CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SOLILOQUY OF PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.--"GRAVITATION IS THE BEGINNING AND GRAVITATION IS THE END: ALL EARTHLY BODIES KNEEL TO GRAVITATION."
"Please continue, I am intensely interested; I wish that I could giveyou my reasons for the desire; I can not do so, but I beg you tocontinue."
"I should add," continued Vaughn, ignoring my remarks, "that we haveestablished rules to measure the force of gravitation, and haveestimated the decrease of attraction as we leave the surfaces of theplanets. We have made comparative estimates of the weight of the earthand planets, and have reason to believe that the force expression ofgravitation attains a maximum at about one-sixth the distance toward thecenter of the earth, then decreases, until at the very center of ourplanet, matter has no weight. This, together with the rule I repeated afew moments ago, is about all we know, or think we know, of gravitation.Gravitation is the beginning and gravitation is the end; all earthlybodies kneel to gravitation. I can not imagine a Beyond, and yetgravitation," mused the rapt philosopher, "may also be an expressionof--" he hesitated again, forgetting me completely, and leaned his shaggyhead upon his hands. I realized that his mind was lost in conjecture,and that he was absorbed in the mysteries of the scientific immensity.Would he speak again? I could not think of disturbing his reverie, andminutes passed in silence. Then he slowly, softly, reverently murmured:"Gravitation, Gravitation, thou art seemingly the one permanent, everpresent earth-bound expression of Omnipotence. Heat and light come andgo, as vapors of water condense into rain and dissolve into vapor toreturn again to the atmosphere. Electricity and magnetism appear anddisappear; like summer storms they move in diversified channels, or eventurn and fly from contact with some bodies, seemingly forbidden toappear, but thou, Gravitation, art omnipresent and omnipotent. Thoucreatest motion, and yet maintainest the equilibrium of all thingsmundane and celestial. An attempt to imagine a body destitute of thypotency, would be to bankrupt and deaden the material universe. O!Gravitation, art thou a voice out of the Beyond, and are other forcesbut echoes--tremulous reverberations that start into life to vibrate fora spell and die in the space caverns of the universe while thoucontinuest supreme?"
"SOLILOQUY OF PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.
'GRAVITATION IS THE BEGINNING, AND GRAVITATION IS THE END; ALL EARTHLYBODIES KNEEL TO GRAVITATION.'"]
His bowed head and rounded shoulders stooped yet lower; he unconsciouslybrushed his shaggy locks with his hand, and seemed to confer with afamiliar Being whom others could not see.
"A voice from without," he repeated; "from beyond our realm! Shall thesubtle ears of future scientists catch yet lighter echoes? Will thebrighter thoughts of more gifted men, under such furtherings as thefuture may bring, perchance commune with beings who people immensity,distance disappearing before thy ever-reaching spirit? For with thee,who holdest the universe together, space is not space, and there is noword expressing time. Art thou a voice that carriest the history of thepast from the past unto and into the present, and for which there is nofuture, all conditions of time being as one to thee, thy self coveringall and connecting all together? Art thou, Gravitation, a voice? If so,there must be a something farther out in those fathomless caverns,beyond mind imaginings, from which thou comest, for how couldnothingness have formulated itself into a voice? The suns and universeof suns about us, may be only vacant points in the depths of anall-pervading entity in which even thyself dost exist as a momentaryecho, linked to substances ponderous, destined to fade away in theinter-stellar expanse outside, where disturbances disappear, and matterand gravitation together die; where all is pure, quiescent, peaceful anddark. Gravitation, Gravitation, imperishable Gravitation; thou seeminglyart the ever-pervading, unalterable, but yet moving spirit of a cosmosof solemn mysteries. Art thou now, in unperceived force expressions,speaking to dumb humanity of other universes; of suns and vortices ofsuns; bringing tidings from the solar planets, or even infinitelydistant star mists, the silent unresolved nebulae, and spreading beforeearth-bound mortal minds, each instant, fresh tidings from without,that, in ignorance, we can not read? May not beings, perhaps likeourselves but higher in the scale of intelligence, those who people someof the planets about us, even now beckon and try to converse with usthrough thy subtle, ever-present self? And may not their efforts atcommunication fail because of our ignorance of a language they can read?Are not light and heat, electricity and magnetism plodding, vacillatingagents compared with thy steady existence, and is it even furtherpossible?--"
His voice had gradually lowered, and now it became inaudible; he wasoblivious to my presence, and had gone forth from his own self; he waslost in matters celestial, and abstractedly continued unintelligibly tomutter to himself as, brushing his hair from his forehead, he picked uphis well-worn felt hat, and placed it awkwardly on his shaggy head, andthen shuffled away without bidding me farewell. The bent form,prematurely shattered by privation; uncouth, unkempt, typical ofsuffering and neglect, impressed me with the fact that in him man's lifeessence, the immortal mind, had forgotten the material part of man. Thephysical half of man, even of his own being, in Daniel Vaughn'sestimation, was an encumbrance unworthy of serious attention, his spiritcommuned with the pure in nature, and to him science was a study of thegreat Beyond.[5]
[5] Mr. Drury can not claim to have recorded verbatim Prof. Vaughn's remarks, but has endeavored to give the substance. His language was faultless, his word selections beautiful, his soliloquy impressive beyond description. Perhaps Drury even misstated an idea, or more than one, evolved then by the great mind of that patient man. Prof. Daniel Vaughn was fitted for a scientific throne, a position of the highest honor; but, neglected by man, proud as a king, he bore uncomplainingly privations most bitter, and suffered alone until finally he died from starvation and neglect in the city of his adoption. Some persons are ready to cry, "Shame! Shame!" at wealthy Cincinnati; others assert that men could not give to Daniel Vaughn, and since the first edition of ETIDORHPA appeared, the undersigned has learned of one vain attempt to serve the interests of this peculiar man. He would not beg, and knowing his capacities, if he could not procure a position in which to earn a living, he preferred to starve. The only bitterness of his nature, it is said, went out against those who, in his opinion, kept from him such employment as returns a livelihood to scientific men; for he well knew his intellect earned for him such a right in Cincinnati. Will the spirit of that great man, talented Daniel Vaughn, bear malice against the people of the city in which none who knew him will deny that he perished from cold and privation? Commemorated is he not by a bust of bronze that distorts the facts in that the garments are not seedy and unkempt, the figure stooping, the cheek hollow and the eye pitifully expressive of an empty stomach? That bust modestly rests in the public library he loved so well, in which he suffered so uncomplainingly, and starved so patiently. J. U. L.
I embraced the first opportunity that presented itself to read theworks that Prof. Vaughn suggested, and sought him more than once toquestion further. However, he would not commit himself in regard to thepossible existence of other forces than those with which we areacquainted, and when I interrogated him as to possibilities in the studyof obscure force expressions, he declined to express an opinionconcerning the subject. Indeed, I fancied that he believed it probable,or at least not impossible, that a closer acquaintance with conditionsof matter and energy might be the heirloom of future scientificstudents. At last I gave up the subject, convinced that all theinformation I was able to obtain from other persons whom I questioned,and whose answers were prompt and positive, was evolved largely fromignorance and self-conceit, and such information was insufficient tosatisfy my understanding, or to command my attention. After hearingVaughn, all other voices sounded empty.
I therefore applied myself to my daily tasks, and awaited the promisedreturn of the interesting, though inscrutable being whose subterraneansojourneying was possibly fraught
with so much potential value toscience and to man.
THE UNBIDDEN GUEST RETURNS TO READ HIS MANUSCRIPT. CONTINUING HISNARRATIVE.