OF THE GIFTED LADY.

107

effort. This famous lady is clever, very clever, in spots; and then she generalizes famously. In this lies hidden all her power. Some odd chance is sure to happen, when the shallowness of the current of thought is seen being all broken up into foam, froth, and bubbles. The other day she was discoursing on a theme which is the fools' paradise of such talkers- it was life. These young disciples, with their pencils, did their best to follow her. She was so glorious!' But when they came to compare notes, there was nothing tangible, nothing coherent; and they, simpletons as they are, asked her to repeat herself. She was too wise, and said the inspiration was gone.""

"I cannot see what is the charm of all this," said Gertrude. "Mrs. Fitzallen, have you discovered why it is that a clique of young ladies, from a city famous for its wisdom and wealth, circle around this masculine woman, and offer her the incense of their daily admiration?"

"It would hardly do, Mrs. Trueman," replied Mrs. Fitzallen, "for me to guess at what I really care so little to know; but I have an intuition (I believe that is the word, professor?"-he bowed) "that all this speculation finds its origin in the restraints of religion. The fools of this age, as in ages past, are ever saying, 'No God! let there be no God!""

"What restraints do you speak of?" asked Oliver.

"I

am not to be tempted to lift the veil from the Isis of Castle Brunnens," replied Mrs. Fitzallen, smiling.

“Is it so strange that the faith of a future state of being can be sacrificed?" asked Mrs. Fitzallen.

Oliver replied, "It is all mystery to me."

"Perhaps I can solve the enigma," said Professor Reinhard.

A

"In my judgment, then, it is a scepticism, Mr. Outright, cured at once and forever, when the heart is happy in its affections. young mother, when she looks into the face of infancy reposing on her bosom, no longer wishes to believe death an eternal sleep, and heaven and its mansions of glory a miserable myth.” And here the subject was dropped.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE "ACARUS CROSSI," AND THE RESULTS OF MAKING LICE, AMONG THE LEARNED AT BRUNNENS CASTLE.

THE pursuit of pleasure is ever wearisome; and Castle Brunnens possessed no charm to save its inmates from the misery of ennui. It was a god-send for some new thing to turn up. Such a happy event attended the arrival of Mr. Andrew Crosse, who had been sent for by the proprietors, to repeat his famous experiment of creating lice. Since the times of the magicians of Egypt nothing of the sort had been attempted; and his coming, with a load of chemical apparatus, was worthy of being chronicled. Mr. Crosse was a worthy Welsh gentleman, and his apparatus was packed up with a full supply of Welsh cheese, for which his father-land was famous, and he too much of a Welshman ever to be without it. Somehow, these cheeses were contingent and necessary to the success of his experiments. No chemist had been able to repeat them; and yet, the slightest intimation that the "acarus crossi" must have lingered about his retorts and

EFFECT OF MAKING LICE.

109

crucibles, unless, indeed, shaken during his manipulations from out his own head, put this learned gentleman in a furious passion. his head and his fixings were essential

One thing was certain,

to the success of his experiments.

The gentleman was now bringing his labors to a happy conclusion. At their commencement, only a few were allowed to be present; but the circle widened as the work went on; and Oliver, having a love of chemistry, was invited to aid Mr. Crosse. He opened the door for Frank and his wife and Annie into the saloon, where they witnessed, under glass globes, the gratifying results coming to a desired end. Day after day, and, indeed, hour by hour, the circles of the castle were occupied in examining the process of this wonderful transformation. And when

the

eggs began to hatch out their young, and the little animals to show signs of life, and crawl about, real, live lice, a burst of joy thrilled round the castle. It was wonderful to listen to the systems of creation suggested, all taking their rise out of these lice; and the greatest delight was expressed by the savans, to see animated nature taking its rise, under favorable auspices, from slime, water, and electricity.*

66

* SIR JOHN FREDERICK HERSCHELL, in a speech delivered by him before the British Association, says of the theory of development: Surely, when we hear such a theory, the natural human craving after causes capable, in some conceivable way, of giving rise to such changes and transformations of organ, intellect, &c. &c., becomes important. And when nothing is offered to satisfy this craving, but loose and vague reference to favorable circumstances of climate, food, and general situation, which no expe rience has ever shown to convert one species to another, who is there that does not at once perceive that such a theory is in no respect more explanatory than that would be which simply asserted a miraculous intervention, VOL. II.

10

"Where now is the need of a God?" cried the gifted lady, in a tone of triumph, as she saw the lice crawling one over another, under the glass retort.

These manifestations of joy, so universal among the guests, without one single expression of grief and alarm for what was jeoparded, became a matter of mature cogitation and conversation among our pilgrims. It was revealing the inmost depths of the heart, disrobing the soul, and showing its latent enmity to the existence of God; a sudden unmasking of the soul, not more to others than to themselves. "There is no God! Let us eat and drink. Life's but a span; we 'll every inch enjoy!" So great was the relief of pressure, which, like the atmosphere, had rested upon them, and was now forever removed from their souls. Who that remembers the glad joy which welcomed the Vestiges of Creation, a pretentious book, which sold by thousands of copies, can doubt that all that Paul has said is true?—The heart, "the carnal mind, is enmity against God!"

Annie was standing one day, looking intently at these lice, when the gifted lady, and a troupe of her disciples, entered, and came around the table upon which the glass cylinder retort was placed, without attracting or disturbing the attention of Annie, who, at last, breathing a sigh, came back to consciousness of the presence of so distinguished a personage. She smiled, as she witnessed Annie's recovery of her recollection, and said:

“I have never, madam, seen anything like this. To me it is an experimentum crusis. What do you call them?”

at every successive step of that unknown series of events, by which the earth has been alternately peopled and dispeopled of its denizens."— London Athenæum, No. 921, June 21, 1846.

THE NEW THEORY OF LIFE.

111

"Lice, madam," replied Annie; "veritable lice! I think their paternity cannot be questioned any more than their existence."

"You think, then, they should be called Acarus Crossi'!" said the gifted lady, with enthusiasm.

"Certainly!" cried Annie; "they belong to no one else."

“I think so, decidedly!" said the gifted lady; "and Mr. Crosse is made illustrious by the solving of this problem of the ages Life is the development of vesicle, under favorable condi

tions of light, air, and electricity."

66

O, do let us write that down!" cried a dozen young ladies at once. 66 Pray repeat that once more!" And this eminent lady was pleased to do so, and it became an axiom forever with this favored circle.*

"What have you to say to this, professor?" said Annie to Professor Reinhard, as she walked with him out of the

*Will it be believed in a future and a wiser age, did not the page of history record it, that in the middle of the nineteenth century, in one of the intellectual centres of Europe, books have been written, and eagerly devoured, in which the great system of worlds to which we belong is said to be created from an universe of dust, in which man with his immortal soul is struck from a speck of albumen by an electric spark, and in which his divine form, the pride of the sculptor, and the theme of the poet, is developed from the brainless monad and the grinning monkey!"— North British Review, Nov., 1854, p. 219.

"The Mormonism of the religious world is not more baleful than the doctrines of the electro-albuminous origin of life;— the development of man from monkeys; the creation of the universe by blind law; the formation of planets out of mud, and of stars out of steam." Ibid.