第25章

That is the pitiful side of all rhymed verse.Take two such words as home and world.What can you do with chrome or loam or gnome or tome? You have dome, foam, and roam, and not much more to use in your pome, as some of our fellow-countrymen call it.As for world, you know that in all human probability somebody or something will be hurled into it or out of it; its clouds may be furled or its grass impearled; possibly something may be whirled, or curled, or have swirled, one of Leigh Hunt's words, which with lush, one of Keats's, is an important part of the stock in trade of some dealers in rhyme.

--And how much do you versifiers know of all those arts and sciences you refer to as if you were as familiar with them as a cobbler is with his wax and lapstone?

--Enough not to make too many mistakes.The best way is to ask some expert before one risks himself very far in illustrations from a branch he does not know much about.Suppose, for instance, I wanted to use the double star to illustrate anything, say the relation of two human souls to each other, what would I--do? Why, I would ask our young friend there to let me look at one of those loving celestial pairs through his telescope, and I don't doubt he'd let me do so, and tell me their names and all I wanted to know about them.

--I should be most happy to show any of the double stars or whatever else there might be to see in the heavens to any of our friends at this table,--the young man said, so cordially and kindly that it was a real invitation.

--Show us the man in the moon,--said That Boy.---I should so like to see a double star!--said Scheherezade, with a very pretty air of smiling modesty.

--Will you go, if we make up a party?--I asked the Master.

--A cold in the head lasts me from three to five days,--answered the Master.--I am not so very fond of being out in the dew like Nebuchadnezzar: that will do for you young folks.

--I suppose I must be one of the young folks, not so young as our Scheherezade, nor so old as the Capitalist,--young enough at any rate to want to be of the party.So we agreed that on some fair night when the Astronomer should tell us that there was to be a fine show in the skies, we would make up a party and go to the Observatory.Iasked the Scarabee whether he would not like to make one of us.

--Out of the question, sir, out of the question.I am altogether too much occupied with an important scientific investigation to devote any considerable part of an evening to star-gazing.

--Oh, indeed,--said I,--and may I venture to ask on what particular point you are engaged just at present?

-Certainly, sir, you may.It is, I suppose, as difficult and important a matter to be investigated as often comes before a student of natural history.I wish to settle the point once for all whether the Pediculus Mellitae is or is not the larva of Meloe.

[--Now is n't this the drollest world to live in that one could imagine, short of being in a fit of delirium tremens? Here is a fellow-creature of mine and yours who is asked to see all the glories of the firmament brought close to him, and he is too busy with a little unmentionable parasite that infests the bristly surface of a bee to spare an hour or two of a single evening for the splendors of the universe! I must get a peep through that microscope of his and see the pediculus which occupies a larger space in his mental vision than the midnight march of the solar systems.---The creature, the human one, I mean, interests me.]

--I am very curious,--I said,--about that pediculus melittae,--(just as if I knew a good deal about the little wretch and wanted to know more, whereas I had never heard him spoken of before, to my knowledge,)--could you let me have a sight of him in your microscope?

--You ought to have seen the way in which the poor dried-up little Scarabee turned towards me.His eyes took on a really human look, and I almost thought those antennae-like arms of his would have stretched themselves out and embraced me.I don't believe any of the boarders had ever shown any interest in--him, except the little monkey of a Boy, since he had been in the house.It is not strange;he had not seemed to me much like a human being, until all at once Itouched the one point where his vitality had concentrated itself, and he stood revealed a man and a brother.

--Come in,--said he,--come in, right after breakfast, and you shall see the animal that has convulsed the entomological world with questions as to his nature and origin.

--So I went into the Scarabee's parlor, lodging-room, study, laboratory, and museum,--a--single apartment applied to these various uses, you understand.

--I wish I had time to have you show me all your treasures,--I said, --but I am afraid I shall hardly be able to do more than look at the bee-parasite.But what a superb butterfly you have in that case!

--Oh, yes, yes, well enough,--came from South America with the beetle there; look at him! These Lepidoptera are for children to play with, pretty to look at, so some think.Give me the Coleoptera, and the kings of the Coleoptera are the beetles! Lepidoptera and Neuroptera for little folks; Coleopteras for men, sir!

--The particular beetle he showed me in the case with the magnificent butterfly was an odious black wretch that one would say, Ugh! at, and kick out of his path, if he did not serve him worse than that.But he looked at it as a coin-collector would look at a Pescennius Niger, if the coins of that Emperor are as scarce as they used to be when Iwas collecting half-penny tokens and pine-tree shillings and battered bits of Roman brass with the head of Gallienus or some such old fellow on them.

--A beauty!--he exclaimed,--and the only specimen of the kind in this country, to the best of my belief.A unique, sir, and there is a pleasure in exclusive possession.Not another beetle like that short of South America, sir.

--I was glad to hear that there were no more like it in this neighborhood, the present supply of cockroaches answering every purpose, so far as I am concerned, that such an animal as this would be likely to serve.