st,--what
one that could be easily observed was most susceptible, most
sympathetic. 'T was a long labor, Monsieur; I shall not tire you with
the details. Enough that I found in the _snail_ the instrument I
needed,--and in the snail of the Rocky Mountains the most perfect of his
kind. You smile, Monsieur. _Eh, bien!_ 't is not philosophic to laugh at
the means by which one achieves something. Smile how you will, 't is a
fact that in the snail which is so common and grows to such an enormous
size in the valleys and on the slopes of your great Cordilleras I found
an animal combining a maximum of sympathetic harmony with the greatest
facility of being observed, the best health and habits, and the utmost
simplicity of _prononcee_ manifestation. But, you ask, what seek I,
then? My Heaven, Monsieur! there was the grand Idea,--the Idea upon
which I build my pride,--the Idea that is _mine!_ When it came to me,
Monsieur, this Idea, a great calm filled all my soul, and I felt then
the spirit of Kepler, when he said he could wait during centuries to
be recognized, since the laws he had demonstrated were eternal and
immutable as the Great God Himself! Yes, Monsieur! For in that crude,
undeveloped Idea were already germinating the wonders of an achievement
grander than any of Schwartz, or Guttenberg, or Galileo. Oh, this
beautiful, grand simplicity of Science, which was able, from the snail
itself, the very type and symbol and byword of torpidity and inaction,
to evolve what was to conquer time and space,--to outrun the wildest
imaginings of Puck himself!"

----What a coltish fire of enthusiasm pranced in the worthy little
Frenchman's veins, to be sure!

"_Eh, bien!_ Now, distance made no matter; it was forever subdued.
I could as soon send messages to the Sun itself as to my next-door
neighbor! Smile on, Monsieur! Cesar Prevost shall not be piqued at your
incredulity. He also was amazed, prostrated, when all the stupendous
consequences of his discovery first flashed upon his mind; and it was
very long before he could rid his mind of the notion that he was become
victim to the phantasms of a ridiculous dream. _Eh, bien!_ 't was very
simple, once analyzed. Know one fact, and you have all. And this one
fact, so simple, yet so grand, was just this:--_That a male and female
snail, having been once, by contact, put in communication with one
another, so as to become what magnetizers call en rapport the one with
the other, continue ever a