The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 3

I showed her one by one all my treasures--Rail, Duck, Skull, Sea Mice, etc., and felt like Thomas Edward, beloved of Samuel Smiles. To her I must have appeared a very ridiculous person.

"How do you know it's the skull of a dog-fish?" she asked, incredulous.

"How do I know anything?" I said, a little piqued.

On arriving home found T---- awaiting me with the news that he had discovered a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r's nest. When will the luck cease? I have never had such a flawless ten hours in _le grand air_. These summer days eat into my being. The sea has been roaring into my ears and the sun blazing down so that even the backs of my hands are sunburnt. And then: those coal-black eyes. Ah! me, she _is_ pretty.

_May_ 2.

Dissected the Sheldrake. Very entertained to discover the extraordinary asymmetry of the syrinx....

_May_ 3.

Dissected Corncrake, examining carefully the pessulus, bronchidesmus (incomplete), _tympani-form and semi-lunar_ membranes of a very interesting syrinx....

_May_ 6.

Dissected one of the Sea Mice. It has a remarkable series of hepatic ducts running into the alimentary ca.n.a.l as in Nudibranchs....

_May_ 9.

_Spring in the Woods_

Among the Oak Saplings we seemed enveloped in a cloud of green. The tall green gra.s.ses threw up a green light against the young green of the Oaks, and the sun managed to trickle through only here and there. Bevies of swinging bluebells grew in patches among the gra.s.s. Overhead in the oaks I heard secret leaf whispers--those little noiseless noises. Birds and trees and flowers were secretive and mysterious like expectant motherhood. All the live things plotted together, having the same big business in hand. Out in the sunlit meadows, there was a different influence abroad. Here everything was gay, lively, irresponsible. The brook prattled like an inconsequential schoolgirl. The Marsh Marigolds in flamboyant yellow sunbonnets played ring-a-ring-a-roses.

An Oak Sapling should make an elderly man avuncular. There are so many tremendous possibilities about a well-behaved young oak that it is tempting to put a hand upon its shoulder and give some seasoned, timberly advice.

_June_ 1.

_A Small Red Viper_

Went to L---- Sessions. After the Court rose, I transcribed my notes quickly and walked out to the famous Valley of Rocks which Southey described as the ribs of the old Earth poking through. At the bottom of one of the hills saw a snake, a Red Viper. Put my boot on him quickly so that he couldn't get away and then recognised him as a specimen of what I consider to be the fourth species of British Serpent--_Vipera rubra_.

The difficulty was to know how to secure him. This species is more ferocious than the ordinary _V. bera_, and I did not like the idea of putting my hand down to seize him by the neck. I stood for some time with my foot so firmly pressed down on its back that my leg ached and I began to wonder if I had been bitten. I held on and presently hailed a baker's cart coming along the road. The man got out and ran across the gra.s.s to where I stood. I showed him what I had beneath my boot and he produced a piece of string which I fastened around the snake's tail and so gently hauled the little brute up. It already appeared moribund, but I squashed its head on the gra.s.s with my heel to make certain. After parting with the baker, to whom all thanks be given, I remember that Adders are tenacious of life and so I continue to carry him at string's length and occasionally wallop him against a stone. As he was lifeless I wrapped him in paper and put him in my pocket--though to make a.s.surance doubly sure I left the string on and let its end hang out over my pocket. So home by a two hours' railway journey with the adder in the pocket of my overcoat and the overcoat on the rack over my head. Settled down to the reading of a book on Spinoza's _Ethics_. At home it proved to be quite alive, and, on being pulled out by the string, coiled up on the drawing-room floor and hissed in a fury, to my infinite surprise.

Finished him off with the poker and so spoilt the skin.

_July_ 18.

Have had toothache for a week. Too much of a coward to have it out.

Started for P---- early in the morning to report Mr. Duke, K.C. After a week's pain, felt a little d.i.c.ky. All the way in the train kept hardening myself to the task in front of me by recollecting the example of Zola, who killed pain with work. So all day to-day I have endeavoured to act as if I had no pain--the worst of all pains--toothache. By the time I got home I was rather done up, but the pain was actually less.

This gave me a furious joy, and, after days of morose silence, to-night at supper I made them all laugh by bursting out violently with, "I don't know whether you know it but I've had a horrible day to-day." I explained at length and received the healing ointment of much sympathy.

Went to bed happy with tooth still aching. I fear it was scarcely playing the strict Zolaesque game to divulge the story of my sufferings.... No, I am not a martyr or a saint. Just an ordinary devil who's having a rough time.

_August_ 17.

_Prawning_

Had a glorious time on the rocks at low tide prawning. Caught some Five-Bearded Rocklings and a large _Cottus bubalis_. The sun did not simply shine to-day--it came rushing down from the sky in a cataract and flooded the sands with light. Sitting on a rock, with prawning net over my knees I looked along three miles of flat hard and yellow sands. The sun poured down on them so heavily that it seemed to raise a luminous golden yellow dust for about three feet high.

On the rocks was a pretty flapper in a pink sunbonnet--also prawning in company of S----, the artist, who has sent her picture to the Royal Academy. They saw I was a naturalist, so my services were secured to p.r.o.nounce my judgment on a "fish" she had caught. It was a Squid, "an odd little beast," in truth, as she said. "The same cla.s.s of animal," I volunteered, "as the Cuttlefish and Octopus."

"Does it sting?"

"Oh, no!"

"Well, it ought to with a face like that." She laughed merrily, and the bearded but youthful artist laughed too.

"I don't know anything about these things," he said hopelessly.

"Nor I," said the naturalist modestly. "I study fish."

This was puzzling. "Fish?" What was a Squid then?

... The artist would stop now and then and raise his gla.s.ses at a pa.s.sing ship, and Maud's face occasionally disappeared in the pink sunbonnet as she stooped over a pool to examine a seaweed or crab.

She's a dear--and she gave me the Squid. What a merry little cuss!

_September_ 1.

Went with Uncle to see a Wesleyan minister whose fame as a microscopist, according to Uncle, made it worth my while to visit him. As I expected, he was just a silly old man, a diatomaniac fond of pretty-pretty slides and not a scientific man at all. He lectures Bands of Hope on the b.u.t.terfly's Life History and hates his next-door neighbour, who is also a microscopist and incidentally a scientific man, because he interests himself in "parasites and those beastly things."

I remarked that his friend next door had shown me an Amphioxus.

"Oh! I expect that's some beastly bacteria thing," he said petulantly.

"I can't understand Wilkinson. He's a pervert."

I told him what _Amphioxus_ was and laughed up my sleeve. He likes to think of Zoology as a series of pretty pictures ill.u.s.trating beautiful moral truths. The old fellow's saving grace was enthusiasm.... Having focused an object for us, he would stand by, breathless, while we squinted down his gas-tube, and gave vent to tremendous expletives of surprise such as "Heavens," or "Jupiter." His eyes would twinkle with delight and straightway another miracle is selected for us to view.

"They are all miracles," he said.

"Those are the valves"--washing his hands with invisible soap--"no one has yet been able to solve the problem of the Diatom's valves. No one knows what they are--no, nor ever will know--why?--why can't we see behind the valves?--because G.o.d is behind the valves--that is why!"

Amen.

_October_ 1.

Telegraphed 1,000 words of Lord ----'s speech at T----.

Spent the night at a comfortable country inn and read Moore's lyrics.

"Row gently here, my Gondolier," ran through my head continuously. The Inn is an old one with a long narrow pa.s.sage that leads straight from front door to back with wainscoted smoke room and parlours on each side.

China dogs, bran on the floor, and the picture of Derby Day with horses galloping incredibly, the drone of an old crony in the bar, and a pleasant barmy smell. Slept in a remarkable bedroom full of ma.s.sive furniture, draped with cloth and covered with trinkets. The bed had a tremendous hood over it like a catafalque, and lying in it made me think I was an effigy. Read Moore till the small hours and then found I had left my handbag downstairs. Lit a candle and went on a voyage of discovery. Made a considerable noise, but roused no one. Entered drawing-room, kitchen, pantries, parlour, bar--everywhere looking for my bag and dropping candle grease everywhere! Slept in my day shirt. Tired out and slept like a top.

_November_ 3.

_Aristotle's Lantern_

Dissected the Sea Urchin (_Echinus esculentus_). Very excited over my first view of Aristotle's Lantern. These complicated pieces of animal mechanism never smell of musty age--after aeons of evolution. When I open a Sea Urchin and see the Lantern, or dissect a Lamprey and cast eyes on the branchial basket, such structures strike me as being as finished and exquisite as if they had just a moment before been tossed me fresh from the hands of the Creator. They are fresh, young, they smell _new_.

_December_ 3.

Hard at work dissecting a Dogfish. Rurideca.n.a.l Conference in the afternoon. I enjoy this double life I lead. It amazes me to be laying bare the brain of a dogfish in the morning and in the afternoon to be taking down in shorthand what the Bishop says on Mission Work.