194 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



summoning Wagrom the explorer, Glosh of the 

 Evening Posty Stewartson Ampill the novelist, and 

 the rest of our old friends : then the warm friendly 

 light of the candles, the excellent port, the ab- 

 sence of women, the reminiscences, the asterisks, 



the 



Mercaptan refuses to allow the rest to come into 

 the laboratory, in case something should go wrong. 

 He straps the machine on his shoulders, makes a 

 final connection j his life processes begin to work 

 faster, faster, ever faster. The first effect of course 

 was a change of colour. The blue oblong of the 

 window became green — ^yellow — orange — red. Mean- 

 while each wave-length of the ultra-violet became blue, 

 and itself ran down the gamut of colour. Then came 

 the turn of the X-rays — by their dim light he groped 

 about, till they too became relatively too slow for his 

 retina. That ought to make him blind, of course — 

 but no ! Mr. Wells had thought that all out j and 

 he came into a state of nearly maximum speed where 

 he perceived a brilliant, phosphorescent light given 

 out by all objects, generated by disturbances of a wave- 

 length unimaginably, undiscoverably small. Mean- 

 while he had passed through an amazing experience — 

 he had heard the veritable music of the spheres ! 

 That had happened when in his acceleration he had, 

 so to speak, caught up with the light-waves, until 

 they were tuned to his ear's organ of Corti : and all 

 that had been visible in his ordinary life was now to 



