when brought into contact, they immediately lay hold of one another, so to speak. They unite together ultimately, and form a substance entirely different from either of the original. The impulse by which these bodies join together is called chemical attraction, or affinity—names given, I presume, for want of a better. Now, it appears to me as if these inorganic, inanimate substances possessed a sort of spirit—an intelligence—a will of their own. Don’t shake your head so disbelievingly, but hear me out. Take the case of elective affinity, which, by its very title, gives to these so-called dead substances the property of a power of choosing. As an example of what I mean generally let me remind you of a very common mineral, chalk, or carbonate of lime; in it a solid substance, lime, is combined with a colourless gas called carbonic acid. Now, the instant that another acid, say sulphuric acid, is brought in contact with chalk, what is the result? The new acid and the lime spring to each other and combine together at once, while the colourless carbonic acid gas is thrown off into the air. What power is this, that the new acid possesses? What makes the lime throw up its alliance with the gas? I believe myself that it is intimately connected with a law that exists throughout creation both in the animate and inanimate world,—that opposite natures should be drawn together. Inorganic substances which have the strongest “attraction” for one another, are those which differ most entirely in their qualities. You may take acids and alkalies as an example. Look around, too, in the world of your acquaintances, and do you not everywhere see persons of opposite natures strongly attracted to one another, especially in the cases of friends, lovers, or husbands and wives? I do not mean to say that we do not see the contrary sometimes, and meet with cases of like joining to like. Even in chemistry we find that some acids when mixed form a more powerful acid than when separate. But still I hold that throughout the organic and inorganic worlds, opposite natures attract each other and combine the most strongly.”
“Oh, Charlie, Charlie,” said Holdsworth, “you are getting quite beyond the subject. I should make the Professor stare with astonishment if I were to come out with such fantastic notions. But I could not help thinking, while you were speaking, that Old Walstein would just suit you.”
“Old Walstein! Who is Old Walstein?”
“Nobody seems to know, but he is a very clever old fellow,—Doctor Walstein I believe he calls himself. He has taken out a card for practical chemistry at our place, and works all day in our laboratory. He is deep in organic chemistry, and has prepared, while he has been with us, a splendid collection of rare crystals, both from animal and vegetable substances. He is very talkative, and has taken a great fancy to me, but there is something about the look of his eyes that I don’t like. In fact, there is no ‘elective affinity,’ as you call it, between us, as far as I am concerned. He was speaking to me only the other day, in the same strain as you have been talking to me. Would you like to know him? I’ll introduce you.”
“I should like to know him very much,—what is he? where does he live?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what his occupation is; I have, however, a notion that, like you, he is studying chemistry merely for the love of it. As to where he lives, I believe it is somewhere in Wales, but at present he is staying in Piccadilly—Albemarle Street, number—”
“You seem to know his address pretty well.”
“Well, I saw his daughter—that is—I mean, I saw his carriage stop there one day.”
“Oh, he has a daughter, has he? Well, you need not blush so, Fred.”
“I’m not blushing. I have only seen her once or twice. The doctor’s carriage used to come for him in the afternoon, and I have seen a young lady in it, who I fancy is his daughter. She is very pretty—fair with blue eyes, but she seems dreadfully delicate, for she is always wrapped up in furs, even in this warm weather. I’ve not seen her for the last month, either in the carriage or at the window of the house—”
“Oh, you have been looking out for her, have you? Come—come, don’t begin to blush again,—if you will allow me to go with you to the laboratory to-morrow, I should like to meet this doctor friend of yours.”
“I shall be happy to introduce you, and I think you will get on well together,” said Fred, and we dropped the subject.
The next afternoon I called at the laboratory according to appointment. It was a large dingily-lighted apartment, looking out on the Thames under arches. There were wooden benches fitted up with shelves filled with bottles and phials, retorts, lamps, crucibles, and all the paraphernalia required in the study of chemistry. The room was full of young students, from the midst of whom Holdsworth emerged and led me forward to introduce me to Doctor Walstein.
The old man seemed quite out of place among the crowd of youthful students around him. His appearance struck me as being very peculiar. He was dressed in a coarse dark blouse, made with tight fitting sleeves, and fastened round the waist with a leathern strap. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, from under which his snow white hair appeared. But his face impressed me the most strongly. I was both attracted and repulsed by it—attracted by the evident fire of genius which glowed in its every feature, and repulsed by the expression of his eyes, which produced an indescribable feeling of fear and submission. His skin was bronzed; evidently by much exposure whilst travelling, and his small keen grey eyes scintillated with a strange light under his overhanging white eyebrows. His nose was long, thin, and aquiline, and his massive forehead was deeply furrowed between the eyebrows, as we often see in men who have suffered deeply or studied much and painfully. The lower part of his face was concealed by a thick white moustache and beard; but he smiled as Holdsworth introduced me, and took my hand with seeming cordiality.
Even at this lapse of time I can remember that smile and that pressure of the hand, vividly. Every feature in his face smiled, but his eyes did not change their fixed, piercing look, and, as he continued to talk upon various subjects, they seemed to hold me under a fascination, for which