18 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



one day it will reveal the intimate structure of 

 substances. If you come to Strasbourg, you'll be 

 a chemist in spite of yourself. I shall talk to you 

 of nothing but crystals." 



Again, on October 2, 1851 : 



" Last Monday, I brought my year's work before 

 the Institute. I read them a long abstract, and then 

 I spoke, not read, a statement on some of the details 

 of crystallography. ... M. Dumas was almost 

 opposite to me, and I made a point of looking at 

 him : and he showed me, by an approving nod, 

 that he was following me, and keenly interested. 

 He asked me to come next morning to his house, 

 and congratulated me. He told me, among other 

 things, that I was a proof how, if a man in France 

 wants to do crystallography, he knows how to do 

 it ; and that if I persevered, as he was sure I should, 

 a school would rise out of my work. M. Biot, who 

 is kinder to me than words can say, came to find 

 me, after I'd read my paper, and said, ' Nothing 

 could possibly be better.' His report on my work 

 will be made on October 14 : he seems to think 

 that I have found a gold-mine. Don't be excited 

 over the value of this work of mine : the credit of 

 it comes, of course, out of my earlier work." 



And again, at the end of the year : 



" I think I've told you already that I was touching 

 mysteries, and that the veil over them gets thinner 

 and thinner. So the nights seem too long to me." 



Then, in September, 1852, came that strange 



