not have
been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the
microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then
for the first time the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The dull veil
of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to
roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt towards my
companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I
held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not
understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as
they never imagined in their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the
external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where
they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I
saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to
physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as
fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould,
which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away
from her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage
and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these
microscopic forests, hung strange fruits glittering with green, and
silver, and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
the pure 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, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night,
poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive
glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to
mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this
moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a
thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schmaltz, Dujardin, Staccato, and
Schlseiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
specimen of cryptogamic which I placed beneath my instrument I beli