Weird and Witty Tales of Mystery by Joseph Lewis French Page B

powerful current of electricity
continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in
lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding
and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite
delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care required to be
taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the
labour the severest and most harassing that I had yet undergone.
    At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready to
be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a drop
of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its
examination,—a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid
evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of glass
under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a prism
and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to the
minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw
nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast luminous
abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly as
limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with
the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hair's-breadths. The
wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens approached the
object a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.
    I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the
entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous
life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse.
I comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had
penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond the
realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule,
into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost boundless
dome filled with a supernatural radiance.
    It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every side I
beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and coloured with
the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of what
might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated
clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into
vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendours compared with
which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross compared with
gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long avenues of
these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with prismatic
hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the
fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-lucent
ranks of many-coloured drooping silken pennons. What seemed to be
either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues lustrous and ever
varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no
lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen, save
those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous
stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown
fires, unrealizable by mere imagination.
    How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
life—perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at present
acquainted, but still, some living organism. I found my newly
discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.
    While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more
attentively, and found that I was