scattered like affrighted Hares.
* * *
Mrs H. organised the Removal of my Mother’s old Furniture and set a Team of Housemaids to Work cleaning the Residue of ten Yeares from the Woodwork and the Mantelpiece. I watched these Removals with an odd Detachment. My Mother was neither in the Chairs, nor in the Draperies.
Mine Aunt arranged the Purchase, from Oxford and London, of certain scientific Instruments, of which I had given her a List, and one or two Items of Furniture that could not be requisitioned fromother Rooms in the House; and my Father, I believe, signed the Bills without Comment. The Servants moved these Furnishings into Place as they arrived, under my strict Supervision, and I personally then set about moving my Books, which I had been keeping upon several Shelves hard by my Bed, into their new Home.
On the twelfth Daye of September, seventeen forty-six, after what had felt to me six very long Weeks, I stood, my Key in Hand, finally alone at the Centre of mine own miniature Universe, and I laughed loud at the Irony; the very Woman I was desperate to avoid had brought about my Deliverance. Seeming, it seemed, was everything to mine Aunt Barnaby. Then I ran mine Hands across the fine polished Walnut of my writing Desk. I counted up the Books within its glass-fronted Case; my Treasures, locked behind Dozens of tiny diamond Panes.
Homer
and
Virgil, Caesar
and
Suetonius; Catullus, Ovid; Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras;
a
Bible; Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne; Aristotle
(What? out of Place!);
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton; Paracelsus, Hobbes, Hooke, Locke, Boyle, Harvey, Descartes, Vesalius, Cheselden.
On the long dark oaken Table, before the south-facing Window, stood my Chymistry Instruments. Two short, round bellied Alembics, four fat Bottles and eight Flasks, three Thermometers, a white marble Pestle and Mortar, a small leather Bellows. A Microscope, brought all the way from London. A Board for Dissections, a Sett of Bowls. And my precious Medical Etui, containing Scalpels, Needles, a Curette and a Retractor, Scizzors, a Thumb Lancet, and a Bone Saw. Mine only Lack was Subjects for Experimentation.
I turned about, and ran as quick as I could to the Basement.
The Kitchen was busy, and the sweet Scent of baking Bread rose on the warm Aire like a Benediction. The Clamour quietened somewhat as I came a-bursting in, and the Cook, who was up toher Elbows in Dough, shot me an inquisitive Glare, and bid me tell her sharp what I was about.
“Vermin!” I answered. “I require a large dead Rat, or some other Animal of that Ilk, for Dissection. Have you any?”
“A Rat!” cried the Cook. “As I live and breathe! A Rat! In my Kitchen! No, Master Hart, there are no Rats! I would sooner lose my Place than work in any Kitchen that had Rats! Heaven forbid!”
“Egad, Woman, there is no Need for that Carry-on,” I said. “What about a Mouse?”
Eventually, one of the Maids agreed to search the Traps, and so after about half an Houre I had secured my Specimen, and hurried with it to my Study to begin its Evisceration.
My Subject was an house-Mouse, round eared and grey furred. I laid it out carefully on the sheer Surface of my Desk, and examined it closely. I had never before looked so intently at the Body of any Animal, even one with which I was familiar, and I was at once surprized. An immediate Change seemed to have been wrought upon the Creature by my mere Observation. This Mouse was, I am sure, almost identical to every Mouse I had previously seen, scuttling beside the skirting Board or atop my highest book-Shelf, but it seemed to me as if its Mouseness had become more exact—its Skeleton more precise in its Proportions, its Eyes more truly black, its minute Teeth more specific in their Shape and Number. I realised of Course that the Mouse had not been altered in any Way by my Looking at it, but that the Change had been in my Perceptions. From this Moment, I perceived, with a marvelling Jolt,
* * *
Mrs H. organised the Removal of my Mother’s old Furniture and set a Team of Housemaids to Work cleaning the Residue of ten Yeares from the Woodwork and the Mantelpiece. I watched these Removals with an odd Detachment. My Mother was neither in the Chairs, nor in the Draperies.
Mine Aunt arranged the Purchase, from Oxford and London, of certain scientific Instruments, of which I had given her a List, and one or two Items of Furniture that could not be requisitioned fromother Rooms in the House; and my Father, I believe, signed the Bills without Comment. The Servants moved these Furnishings into Place as they arrived, under my strict Supervision, and I personally then set about moving my Books, which I had been keeping upon several Shelves hard by my Bed, into their new Home.
On the twelfth Daye of September, seventeen forty-six, after what had felt to me six very long Weeks, I stood, my Key in Hand, finally alone at the Centre of mine own miniature Universe, and I laughed loud at the Irony; the very Woman I was desperate to avoid had brought about my Deliverance. Seeming, it seemed, was everything to mine Aunt Barnaby. Then I ran mine Hands across the fine polished Walnut of my writing Desk. I counted up the Books within its glass-fronted Case; my Treasures, locked behind Dozens of tiny diamond Panes.
Homer
and
Virgil, Caesar
and
Suetonius; Catullus, Ovid; Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras;
a
Bible; Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne; Aristotle
(What? out of Place!);
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton; Paracelsus, Hobbes, Hooke, Locke, Boyle, Harvey, Descartes, Vesalius, Cheselden.
On the long dark oaken Table, before the south-facing Window, stood my Chymistry Instruments. Two short, round bellied Alembics, four fat Bottles and eight Flasks, three Thermometers, a white marble Pestle and Mortar, a small leather Bellows. A Microscope, brought all the way from London. A Board for Dissections, a Sett of Bowls. And my precious Medical Etui, containing Scalpels, Needles, a Curette and a Retractor, Scizzors, a Thumb Lancet, and a Bone Saw. Mine only Lack was Subjects for Experimentation.
I turned about, and ran as quick as I could to the Basement.
The Kitchen was busy, and the sweet Scent of baking Bread rose on the warm Aire like a Benediction. The Clamour quietened somewhat as I came a-bursting in, and the Cook, who was up toher Elbows in Dough, shot me an inquisitive Glare, and bid me tell her sharp what I was about.
“Vermin!” I answered. “I require a large dead Rat, or some other Animal of that Ilk, for Dissection. Have you any?”
“A Rat!” cried the Cook. “As I live and breathe! A Rat! In my Kitchen! No, Master Hart, there are no Rats! I would sooner lose my Place than work in any Kitchen that had Rats! Heaven forbid!”
“Egad, Woman, there is no Need for that Carry-on,” I said. “What about a Mouse?”
Eventually, one of the Maids agreed to search the Traps, and so after about half an Houre I had secured my Specimen, and hurried with it to my Study to begin its Evisceration.
My Subject was an house-Mouse, round eared and grey furred. I laid it out carefully on the sheer Surface of my Desk, and examined it closely. I had never before looked so intently at the Body of any Animal, even one with which I was familiar, and I was at once surprized. An immediate Change seemed to have been wrought upon the Creature by my mere Observation. This Mouse was, I am sure, almost identical to every Mouse I had previously seen, scuttling beside the skirting Board or atop my highest book-Shelf, but it seemed to me as if its Mouseness had become more exact—its Skeleton more precise in its Proportions, its Eyes more truly black, its minute Teeth more specific in their Shape and Number. I realised of Course that the Mouse had not been altered in any Way by my Looking at it, but that the Change had been in my Perceptions. From this Moment, I perceived, with a marvelling Jolt,
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