A Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Page 2

as peddlers do with goods, for the benefit of others, and lay up stores in
order to diffuse them abroad for the benefit of society in general. Not so my excellent
uncle, Professor Hardwigg; he studied, he consumed the midnight oil, he pored over
heavy tomes, and digested huge quartos and folios in order to keep the knowledge
acquired to himself.
There was a reason, and it may be regarded as a good one, why my uncle objected to
display his learning more than was absolutely necessary: he stammered; and when intent
upon explaining the phenomena of the heavens, was apt to find himself at fault, and
allude in such a vague way to sun, moon, and stars that few were able to comprehend his
meaning. To tell the honest truth, when the right word would not come, it was generally
replaced by a very powerful adjective.
In connection with the sciences there are many almost unpronounceable names--names
very much resembling those of Welsh villages; and my uncle being very fond of using

them, his habit of stammering was not thereby improved. In fact, there were periods in
his discourse when he would finally give up and swallow his discomfiture--in a glass of
water.
As I said, my uncle, Professor Hardwigg, was a very learned man; and I now add a most
kind relative. I was bound to him by the double ties of affection and interest. I took deep
interest in all his doings, and hoped some day to be almost as learned myself. It was a
rare thing for me to be absent from his lectures. Like him, I preferred mineralogy to all
the other sciences. My anxiety was to gain real knowledge of the earth. Geology
and mineralogy were to us the sole objects of life, and in connection with these studies
many a fair specimen of stone, chalk, or metal did we break with our hammers.
Steel rods, loadstones, glass pipes, and bottles of various acids were oftener before us
than our meals. My uncle Hardwigg was once known to classify six hundred different
geological specimens by their weight, hardness, fusibility, sound, taste, and smell.
He corresponded with all the great, learned, and scientific men of the age. I was,
therefore, in constant communication with, at all events the letters of, Sir Humphry Davy,
Captain Franklin, and other great men.
But before I state the subject on which my uncle wished to confer with me, I must say a
word about his personal appearance. Alas! my readers will see a very different portrait of
him at a future time, after he has gone through the fearful adventures yet to be related.
My uncle was fifty years old; tall, thin, and wiry. Large spectacles hid, to a certain extent,
his vast, round, and goggle eyes, while his nose was irreverently compared to a thin file.
So much indeed did it resemble that useful article, that a compass was said in his
presence to have made considerable N (Nasal) deviation.
The truth being told, however, the only article really attracted to my uncle's nose was
tobacco.
Another peculiarity of his was, that he always stepped a yard at a time, clenched his fists
as if he were going to hit you, and was, when in one of his peculiar humors, very far from
a pleasant companion.
It is further necessary to observe that he lived in a very nice house, in that very nice street,
the Konigstrasse at Hamburg. Though lying in the centre of a town, it was perfectly rural
in its aspect--half wood, half bricks, with old-fashioned gables--one of the few old houses
spared by the great fire of 1842.
When I say a nice house, I mean a handsome house--old, tottering, and not exactly
comfortable to English notions: a house a little off the perpendicular and inclined to fall
into the neighboring canal; exactly the house for a wandering artist to depict; all the more
that you could scarcely see it for ivy and a magnificent old tree which grew over the door.
My uncle was rich; his house was his own property, while he had a considerable private
income. To my notion the best part of his possessions was his god-daughter, Gretchen.

And the old cook, the young lady, the Professor and I were the sole inhabitants.
I loved mineralogy, I loved geology. To me there was nothing like pebbles--and if my
uncle had been in a little less of a fury, we should have been the happiest of families. To
prove the excellent Hardwigg's impatience, I solemnly declare that when the flowers in
the drawing-room pots began to grow, he rose every morning at four o'clock to make
them grow quicker by pulling the leaves!
Having described my uncle, I will now give an account