196 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



rhythm. This time he was able by an ingenious 

 arrangement to eliminate much of the disturbing 

 effect of his rhythm-change on his vision. It was an 

 idea of which he was very proud : every alternate 

 light-wave was cut out when he doubled the capacity 

 of each process of life, and so on in automatic corre- 

 spondence. As a result he was enabled to get a 

 picture of the outer world very similar to that obtained 

 in the ordinary accelerations of slow processes that 

 are made possible by running slow-taken cinema 

 records at high speed. He saw the snowdrops lift 

 their matutinal heads and drop them again at evening 

 — ^an instant later ; the spring was an alarming burst 

 of living energy, the trees' budding and growth of 

 leaves became a portent, like the bristling of hairs on 

 the backs of vegetable cats. As his rate changed and 

 he comprehended more and more in each pulse, the 

 flowers faded and fell before he could think of pluck- 

 ing them, autumnal apples rotted in his grasp, day 

 was a flash and night a wink of the eye, the two 

 blending at last in a continuous half-light. 



After a time ordinary objects ceased to be dis- 

 tinguishable ; then the seasons shared the fate of day 

 and night. The lever was now nearly hard over, 

 and the machine was reaching its limit. He was 

 covering nearly a thousand of men's years with each 

 of his own seconds. 



The cinema eflFect was almost useless to him now ; 

 and he discarded this apparatus. Now followed what 



