38 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



discovery was something essentially different from that 

 of mere learnins; • and when I was fortunate enouo-h to 

 discover what had not been known before, the delight 

 in novelty was heightened by the triumph (surely not 

 a guilty one ?) of amour j^rojjre. Three months of such 

 study were worth years of lectures and readings — 

 although the lectures and readings were necessary pre- 

 parations for the full benefit of such study. But 

 thoughts of " benefit '' are after- thoughts ; — the real 

 incentive to work is passionate fondness for the work 

 itself ; and I know nothing in the shape of intellectual 

 activity which I would exchange for a long day with 

 the Microscope. This feeling is beautifully indicated 

 by M. Quatrefages, in that page of his Souvenirs d\in 

 Naturaliste in which he describes his residence on the 

 little archipelago of Chaussey, where none lived besides 

 himself and a few fishermen. At night, when the 

 songs and the disputes of the fishermen gradually 

 lapsed into silence, and nothing could be heard but the 

 murmurs of the sea, he sat down at his square deal 

 table, covered with the produce of his day's hunt. 

 There he sat, before a Microscope which opened to 

 him the world of the infinitely minute, his pencil 

 sketching the novel forms, his pen hastily tracing the 

 result of his observations. And thus the nio^ht ad- 

 vanced, till, with fingers so benumbed that he could no 

 longer hold the scalpel, he crept into his bed as the 

 fishermen were leaving theirs. The passage is too 

 long to quote, but the reader can seek it in the charm- 

 ing book itself, the work of a naturalist — which means, 

 an enthusiast. 



