ey chatter to each
other! What discovery in all natural history could be so great as this?
The thought that these little creatures, so nearly allied to man, might
disclose to me their dispositions, their hopes, their ambitions, their
hates, their reflections upon mankind, had such a sudden and powerful
influence on me that I felt like seizing my translatophone and rushing
off to the Zooelogical Gardens. It was now daybreak. I might obtain
admission!

"But I speedily dismissed this idea. If I should ever hear in English
what the monkeys might say to me, I must give up Mary. I should be the
slave of my discovery. It would be impossible then to destroy the
translatophone. I sat down again before the fire. 'Shall I put an end to
it now?' I said to myself. Nothing would be easier than to take its
delicate movements and smash them on the hearth. Now a prudent thought
came to me: suppose Mary should not accept me? Then, with this great
invention lost,--for I never should have the heart to make another,--I
should have nothing left in the world. No; I would be cautious, lest in
every way my future life should be overcast with disappointment. The sun
had risen, and I felt I must go out; I must have air. Before I opened
the front door, however, I said to myself, 'Remember it is all settled.
It is Mary you must have--that is, if you can get her.'

"Of all things in this world, the mind of man is the most independent,
the most headstrong. It will work at your bidding as long as it pleases,
and then it will strike out at its own pace and go where it chooses.
During a walk of a couple of miles I thought nearly all the time of what
the monkeys might say to me if I should attach a wide mouth-piece to my
translatophone and place it against the bars of their cage. Over and
over again I stopped these thoughts and said to myself: 'But all this is
nothing to me. I must consider Mary and nothing else.' Then in a very
few minutes I was wondering if the monkeys would ask me questions--if
they have as strong a desire to know about us as we have to know about
them. From such questions how much I might learn in regard to the mental
distance between us and them! But again I put all this away from me and
began to plan anew what I should say to Mary. And then again it was not
very long before I found myself thinking how intensely interesting it
would be to know what the tree-toads say, and what the frogs talk about
when they sit calling to each othe