netic condition of the earth and the
outbreak of revolutionary tendencies. Such flexibility was naturally
much helped by his amiable feeling towards woman, whose nervous system,
he was convinced, would not bear the continuous strain of difficult
topics; and also by his willingness to contribute a song whenever the
same desultory charmer proposed music. Indeed his tastes were domestic
enough to beguile him into marriage when his resources were still very
moderate and partly uncertain. His friends wished that so ingenious and
agreeable a fellow might have more prosperity than they ventured to hope
for him, their chief regret on his account being that he did not
concentrate his talent and leave off forming opinions on at least
half-a-dozen of the subjects over which he scattered his attention,
especially now that he had married a "nice little woman" (the generic
name for acquaintances' wives when they are not markedly disagreeable).
He could not, they observed, want all his various knowledge and Laputan
ideas for his periodical writing which brought him most of his bread,
and he would do well to use his talents in getting a speciality that
would fit him for a post. Perhaps these well-disposed persons were a
little rash in presuming that fitness for a post would be the surest
ground for getting it; and on the whole, in now looking back on their
wishes for Merman, their chief satisfaction must be that those wishes
did not contribute to the actual result.

For in an evil hour Merman did concentrate himself. He had for many
years taken into his interest the comparative history of the ancient
civilisations, but it had not preoccupied him so as to narrow his
generous attention to everything else. One sleepless night, however (his
wife has more than once narrated to me the details of an event memorable
to her as the beginning of sorrows), after spending some hours over the
epoch-making work of Grampus, a new idea seized him with regard to the
possible connection of certain symbolic monuments common to widely
scattered races. Merman started up in bed. The night was cold, and the
sudden withdrawal of warmth made his wife first dream of a snowball,
and then cry--

"What is the matter, Proteus?"

"A great matter, Julia. That fellow Grampus, whose book is cried up as a
revelation, is all wrong about the Magicodumbras and the Zuzumotzis, and
I have got hold of the right clue."

"Good gracious! does it matter so much? Don't drag the