At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars.
As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could not
have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the
microscope--its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then for
the first time the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The dull veil of
ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to
roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt toward my
companions as the seer might feel toward the ordinary masses of men.
I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not
understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders such as
they never imagined in their wildest visions, I penetrated beyond the
external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where
they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass,
I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to
physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as
fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould,
which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped
away from her jam-pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage
and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these
microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering with green and silver
and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was the
pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been disclosed.
I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my microscope, I
dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night, poring over the
marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who, having discovered
the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive glory, should
resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to mortal the secret
of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this moment. I destined
myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in the
same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a thousand
times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek, Williamson,
Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schl