CHAP. XX. SPIRIT OF FROLIC. 447 



immense a creation as that ! " " Yes ! " was his reply ; 

 " but how wonderful a creature also is man, to be able to 

 think and reason, and even in some measure to compre- 

 hend works so infinite ! " 



A microscope, which he had brought down to Tapton, 

 was a source of immense enjoyment to him ; and he was 

 never tired of contemplating the minute wonders which 

 it revealed. One evening, when some friends were 

 visiting him, he induced each of them to puncture his 

 skin so as to draw blood, in order that he might 

 examine the globules through the microscope. One 

 of the gentlemen present was a teetotaller, and Mr. 

 Stephenson pronounced his blood to be the most lively 

 of the whole. He had a theory of his own about the 

 movement of the globules in the blood, which has since 

 become familiar. It was, that they were respectively 

 charged with electricity, positive at one end and nega- 

 tive at the other, and that thus they attracted and 

 repelled each other, causing a circulation. No sooner 

 did he observe anything new, than he immediately set 

 about devising a reason for it. His training in mechanics, 

 his practical familiarity with matter in all its forms, and 

 the strong bent of his mind, led him first of all to seek 

 for a mechanical explanation. And yet he was ready 

 to admit that there was a something in the principle 

 of life so mysterious and inexplicable which baffled 

 mechanics, and seemed to dominate over and control 

 them. He did not care much, either, for abstruse 

 mechanics, but only for the experimental and practical, 

 as is usually the case with those whose knowledge has 

 been self-acquired. 



Even at his advanced age, the spirit of frolic had 

 not left him. When proceeding from Chesterfield station 

 to Tapton House with his friends, he would almost inva- 

 riably challenge them to a race up the steep path, partly 

 formed of stone steps, along the hill side. And he 

 would struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though 



