Essays on Life, Art and Science | Page 9

thus rewarded. On the other hand, the feeling that I have
succeeded far beyond my deserts hitherto, makes it all the harder for
me to acquiesce without complaint in the extinction of a career which I
honestly believe to be a promising one; and once more I repeat that,
unless the Museum authorities give me back my Frost, or put a locked
clasp on Arvine, my career must be extinguished. Give me back Frost,
and, if life and health are spared, I will write another dozen of volumes
yet before I hang up my fiddle--if so serious a confusion of metaphors
may be pardoned. I know from long experience how kind and
considerate both the late and present superintendents of the
reading-room were and are, but I doubt how far either of them would
be disposed to help me on this occasion; continue, however, to rob me
of my Frost, and, whatever else I may do, I will write no more books.
Note by Dr. Garnett, British Museum.--The frost has broken up. Mr.
Butler is restored to literature. Mr. Mudie may make himself easy.
England will still boast a humourist; and the late Mr. Darwin (to whose
posthumous machinations the removal of the book was owing) will
continue to be confounded.--R. GANNETT.

RAMBLINGS IN CHEAPSIDE {2}

Walking the other day in Cheapside I saw some turtles in Mr.
Sweeting's window, and was tempted to stay and look at them. As I did
so I was struck not more by the defences with which they were hedged
about, than by the fatuousness of trying to hedge that in at all which, if
hedged thoroughly, must die of its own defencefulness. The holes for

the head and feet through which the turtle leaks out, as it were, on to
the exterior world, and through which it again absorbs the exterior
world into itself--"catching on" through them to things that are thus
both turtle and not turtle at one and the same time--these holes stultify
the armour, and show it to have been designed by a creature with more
of faithfulness to a fixed idea, and hence one-sidedness, than of that
quick sense of relative importances and their changes, which is the
main factor of good living.
The turtle obviously had no sense of proportion; it differed so widely
from myself that I could not comprehend it; and as this word occurred
to me, it occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a
physical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend
its mind with any thoroughness. For unity of mind can only be
consummated by unity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some
respects both knave and fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by
which it has not been eaten. As long as the turtle was in the window
and I in the street outside, there was no chance of our comprehending
one another.
Nevertheless I knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so
effectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an
easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could
bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My
difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument
that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be allowed
to convert the turtles--I mean I had no money in my pocket. No
missionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but
even so small a sum as half-a-crown would, I suppose, have enabled
me to bring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns I could
in time no doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the
money drives. If, as is alleged, the world stands on a turtle, the turtle
stands on money. No money no turtle. As for money, that stands on
opinion, credit, trust, faith--things that, though highly material in
connection with money, are still of immaterial essence.
The steps are perfectly plain. The men who caught the turtles brought a
fairly strong and definite opinion to bear upon them, that passed into
action, and later on into money. They thought the turtles would come
that way, and verified their opinion; on this, will and action were

generated, with the result that the men turned the turtles on their backs
and carried them off. Mr. Sweeting touched these men with money,
which is the outward and visible sign of verified opinion. The customer
touches Mr. Sweeting with money, Mr. Sweeting touches the waiter
and the cook with money. They touch the turtle with skill and verified
opinion. Finally, the customer applies