The Journal of a Disappointed Man

November 3. Aristotle's Lantern Dissected the Sea Urchin (Echinus esculentus). Very excited over my first view of Aristotle's Lantern. These complicated pieces of animal mechanism never smell of musty age--after æons of evolution. When I open a Sea Urchin and see the Lantern, or dissect a Lamprey and cast eyes on the branchial basket, such structures strike me as being as finished and exquisite as if they had just a moment before been tossed me fresh from the hands of the Creator. They are fresh, young, they smell new. December 3. Hard at work dissecting a Dogfish. Ruridecanal Conference in the afternoon. I enjoy this double life I lead. It amazes me to be laying bare the brain of a dogfish in the morning and in the afternoon to be taking down in shorthand what the Bishop says on Mission Work. December 4. Went to the Veterinary Surgeon and begged of him the skull of a horse. Carried the trophy home under my arm--bare to the public view. "Why, Lor', 'tis an ole 'orse's jib," M---- said when I got back. [1] There are numerous drawings of dissections scattered through the Journal about this period. 1909 March 7. My programme of work is: (1) Continue German. (2) Sectioning embryo of (a) Fowl, (b) Newt. (3) Paper on Arterial System of Newts. (4) Psychology of Newts. (5) General Zoological Reading. May 2. To C---- Hill. Too much taken with the beauty of the Woods to be able to do any nesting. Here are some of the things I saw: the bark on several of the trees in the mazzard orchards rubbed into a beautifully smooth, polished surface by the Red Devon Cows when scratching where it itched; I put my hand on the smooth almost cherry-red patch of bark and felt delighted and grateful that cows had fleas: the young shoots of the whortle-berry plants on the hill were red tipped with the gold of an almost horizontal sun. I caught a little lizard which slipped across my path.... Afar off down in the valley I had come through, in a convenient break in a holly bush, I could just see a Cow sitting on her matronly haunches in a field. She flicked her ears and two starlings settled on her back. A Rabbit swept out of a sweet-brier bush, and a Magpie flew out of the hedge on my right.