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 vertebra, 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 

 " Regne Animal." The doctor was a courtly gen- 

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



