nevertheless.... I want to rule over it and imprison it and compel it to
labour in my service. It is only a dream as yet. It was not the lightning
either that I drew down with my kite: only a little spark of the spirit
that flames up there.”
“Yes, Father Two-Legs,” said the boy. “But, if you can catch a little
spark, you can also catch a bigger one ... and a bigger one still ... and,
at last, the whole lightning.”
Two-Legs gazed at the boy. Then he took him in his arms and kissed him:
“You’re a glorious boy,” he said. “You found the magnet and knew nothing
about it. Now, in your ignorance, you have spoken a great word: come and
see what you can make of it.”
7
He forthwith set up a tall pole, close to his house. At the top of it was
a metal spike, from which a long iron wire ran far down in the ground.
People came and looked at his work and wondered what it meant.
“See,” he said to them. “The pole will catch the lightning when it comes.”
“Do you want to lure the lightning down to the earth ... the bad
lightning?” asked one of them. “And close to your house besides?”
“The lightning is not bad,” said Two-Legs.
“Would you have me call it good?” said the man. “It set my barn on fire
and burnt it. And there’s a man standing yonder whose wife was killed and
all his cattle.”
Two-Legs gave a scornful smile. He quite forgot that he himself had once
thought just like that of the wind and of Steam:
“The lightning is neither good nor bad,” he said. “It is a mighty force
that comes and darts as it must. I don’t want to lure it down to the earth
either. But, if it comes here, over my house, and thinks of striking ...
then it will be caught by the spike at the top of the pole and fly down
the wire into the earth; and my house will escape.”
“Two-Legs is mad,” said the man. “He is calling the lightning down upon
himself.”
The others said the same and then they went away. The boy remained
with him and looked at the lightning-conductor. And, when the next
thunder-storm came, the lightning struck two farm-houses in the valley and
burnt them to the ground. It also struck the pole near Two-Legs’ house and
rushed down into the earth, as he had said. This was easy to see by the
way in which it had rooted up and flung stones and gravel around.
They came running from every side and saw it and wondered. They bowed low
before Two-Legs and honoured his wisdom; and one and all of them set a
lightning-conductor beside their houses.
But Two-Legs thought no more of it:
“That’s nothing,” he said. “It is just as when I killed the wild animals.
It was a bigger thing when I tamed them and took them into my service. I
want to tame the lightning also and make it my servant.”
“Two-Legs wants to tame the lightning,” said one to the other and laughed
and thought that he had certainly lost his reason.
“I want to make lightning,” said Two-Legs.
“Two-Legs wants to make lightning,” they said and nudged one another.
“Take care it doesn’t strike you!”
They laughed and went away. Two-Legs sat and meditated and thought and did
not mind their scorn. The boy sat at his feet.
8
The years passed and the boy grew to be a man. He was always with
Two-Legs, listening to his talk, helping him in his work and rejoicing
with him each time that he came a step nearer to the goal.
They moved more than once from one country to another. Either it was
the folk of the country who drove them away with their foolish fears,
when they heard reports or saw sparks come from Two-Legs’ workshop, or
else it occurred to him that his labours would meet with better success
under another climate. But, whether he was in one place or another, he
constantly thought of the same thing: how he was to catch the electric
spirit and make him strong, so that he might be useful in man’s service.
He thought no more of the thunder and the lightning up in the sky. He knew
well that it was the electric spirit that struck sparks up there and he
wanted him to do the same in his workshop. Since he had begun the work
with the magnetic iron, he no longer troubled about the glass tube and the
amber and the sulphur ball. He did not even care to rub them any more, so
small was the spirit when he came from them and so soon did he disappear
again.
“The lightning also lasts only for a moment,” said his disciple. “It is
mighty, Father Two-Legs, a thousand times mightier than any spark that you
can rub out of the sulphur ball; but it only flames for a moment and then
it is all over.”
“That’s just why I can’t use it,” said Two-Legs. “I want the lightning
to last as long as I please ... for ever if I please. I must be able to
kindle it and extinguish it and kindle it again, as easily as I can snap
my fingers. Oh, if I only knew where the spirit really dwelt!”
“We know that,” said the disciple. “He lives in the amber and in the glass
tube and in the sulphur ball, in iron and in the thunder-cloud and in me
and in you and in everything in the world, you said.”
Two-Legs sat long and pondered with his head in his hands. His disciple
waited in silence; and, at last, Two-Legs looked up:
“You know ... you know ...” he said and then was silent again for a while.
Then he said:
“You know ... sometimes I don’t believe at all that the spirit lives in
any of the places that you say.”
“Where does he live then, Father Two-Legs?” asked his disciple.
“I believe he lives in the air,” said Two-Legs. “Not in the clouds,
which are mere water and vapour, but in the pure air ... in the ether:
the ether, do you understand? He lives there and goes now into one and
now into the other and rather into the one than into the other. Do you
remember how long we had to rub the glass before the spirit came? He
was there reluctantly. Do you remember that, when the glass was wet, he
did not come at all? He would sooner be in the water. He likes to dwell
in iron and copper and zinc and silver and all the other metals. In the
string that held the kite which we sent up into the thunder-cloud, he ran
down as fast as the lightning and sent a spark into my finger. You know
how he runs down the wire of the lightning-conductor into the ground. He
remains there because the ground is moist. That is why you and I see no
more of him, because we walk on the ground: he runs right through us into
the ground and disappears. Yes, that’s how it is, that’s how it is!”
His eyes beamed. He could not explain it, but he saw, as in a vision, that
this was how it must be. He went on talking about it; and his disciple
knew that it was true, even though he could not understand it.
But then Two-Legs grew sad again:
“What is the use of it all, when I cannot even produce the spirit,” he
said, “nor build him a house in which he would rather dwell than anywhere
else in the world, so that I may always have plenty of him to come and go
at my pleasure?”
He began to gaze at his magnetic needle: how two north ends or two south
ends always repelled each other, while a north end and a south end
immediately flew together.
“Now, if there were two spirits,” he said, “if the spark came and then
the two rushed towards each other, if the powerful force were just the
attraction of one for the other ...”
“Is that it?” asked the disciple.
“I don’t know,” said Two-Legs. “I could see and feel the wind; and the
same with Steam. I discovered, at length, where he came from and where he
was going. But I don’t know what the mighty spirit of electricity is, for
all the years that I have been watching him. Perhaps I shall never come to
know. But we will explore his ways nevertheless, diligently, by day and by
night.”
He hammered wires of iron and zinc, of copper and silver, twisted them
together, bent them against one another, rubbing them with the magnet and
with the leather and with anything else that he could hit on. Gradually,
he had no room for all of this in his house; and then he threw it outside
the door.
9
One evening, he and his disciple were sitting on the bench before the
wall, tired with their fruitless labours. They gazed at the sun until it
went down. Then twilight fell upon the land.
Two-Legs looked at a fat old toad who came crawling from under the
threshold.
He moved his legs heavily and looked with his frightened eyes at Two-Legs
and wondered if he meant him any harm. Then he crawled on ... under some
wire that lay there. And, as the toad touched the wire, he jumped as if he
had been struck a blow.
Two-Legs saw it, for he saw everything. He saw how the toad again
touched the wires and again jumped. He stooped down and saw that it was
copper-wire and zinc-wire. He saw that the toad jumped highest when he
touched both wires. He caught the toad and held him in his hand and put
both the wires to him. The toad gave a start. And, every time he touched
him with the wire, he started afresh.
Then he let the toad go and remained sitting for a long time with the
copper-wire and the zinc-wire in his hand and gazed before him, plunged in
thought. Then he said:
“Come, let us go in.”
“Yes, it’s time for bed,” said the disciple. “It’s quite dark.”
“It’s time for work,” said Two-Legs. “To-night a light has been kindled
for me, brighter than any before.”
He told the disciple what he had noticed and explained his thought to him:
“It was the electric spirit,” he said. “I think it was the toad’s moist
skin that made him show himself. Now we will experiment with copper and
zinc.”
He took a glass and filled if half with water and put into it a small
piece of zinc and a small piece of copper. Then he fastened a slender wire
to the zinc, let the wire stand up in a wide curve and fastened the other
end to the copper:
“What shall we put into the water?” he said. “There is sulphur and there
is lime and there are a thousand things, in the toad’s skin.... The
question is how to hit upon just the right one.”
He experimented patiently. When he put a piece of sulphur into the water,
it began to bubble round the zinc.
“Look, look, now the water is jumping just as the toad did!” he said.
He grasped the wire and felt that it was getting hot. Breathlessly, he
dropped it and stared at the whole apparatus:
“That’s it, that’s it,” he said and talked quite low, in his excitement.
“Wait a bit, now, and see.”
He filed the wire quite thin in one place:
“Feel it,” he said. “It’s glowing.”
The disciple did so and quickly drew back his fingers, for he had burnt
himself. Two-Legs stood and stared. Then he cut the wire; and the bubbling
in the water stopped at once and the thin piece became cold again. He held
the two cut ends together; and, the moment they touched each other, the
water bubbled and the wire grew hot. He tried it time after time; and,
each time, the same thing happened.
“At last, at last, I have found it,” he said.
He sat for a long time silent, with his face buried in his hands, overcome
with emotion. The disciple did not quite understand it, but dared not ask.
And, in a little while, Two-Legs himself explained it to him:
“Look here, look here!” he said; and his eyes beamed as they had never
beamed before. “Don’t you see that I am making electricity in this little
glass? I am making it and it’s here. The wonderful force, the force of
the lightning, flows along the wire. I cut the wire and the current is
interrupted. I connect it again and the force flows once more. Praise
be to the loathsome toad who set my thoughts travelling in the right
direction!”
“I don’t see the lightning,” said the disciple.
“You shall see it,” said Two-Legs.
He put a little piece of charcoal at each end of the wire where he had cut
it. Then he put out the light in the room and brought the two charcoal
tips together. Then they both saw that the charcoal glowed and gave a
faint light.