Two Years Ago, Volume II. Charles Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ our acquaintance by doubting your word: but these things are no dabbler's work;" and Tom pointed to some exquisite photographs of minute corallines, evidently taken under the microscope.

      "They are Mellot's."

      "Mellot turned man of science? Impossible!"

      "No; only photographer. I am tired of painting nature clumsily, and then seeing a sun-picture out-do all my efforts—so I am turned photographer, and have made a vow against painting for three years and a day."

      "Why, the photographs only give you light and shade."

      "They will give you colour, too, before seven years are over—and that is more than I can do, or any one else. No; I yield to the new dynasty. The artist's occupation is gone henceforth, and the painter's studio, like 'all charms, must fly, at the mere touch of cold philosophy.' So Major Campbell prepares the charming little cockyoly birds, and I call in the sun to immortalise them."

      "And perfectly you are succeeding! They are quite new to me, recollect. When I left Melbourne, the art had hardly risen there above guinea portraits of bearded desperadoes, a nugget in one hand and a £50 note in the other: but this is a new, and what a forward step for science!"

      "You are a naturalist, then?" said Campbell, looking up with interest.

      "All my profession are, more or less," said Tom, carelessly; "and I have been lucky enough here to fall on untrodden ground, and have hunted up a few sea-monsters this summer."

      "Really? You can tell one where to search then, and where to dredge, I hope. I have set my heart on a fortnight's work here, and have been dreaming at night, like a child before a Twelfth-night party, of all sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons and chimaeras dire, fished up from your western deeps."

      "I have none of them; but I can give you Turbinolia Milletiana and Zoanthus Couchii. I have a party of the last gentlemen alive on shore."

      The major's face worked with almost childish delight.

      "But I shall be robbing you."

      "They cost me nothing, my dear sir. I did very well, moreover, without them, for five-and-thirty years; and I may do equally well for five-and-thirty more."

      "I ought to be able to say the same, surely," answered the Major, composing his face again, and rising carefully. "I have to thank you, exceedingly, my dear sir, for your prompt generosity: but it is better discipline for a man, in many ways, to find things for himself than to have them put into his hands. So, with a thousand thanks, you shall let me see if I can dredge a Turbinolia for myself."

      This was spoken with so sweet and polished a modulation, and yet so sadly and severely withal, that Tom looked at the speaker with interest. He was a very tall and powerful man, and would have been a very handsome man, both in face and figure, but for the high cheekbone, long neck, and narrow shoulders, so often seen north of Tweed. His brow was very high and full; his eyes—grave, but very gentle, with large drooping eyelids —were buried under shaggy grey eyebrows. His mouth was gentle as his eyes; but compressed, perhaps by the habit of command, perhaps by secret sorrow; for of that, too, as well as of intellect and magnanimity, Thurnall thought he could discern the traces. His face was bronzed by long exposure to the sun; his close-cut curls, which had once been auburn, were fast turning white, though his features looked those of a man under five-and-forty; his cheeks were as smooth shaven as his chin. A right, self-possessed, valiant soldier he looked; one who could be very loving to little innocents, and very terrible to full-grown knaves.

      "You are practising at self-denial, as usual," said Claude.

      "Because I may, at any moment, have to exercise it in earnest. Mr. Thurnall, can you tell me the name of this little glass arrow, which I just found shooting about in the sweeping net?"

      Tom did know the wonderful little link between the fish and the insect; and the two chatted over its strange form, till the boat returned to take them ashore.

      "Do you make any stay here?"

      "I purpose to spend a fortnight here in my favourite pursuit. I must draw on your kindness and knowledge of the place to point me out lodgings."

      Lodgings, as it befell, were to be found, and good ones, close to the beach, and away from the noise of the harbour, on Mrs. Harvey's first floor; for the local preacher, who generally occupied them, was away.

      "But Major Campbell might dislike the noise of the school?"

      "The school? What better music for a lonely old bachelor than children's voices?"

      So, by sunset the major was fairly established over Mrs. Harvey's shop. It was not the place which Tom would have chosen; he was afraid of "running over" poor Grace, if he came in and out as often as he could have wished. Nevertheless, he accepted the major's invitation to visit him that very evening.

      "I cannot ask you to dinner yet, sir; for my ménage will be hardly settled: but a cup of coffee, and an exceedingly good cigar, I think my establishment may furnish you by seven o'clock to-night;—if you think them worth walking down for."

      Tom, of course, said something civil, and made his appearance in due time. He found the coffee ready, and the cigars also; but the Major was busy, in his shirt sleeves, unpacking and arranging jars, nets, microscopes, and what not of scientific lumber; and Tom proffered his help.

      "I am ashamed to make use of you the first moment that you become my guest."

      "I shall enjoy the mere handling of your tackle," said Tom; and began breaking the tenth commandment over almost every article he touched; for everything was first-rate of its kind.

      "You seem to have devoted money, as well as thought, plentifully to the pursuit."

      "I have little else to which to devote either; and more of both than is, perhaps, safe for me."

      "I should hardly complain of a superfluity of thought, if superfluity of money was the condition of it."

      "Pray understand me. I am no Dives; but I have learned to want so little, that I hardly know how to spend the little which I have."

      "I should hardly have called that an unsafe state."

      "The penniless Faquir who lives on chance handfuls of rice has his dangers, as well as the rich Parsee who has his ventures out from Madagascar to Canton. Yes, I have often envied the schemer, the man of business, almost the man of pleasure; their many wants at least absorb them in outward objects, instead of leaving them too easily satisfied, to sink in upon themselves, and waste away in useless dreams."

      "You found out the best cure for that malady when you took up the microscope and the collecting-box."

      "So I fancied once. I took up natural history in India years ago to drive away thought, as other men might take to opium, or to brandy-pawnee: but, like them, it has become a passion now and a tyranny; and I go on hunting, discovering, wondering, craving for more knowledge; and—cui bono? I sometimes ask—"

      "Why, this at least, sir; that, without such men as you, who work for mere love, science would be now fifty years behind her present standing-point; and we doctors should not know a thousand important facts, which you have been kind enough to tell us, while we have not time to find them out for ourselves."

      "Sic vos non vobis—"

      "Yes, you have the work, and we have the pay; which is a very fair division of labour, considering the world we live in."

      "And СКАЧАТЬ