456 A Century of Science 



ture, besides being a fair linguist. Though emi 

 nently susceptible of the tender passion, he never 

 married; he was neither a householder nor an 

 autocrat of the breakfast table, but dwelt hermit- 

 like in a queer snuggery over somebody s shop. 

 His working-room was a rare sight ; so much con 

 fusion has not been seen since this fair world 

 weltered in its primeval chaos. With its cases 

 of mineral and botanical specimens, stuffed birds 

 and skeletons galore ; with its beetles and spiders 

 mounted on pins, its brains of divers creatures in 

 jars of alcohol, its weird retorts and crucibles, its 

 microscopes and surgeon s tools, its shelves of mys 

 terious liquids in vials, its slabs of Portland sand 

 stone bearing footprints of Triassic dinosaurs, and 

 near the door a grim pterodactyl keeping guard 

 over all, it might have been the necromancing 

 den of a Sidrophel. Maps and crayon sketches, 

 mingled with femurs and vertebrae, sprawled over 

 tables and sofas and cumbered the chairs, till there 

 was scarcely a place to sit down, while every 

 where in direst helter-skelter yawned and toppled 

 the books. And such books ! There I first 

 browsed in Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck and 

 Blainville, and passed enchanted hours with the 

 &quot; Regne Animal.&quot; The doctor was a courtly gen 

 tleman of the old stripe, and never did he clear a 



