The Man Whom the Trees Loved | Page 5

He had lowered the sheet and was staring at
her over the tops of his gold glasses.
"Listen to this, if you please," he said, a note of eagerness in his voice,
"listen to this, my dear Sophia. It's from an address by Francis Darwin
before the Royal Society. He is president, you know, and son of the
great Darwin. Listen carefully, I beg you. It is most significant."
"I am listening, David," she said with some astonishment, looking up.
She stopped her knitting. For a second she glanced behind her.
Something had suddenly changed in the room, and it made her feel
wide awake, though before she had been almost dozing. Her husband's
voice and manner had introduced this new thing. Her instincts rose in
warning. "Do read it, dear." He took a deep breath, looking first again
over the rims of his glasses to make quite sure of her attention. He had
evidently come across something of genuine interest, although herself
she often found the passages from these "Addresses" somewhat heavy.
In a deep, emphatic voice he read aloud:
'"It is impossible to know whether or not plants are conscious; but it is
consistent with the doctrine of continuity that in all living things there
is something psychic, and if we accept this point of view--'"
"If," she interrupted, scenting danger.
He ignored the interruption as a thing of slight value he was
accustomed to.
'"If we accept this point of view,'" he continued, '"we must believe that
in plants there exists a faint copy of what we know as consciousness in
ourselves .'"
He laid the paper down and steadily stared at her. Their eyes met. He
had italicized the last phrase.
For a minute or two his wife made no reply or comment. They stared at
one another in silence. He waited for the meaning of the words to reach
her understanding with full import. Then he turned and read them again
in part, while she, released from that curious driving look in his eyes,
instinctively again glanced over her shoulder round the room. It was

almost as if she felt some one had come in to them unnoticed.
"We must believe that in plants there exists a faint copy of what we
know as consciousness in ourselves."
"If," she repeated lamely, feeling before the stare of those questioning
eyes she must say something, but not yet having gathered her wits
together quite.
"Consciousness," he rejoined. And then he added gravely: "That, my
dear, is the statement of a scientific man of the Twentieth Century."
Mrs. Bittacy sat forward in her chair so that her silk flounces crackled
louder than the newspaper. She made a characteristic little sound
between sniffling and snorting. She put her shoes closely together, with
her hands upon her knees.
"David," she said quietly, "I think these scientific men are simply
losing their heads. There is nothing in the Bible that I can remember
about any such thing whatsoever."
"Nothing, Sophia, that I can remember either," he answered patiently.
Then, after a pause, he added, half to himself perhaps more than to her:
"And, now that I come to think about it, it seems that Sanderson once
said something to me that was similar.
"Then Mr. Sanderson is a wise and thoughtful man, and a safe man,"
she quickly took up, "if he said that."
For she thought her husband referred to her remark about the Bible, and
not to her judgment of the scientific men. And he did not correct her
mistake.
"And plants, you see, dear, are not the same as trees," she drove her
advantage home, "not quite, that is."
"I agree," said David quietly; "but both belong to the great vegetable
kingdom."
There was a moment's pause before she answered.
"Pah! the vegetable kingdom, indeed!" She tossed her pretty old head.
And into the words she put a degree of contempt that, could the
vegetable kingdom have heard it, might have made it feel ashamed for
covering a third of the world with its wonderful tangled network of
roots and branches, delicate shaking leaves, and its millions of spires
that caught the sun and wind and rain. Its very right to existence
seemed in question.

II Sanderson accordingly came down, and on the whole his short visit
was a success. Why he came at all was a mystery to those who heard of
it, for he never paid visits and was certainly not the kind of man to
court a customer. There must have been something in Bittacy he liked.
Mrs. Bittacy was glad when he left. He brought no dress-suit for one
thing, not even a dinner-jacket, and he wore very low collars with big
balloon ties like a Frenchman, and let his hair grow longer than was
nice,