Their physiognomy is not adapted to the display of the emotions; the lateral movement of their jaws being effective for alimentary purposes, but very limited in its gamut of expression.It is with these unemotional beings that the Scarabee passes his life.He has but one object, and that is perfectly serious, to his mind, in fact, of absorbing interest and importance.In one aspect of the matter he is quite right, for if the Creator has taken the trouble to make one of His creatures in just such a way and not otherwise, from the beginning of its existence on our planet in ages of unknown remoteness to the present time, the man who first explains His idea to us is charged with a revelation.It is by no means impossible that there may be angels in the celestial hierarchy to whom it would be new and interesting.I have often thought that spirits of a higher order than man might be willing to learn something from a human mind like that of Newton, and I see no reason why an angelic being might not be glad to hear a lecture from Mr.Huxley, or Mr.
Tyndall, or one of our friends at Cambridge.
I have been sinuous as the Links of Forth seen from Stirling Castle, or as that other river which threads the Berkshire valley and runs, a perennial stream, through my memory,--from which I please myself with thinking that I have learned to wind without fretting against the shore, or forgetting cohere I am flowing,--sinuous, I say, but not jerky,--no, not jerky nor hard to follow for a reader of the right sort, in the prime of life and full possession of his or her faculties.
--All this last page or so, you readily understand, has been my private talk with you, the Reader.The cue of the conversation which I interrupted by this digression is to be found in the words "a good motto;" from which I begin my acccount of the visit again.
--Do you receive many visitors,--I mean vertebrates, not articulates?
--said the Master.
I thought this question might perhaps bring il disiato riso, the long-wished-for smile, but the Scarabee interpreted it in the simplest zoological sense, and neglected its hint of playfulness with the most absolute unconsciousness, apparently, of anything not entirely serious and literal.
--You mean friends, I suppose,--he answered.--I have correspondents, but I have no friends except this spider.I live alone, except when I go to my subsection meetings; I get a box of insects now and then, and send a few beetles to coleopterists in other entomological districts; but science is exacting, and a man that wants to leave his record has not much time for friendship.There is no great chance either for making friends among naturalists.People that are at work on different things do not care a great deal for each other's specialties, and people that work on the same thing are always afraid lest one should get ahead of the other, or steal some of his ideas before he has made them public.There are none too many people you can trust in your laboratory.I thought I had a friend once, but he watched me at work and stole the discovery of a new species from me, and, what is more, had it named after himself.Since that time Ihave liked spiders better than men.They are hungry and savage, but at any rate they spin their own webs out of their own insides.Ilike very well to talk with gentlemen that play with my branch of entomology; I do not doubt it amused you, and if you want to see anything I can show you, I shall have no scruple in letting you see it.I have never had any complaint to make of amatoors.
--Upon my honor,--I would hold my right hand up and take my Bible-oath, if it was not busy with the pen at this moment,--I do not believe the Scarabee had the least idea in the world of the satire on the student of the Order of Things implied in his invitation to the "amatoor." As for the Master, he stood fire perfectly, as he always does; but the idea that he, who had worked a considerable part of several seasons at examining and preparing insects, who believed himself to have given a new tabanus to the catalogue of native diptera, the idea that he was playing with science, and might be trusted anywhere as a harmless amateur, from whom no expert could possibly fear any anticipation of his unpublished discoveries, went beyond anything set down in that book of his which contained so much of the strainings of his wisdom.
The poor little Scarabee began fidgeting round about this time, and uttering some half-audible words, apologetical, partly, and involving an allusion to refreshments.As he spoke, he opened a small cupboard, and as he did so out bolted an uninvited tenant of the same, long in person, sable in hue, and swift of movement, on seeing which the Scarabee simply said, without emotion, blatta, but I, forgetting what was due to good manners, exclaimed cockroach!
We could not make up our minds to tax the Scarabee's hospitality, already levied upon by the voracious articulate.So we both alleged a state of utter repletion, and did not solve the mystery of the contents of the cupboard,--not too luxurious, it may be conjectured, and yet kindly offered, so that we felt there was a moist filament of the social instinct running like a nerve through that exsiccated and almost anhydrous organism.
We left him with professions of esteem and respect which were real.
We had gone, not to scoff, but very probably to smile, and I will not say we did not.But the Master was more thoughtful than usual.
