“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 glasses at a passing 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!
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 Butterfly’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 illustrating 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 God is behind the valves—that is why!” Amen.
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 passage 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 massive 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.
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.
Hard at work dissecting a Dogfish. Ruridecanal 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.
Went to the Veterinary Surgeon and begged of him the skull of a horse. Carried the trophy home under my arm—bare to the public view. “Why, Lor’, ’tis an ole ’orse’s jib,” M⸺ said when I got back.
1909
My programme of work is: (1) Continue German. (2) Sectioning embryo of (a) Fowl, (b) Newt. (3) Paper on Arterial System of Newts. (4) Psychology of Newts. (5) General Zoological Reading.
To C⸺ Hill. Too much taken with the beauty of the Woods to be able to do any nesting. Here are some of the things I saw: the bark on several of the trees in the mazzard orchards rubbed into a beautifully smooth, polished surface by the Red Devon Cows when scratching where it itched; I put my hand on the smooth almost cherry-red patch of bark and felt delighted and grateful that cows had fleas: the young shoots of the whortleberry plants on the hill were red tipped with the gold of an almost horizontal sun. I caught a little lizard which slipped across my path. … Afar off down in the valley I had come through, in a convenient break in a holly bush, I could just see a Cow sitting on her matronly haunches in a field. She flicked her ears and two starlings settled on her back. A Rabbit swept out of a sweetbrier bush, and a Magpie flew out of the hedge on my right.
In another direction I could see a field full of luscious, tall, green grass. Every stalk was so full of sap that had I cut one I am sure it would have bled great green drops. In the field some lambs were sleeping; one woke up and looked at me with the back of its head to the low sun, which shone through its two small ears and gave them a transparent pink appearance.
No sooner am I rebaptized in the sun than I have to be turning home again. No sooner do “the sudden
