“Physically speaking I am occasionally fatigued;” — said the Professor, eyeing him severely— “Particularly when I have to train and instruct foolish and refractory natures. Mentally, I am never weary. And now, if you have no further observations of immediate importance to make, perhaps you will condescend to commence the morning’s work.”
Lionel smiled, and tossed back his curly hair with a pretty, half-proud half-careless gesture.
“Oh I see what you are like now!” he said— “You are what they call of a satirical turn of mind, — and it is part of your particular kind of fun to ask me if I will ‘condescend’ to work, when you know a boy like me can’t have his own way in anything, and has to do what he’s told. I know what is meant by satire, — Juvenal was a satirist. I made an essay on him once, — he began as a poet, but he got tired of writing beautiful things for people who wouldn’t or couldn’t understand them, — so he turned round and ridiculed everybody. He got exiled to Egypt for making fun of one of the Emperor Hadrian’s favourites, — and they say he died out there of vexation and weariness, but I think it was more from old age than anything else, because he lived till he was eighty, and that made him older, I daresay, than even you are now.”
The Professor’s nose reddened visibly with irritation.
“Older? — I should think so indeed! — very much older!” he snapped out— “It will be a very long time before I am eighty.”
“Will it?” queried Lionel simply— “Well, one can only go by looks, you know, and you look old, and I’m not at all clever at guessing people’s ages. Will you ask me some questions now, or will you teach me something I am very anxious to know, first?”
The Professor glanced him over from head to foot with grim disparagement.
“I think,” he said, “it is my turn to examine you, if you have quite done examining me. It is necessary for me to know how far you have actually progressed in your studies, before I set you fresh tasks. Referring to the plan so admirably drawn up by your father, it seems you should know something of Greek and Latin, — you should also be considerably advanced in mathematics, and you should be fairly strong in history. Stand where you are, please, — put your hands behind your back, in case you should be inclined to twiddle your fingers, — I hate all nervous movements,— “the learned gentleman was apparently unaware of his own capacity for the ‘fidgets,’— “and when you give an answer, look me straight in the face. I have my own special method of examination, which you will have to accustom yourself to.”
“Oh yes!” replied Lionel cheerfully— “Every tutor has his own special method, and no two methods are alike. It is difficult at first to understand them all, — but I always try to do my best.”
The Professor made no response, but set to his work of catechising in terrible earnest, and before an hour had passed, was fairly astonished at the precocity, intelligence, and acute perception of his pupil. The child of ten had learnt more facts of science and history, than he, in his time, had known when he was twenty. He concealed his surprise however, under the cover of inflexible austerity, and the more apt of comprehension Lionel proved himself to be, the more the eminent pedagogue’s professional interest became excited, and the more he determined to work such promising material hard. This is often the fate of brilliant and intelligent children, — the more quickly they learn, the more cruelly they are ‘crammed,’ till both heart and brain give way under the unnatural effort and forced impetus, and disaster follows disaster, ending in the wreck of the whole intellectual and physical organisation. Happy, in these days of vaunted progress, is the dull heavy boy who cannot learn, — who tumbles asleep over his books, and gets a caning, which is far better than a ‘cramming;’ — who is ‘plucked’ in his exams, and dubbed ‘dunce’ for his pains; — the chances are ten to one, that though he be put to scorn by the showy college pupil loaded with honours, he will, in the long run, prove the better, aye, and the cleverer man of the two. The young truant whom Mother Nature coaxes out into the woods and fields when he should be at his books, — who laughs with a naughty recklessness at the gods of Greece, and has an innate comic sense of the uselessness of learning dead languages which he is never to speak, is probably the very destined man who, in time of battle, will prove himself a hero of the first rank, or who, planted solitary in an unexplored country, will become one of the leading pioneers of modern progress and discovery. Over-study is fatal to originality of character; and both clearness of brain and strength of physique are denied to the victims of ‘cram.’ Professor Cadman-Gore was an advocate of ‘cramming;’ — he was esteemed in many quarters as the best ‘coach’ of the day, and he apparently considered a young human brain as a sort of expanding bag or hold-all, to be filled with various bulky articles of knowledge, useful or otherwise, till it showed signs of bursting, — then it was to be promptly strapped together, locked and labelled— ‘Registered Through Passenger for Life.’ If the lock broke and the whole bag gave way, why then so much the worse for the bag, — it was proved to be of bad material, and its bursting was not the Professor’s fault. His filmy eyes began to sparkle with a dull glitter, and his yellow cheeks reddened at their jaw-bone summits, as he took note of the methodical precision and swiftness with which the young Lionel assorted his ‘facts’ in sequence and order, — of the instantaneous, hawk-like fashion in which the boy’s bright brain pounced, as it were, on a difficult proposition in Euclid and solved it without difficulty, — and a lurking sense of the unnaturalness of such over-rapid perception and analysis in a child of ten, intruded itself now and then on his consciousness, — for among other matters, the Professor had studied medicine. Yet his knowledge of the science was so slight that he was not without fears of instant death whenever he had a mild attack of dyspepsia, and he considered himself seriously wounded if he managed to run a pin into his finger. Nevertheless, a few trite medical statements did occur to his memory as he put Lionel through his paces, — recognised axioms concerning over-precocity of brain, and acute cerebral excitement of nerve-centres, — but he did not permit himself to dwell upon them. On the contrary, he worked the boy as he would have worked a muscular young fellow of eighteen or twenty, and Lionel himself showed no signs of weariness, owing to the complete rest and release from tension he had enjoyed the previous day. Things that often presented themselves to him as a useless ‘muddle,’ now suddenly seemed quite simple and clear; and he was sensible of a curious, almost feverish desire to astonish his new tutor by his quickness. An inward precipitate volition hurried him on, causing him to spring at difficulties and overcome them, — and he gave all his answers with a fluency and rapidity that was bewildering, even to himself. At the conclusion of the morning’s work, Professor Cadman-Gore reluctantly stated that he was ‘fairly well satisfied’ with the results of his preliminary interrogations.
“You will, however,” he continued— “need to apply yourself more closely to study than you have hitherto done, if you are to be at all a credit to me. I must tell you I very seldom undertake the tuition of a boy of your age, — it is too much trouble, and too little honour, — but as you have gone on so far, and your father seems anxious about you, I shall do my best to put you well ahead. I am now going to write down the course of reading you will undertake this afternoon, and the dozen ‘subjects’ you will prepare for tomorrow, — I shall expect you not only to be word- perfect, but sense-perfect. I want absolute and distinct comprehension, — not parrot-like repetition merely.”
“I am only having holiday tasks;” — put in Lionel with a wistful air— “Do you know that?”
“Of course I know it. Such work as you are given now is comparatively light, to what you will be able to perform when the regular term begins. You are preparing for a public school, — Winchester?”
“No, — I don’t think so, — I should like to, — but—”
“H’m — h’m! — Now let me think!” And twitching his forehead and mouth in his usual nervous fashion, the Professor began to scribb
le his list of ‘themes,’ while Lionel stood quietly beside him, watching the great bony fingers that guided the pen.
“When you have done that, may I ask you the thing I want so much to know?” he inquired.
The Professor looked up with some curiosity. He was inclined to negative the proposition, but the boy’s aptitude and intelligence, combined with his obedience and gentleness, had, to a very great degree, mollified the chronic state of irritation in which he, as a sort of modern Diogenes, was wont to exist, — so after a pause, during which he went on writing, he replied, —
“You may, certainly. Is it a matter of importance?”
“I think so!” and the boy’s eyes darkened and grew dreamy— “It seems so to me, at any rate. I am very anxious about it.”
Professor Cadman-Gore laid down his pen, and leaning back in his chair, widened his thin lips into what he meant to be an encouraging smile.
“Well, speak out!” he said,— “What is it?”
Lionel came closer to him, and looked earnestly in his face.
“You see you are very clever;” — he observed with deferential gentleness,— “Cleverer than anybody in all England, some people say. Well, then, you must have found out all about it, and you can explain what has been puzzling me for a long long time. What I want to know is this, — Where is the Atom?”
The Professor gave a violent start, — almost a jump, — and stared.
“Where is the Atom?” he repeated— “What nonsense are you talking? What do you mean?”
“It’s not nonsense,” — declared Lionel with patient firmness,— “It can’t be nonsense, — because it is the cause of everything we know. We are alive, aren’t we? — you and I and millions of people, and we’re all in this world together. But books tell you that this world is only a very little planet, one of the smallest in the sky, — and there are thousands and thousands, and millions and millions of other planets ever so much larger, some of which we cannot see, even with the longest and strongest telescope. Then, look at our sun! — we should not be able to live without it, — but there are millions of other suns and systems, — all separate universes. Now if all these things are atoms, and are designed by an Atom, — where is it? — that wonderful little First Atom which, without knowing in the least what it was about, and with nobody to guide it, and having no reason, judgment, sight or sense of its own, produced such beautiful creations? And then, if you are able to tell me where it is, will you also tell me where it came from?”
The Professor’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, and he glared at the composed little figure and wistful earnest face of his pupil with something of dismay as well as annoyance.
“You see,” continued the boy anxiously— “I should not have mentioned it to you, unless I had heard that you were so wise. I’ve been waiting for a very wise man to talk to about it, because it’s been on my mind a long time. The tutor I had who is just gone, Mr. Montrose, had quite different ideas to those of all the scientists, — he believed in a God, like all the uneducated, ignorant people. But before Mr. Montrose came I had a very clever tutor, a Mr. Skeet, — he was a Positivist, he said, and a great friend of a person named Frederic Harrison, and he told me all about the Atom. He even showed me the enlarged drawing of an Atom, as seen through the microscope, — a curious twisty thing with a sort of spinal cord running through it, — something like the picture of a man’s ribs in my anatomy book, — and he explained to me that it was a fortuitous combination of such things that made universes. And it puzzled me very much, because I thought there must be a beginning even to these atoms, and I could not imagine how such a twisty little object as a First Atom could think out a plan by itself, and create worlds with people bigger than itself on them. But he was a very funny man, — Mr. Skeet I mean, — he used to say that nothing was everything, and everything was nothing. He said this so often, and laughed so much over it, that I was afraid he was going quite mad, so I used to avoid the subject altogether. Now you have come, I am sure you can make it clear to me so that I shall understand properly, because it is very interesting don’t you think, to know exactly where the Atom is, and what it’s doing?”
Slowly, and with an uncomfortable sense of bafflement, Professor Cadman-Gore rallied his scattered forces.
“You ask to know what no one knows;” — he said harshly— “That there is a First Cause of things is evident, — but where it is, and where it came from, is an unfathomable mystery. It is, in all probability, now absorbed in its own extended forces, — all we know is, that it works, or has worked; and that we see its results in the universe around us.”
Lionel’s face darkened with disappointment.
“You call it a First Cause;” — he said— “And are you really quite sure the First Cause is an Atom?”
“No one can be sure of anything in such matters;” — answered the Professor, wrinkling his brows— “We can only form a guess, from what we are enabled to discover in natural science.”
A strange smile, half disdainful, half sorrowful flashed in the boy’s eyes.
“Oh then, you only ‘guess’ at the Atom, as other people ‘guess’ at a God!” he said— “No one is sure about anything! Well, I think it is very silly to settle upon an Atom as the cause of anything. It seems to me much more natural and likely that it should be a Person. A Person with brain and thought, and feeling and memory. You see, an Atom under the microscope has no head, or any place where it could grow a brain, — it is just a thing like two cords knotted together, and in the works of nature there is nothing of that description which thinks out a universe for itself, — if there were, it would rule us all—”
But here the Professor rose up in all his strength, and swung a heavy battering-ram of explicit fact against the child’s argument.
“And as a matter of positive truth and certainty, atoms do rule us!” — he interrupted with some excitement — ,”The atoms of disease which breed death, — the atmospheric atoms which work storm and earthquake, — the atoms which penetrate the brain-cells, and produce thought, — the atoms moving in a state of transition which cause change, both in the development of worlds and the progress of man, — good heavens! — I could go on quoting hundreds of instances which prove beyond a doubt that we are entirely governed by the movement and conglomeration of atoms, — but you are too young to understand, — you could never grasp the advanced scientific doctrines of the day, — it is ridiculous to discuss them with a boy like you!”
“I don’t think it is ridiculous,” — said Lionel placidly,— “because you see, I am rather an unhappy sort of boy. I think a good deal. If I were happy, I might not think; Mr. Montrose says there are lots of boys who never think at all, and that they get on much better than I do. But when one can’t help thinking, what is one to do? Oh dear!” and he heaved a profound sigh— “I did hope you would be able to clear up all my difficulties for me!”
The Professor rubbed his great hands together, cracked his knuckles and coughed awkwardly, but was otherwise silent.
“You know,” went on Lionel pathetically— “it doesn’t make you care very much about living, if you feel there’s no good in it, and that you are only the smallest possible fraction of the results of an Atom, which didn’t care and didn’t know what it was about, when it started making things. I should be ever so much happier if I thought it was a Person who knew what He was doing. We are supposed to know what we are doing, even in very small trifles, and if we don’t know, we are considered quite silly and useless. So it does seem rather funny to me, that we should decide that all the beautiful work of the universe is done by a twisty thing that hasn’t any notion what it is about. It would be much easier to understand, I think, if the scientific people could agree that the First Cause was a Person, who knew.”
Still the Professor was silent.
“A Person who knew,” continued the boy thoughtfully— “would have ideas; and if He were a good Person, they would all be grand and beautiful ideas. And if He were an
eternal Person, He would be eternally designing new and still more wonderful things, so we should not be surprised at knowing He had made millions and millions of stars and universes. And if He were good Himself, He would never quite destroy anything that had good in it, — He would be kind too, and He would always be improving and helping on every- everything thing He had made. Because as a Person, He would have feeling; — and when people got into trouble, or sickness or poverty, He would comfort them somehow. We might not see how He did it, but He would be sure to manage it. He could not help being sorry for sorrow, if He were a good Person. Yes, — the more I think of it the more likely it seems to me; — beautiful flowers and beautiful colours in the sky, and music, — these things make the idea of a Person much pleasanter and more natural to me than an Atom.”
“An Atom may be a Person, or a Person an Atom,” — said the Professor, beguiled involuntarily into argument, by the weird sagaciousness and old-mannish air of the little lad who still stood confidently close to his knee, looking frankly up into his hard furrowed face, and who at this observation, laughed softly.
“That sounds like Mr. Skeet, who said everything was nothing and nothing was everything!” he remarked;— “But I don’t think it could be so, you know. You can’t make anything of an Atom but the twisty object the microscope shows you, — you couldn’t say it thinks, or sees. It would have to think and see, to arrange colours perfectly, and it would have to hear, in order to make harmonies. I’ve gone over all this ever so many times in my own mind, and this is how it seems to me. I believe, — I do really believe, with all the wonderful discoveries we are making we shall find out the Atom to be a Person after all! And that He knows exactly what He’s doing, and what we’re doing! What a good thing that will be, won’t it? Because then we can some day ask Him to explain all that we don’t understand. Of course we might ask the Atom, but I don’t see how it could be expected to answer, as it is only supposed to be just twisting about with no object in particular.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 382