Produced by David Widger
THE DIAMOND LENS
By Fitz-James O'brien
I
FROM a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinationshad been toward microscopic investigations. When I was not more thanten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish myinexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me by drilling in adisk of copper a small hole in which a drop of pure water was sustainedby capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying somefifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfectforms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination to apreternatural state of excitement.
Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained tome all that he knew about the principles of the microscope, related tome a few of the wonders which had been accomplished through its agency,and ended by promising to send me one regularly constructed, immediatelyon his return to the city. I counted the days, the hours, the minutesthat intervened between that promise and his departure.
Meantime, I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore theremotest resemblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon, and employedin vain attempts to realize that instrument the theory of whoseconstruction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes ofglass containing those oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as"bull's-eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed in the hope of obtaining lensesof marvelous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystallinehumor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavored to pressit into the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having stolen theglasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with a dim idea of grindingthem into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties--in which attempt itis scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.
At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known asField's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars.As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could nothave been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on themicroscope--its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then forthe first time the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The dull veil ofordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly toroll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt toward mycompanions as the seer might feel toward the ordinary masses of men.I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could notunderstand. I was in daily communication with living wonders such asthey never imagined in their wildest visions, I penetrated beyond theexternal portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Wherethey beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass,I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common tophysical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles asfierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould,which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scoopedaway from her jam-pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliageand most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of thesemicroscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering with green and silverand gold.
It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was thepure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been disclosed.I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my microscope, Idimmed my sight, day after day and night after night, poring over themarvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who, having discoveredthe ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive glory, shouldresolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to mortal the secretof its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this moment. I destinedmyself to be a microscopist.
Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I wasignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in thesame pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a thousandtimes more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek, Williamson,Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schleiden were thenentirely unknown to me, or, if known, I was ignorant of their patientand wonderful researches. In every fresh specimen of cryptogamia whichI placed beneath my instrument I believed that I discovered wondersof which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember well the thrillof delight and admiration that shot through me the first time that Idiscovered the common wheel animalcule (Rotifera vulgaris) expandingand contracting its flexible spokes and seemingly rotating through thewater. Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some works treating of myfavorite study, I found that I was only on the threshold of a scienceto the investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age weredevoting their lives and intellects.
As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anythingpractical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops ofwater through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that Ishould choose a profession.
It was their desire that I should enter the counting-house of my uncle,Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who carried on business in NewYork. This suggestion I decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; Ishould only make a failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.
But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents werestaid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor, andtherefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, Ishould, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place meabove want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this, I shouldact the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in renderingmyself independent.
After much cogitation, I complied with the wishes of my family, andselected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New YorkAcademy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from myrelatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased withoutfear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirkattending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had the remotestintention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being"plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I couldobtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy withmen of pursuits kindred with my own--in short, all things necessary toensure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I had anabundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my illuminatingmirror on one side and my object-glass on the other; what, therefore,was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiledworlds? It was with the most buoyant hope that I left my New Englandhome and established myself in New York.