again, till the impression upon my retina
became so strong that I could perfectly see
them wheeling before me, long after I had
left the instrument, and was hunting through
my vaunted books. The images impressed
upon my vision were brighter and more clear
than the coloured plates; nevertheless, my ,
anxious search for their portrait and
biography continued in vain. The objects
themselves did not happen to be figured at all;
and as to the descriptions, I got completely
lost in a labyrinth of synonyms, doubtful
species, incomplete observations, and evident
optical illusions on the part of the observer,
not to mention preconceived theories— clever
in their time, but worthless at the present
day. It was late, and I continued to work by
lamplight. The later it grew the more
flurried and anxious I became to solve the
difficulty. The time-piece on its bracket gave
warning for twelve, and I knew less about the
matter (that is, rny knowledge was more
confused) than when I began. Its chimes slowly
tinkled an obsolete air— a mournful ditty
in a minor key — and then, after a
moment's pause, the first stroke of midnight
sounded. I felt a sudden faintness come
over me. I had done wrong to make light
of the sage's lore.

"One! two! three!" from the silvery bell,
shot through me like an electric spark,
curdling my very blood. Every atom of my flesh
felt loose, as if it were put at the disposal of
some superior agent. "Four! five! six!" I
shivered from head to foot with an ominous
shudder, and felt shattered to pieces, much as
a lump of sugar might feel while it is being
slowly dissolved in a glass of cold water.
While "Seven! eight! nine!" were striking,
the particles of my bodily frame, impelled by
some irresistible attraction, rushed together
downward towards the earth, contracting
into the smallest possible space. "Ten!
Eleven!" I still kept shrinking almost to
nothing, and still descending, I knew not
whither. I seemed to go back, in time, as I
was sinking evidently in level. "Twelve!"
and I was an animated droplet, lying at the
bottom of a ditch filled with clear water and
aquatic plants.

Yes; I was a tiny living drop of fluid, still
retaining perfect consciousness. I could not
see, but I FELT the presence of things around
me,— that the blue sky was above, and the
muddy bottom beneath; that the light
streamed from THAT direction, and that THERE
was a shady grove of confervæ. I had no
definite shape or form, any more than is
possessed by a drop of castor-oil, or by a dab
of rain-water falling on greasy paper. I had
no special members, features, or limbs, but
could make substitutes for them out of my
substance, at will. If I wished to touch a
grain of sand or a leaflet, I had only to put
a lobe to serve as an arm or a leg. I had no
skin, bones, or flesh, but was entirely made
up of the transparent jelly or mock-flesh
which wiser people than myself have called
sarcode.

As I could flow or glide into whatever
form I pleased, it was an endless amusement
to me to do so. Sometimes I spread myself
out into a map of Europe, with capital
imitations of the Scandinavian, Hispanic, and
Italian peninsulas. Sometimes I coldly pursed
myself up into the shape of a half-melted
lump of ice; then I mimicked an ill-formed
star-fish, and then I roughly represented
Punch's well-known profile. I began to feel
hungry with the exercise; a tempting bit of
starch from the cell of a leaf lay within half a
millimetre of my mouth,— which does not tell
you on which side of me it lay, for I was all
mouth and all stomach. So I rolled up to
the dainty, and over it, imbedding it into my
own proper substance, there to be digested at
leisure.

In this unceremonious way I picked up
the crumbs of a nice little meal of considerable
variety, including salad and shell-fish.
There was nothing surreptitious in this
proceeding; because my neighbours could see
everything that I had engulphed and
appropriated, as well as sundry pockets, vacuoles,
or empty holes, which I kept for my own
private purposes. Thus, my life was a very
easy one, though rather selfish, considerable
in duration, if not eventful in adventures;
and it certainly never cost me a pang to
think that I was no better than an Amæba
princeps. There I was, with the means of
supplying all my wants; and that was better
than not being at all. Contentment is
happiness. But, one day, when I was flowing
forward to catch a little bit of dinner, I felt
the ground tremble dreadfully. William the
Conqueror was fighting the Battle of Hastings.
Harold's horse, after his lord was slain— the
same horse you have seen in so many pictures
— came galloping in the direction of the ditch,
my home. At the sight of the cool water, he
suddenly halted, thrust his panting nostrils
into the pool, and drank a thirsty draught.
Humble folk are made to suffer for the quarrels
of their superiors. Harold's defeat was
fatal to me. I felt myself drawn up with the
stream into a dark, hot, stifling cavern— the
horse's stomach— where I soon lost my few
senses, and felt no more.

I came to life again in a similar locality. The
clash of arms and the uproar of battle, which
were plainly audible, again made me tremble
for my personal safety. The cause was
explained by a red rose who overhung my ditch,
and who whispered to a white rose growing
on the other side, " What a shame, to mix
up our pacific names with all this blood-shed!"
York and Lancaster were fighting
hard for the crown. But it is a little too
bad to accuse others of faults of which we
are guilty ourselves. The roses had scarcely
the right to be critical, because both white
ones and red can scratch hard and draw
blood whenever it suits their caprice to be