FASCINATION OF STUDY. 37 



they made all things converge towards them. If I 

 tried a little relaxation of literature, the page became a 

 starting-point for the wandering fancy, or more obtru- 

 sive memory ; a phrase like " throbbing heart " would 

 detach my thoughts from the subject of the book, and 

 hurry them away to the stage of the Microscope, w^here 

 the heart of some embryo w^as pulsating. I could not 

 look at anything intently, but the chance was that some 

 play of light would transform itself into the image of 

 a mollusc or a polype. The things I have seen in 

 Tapioca pudding ... 1 



This intense absorption in one study was wrong, 

 and I tried to vary my employments ; but intellectual 

 passions are not obedient to abstract convictions; they 

 will exert their jealous exclusiveness. " No array of 

 terms can tell how much I was at ease " on matters 

 agitating the majority of my countrymen. I utterly 

 declined to look at the Times. What cared I about 

 Palmer and his trial ? or about the impendmg quarrel 

 with America ? As much as the stock-broker towards 

 the close of 'Change, or the Opposition member during 

 the vote of confidence, would care for your attempt to 

 interest him in the " extraordinary little organ dis- 

 covered this morning in the tail of a tadpole — quite 

 unsuspected by anatomists, I assure you." 



This was exclusive — say narrow, if you will. I had 

 really interest in little but what the Scalpel and Micro- 

 scope would disclose. Everything was new to me, so 

 that every step was delightful. When I discovered 

 what had long been known to others, the pleasure of 



