Passages from Master Flea

The strange loneliness of the person who arranges other people's joy.

It was the kind and laudable practice of Mr. Tyss to surprise some needy family, where he knew there were children, with his whole cargo of Christmas boxes, just as he had purchased it, and dream himself for a few hours into the happy times of boyhood. Then, when the children were in the height of their joy, he would softly steal away and wander about the streets half the night, hardly knowing what to do with himself, from the deep emotions which straitened his breast, and feeling his own house like a vault, in which he was buried with all his pleasures.

Her warmth runs through him, and something deathly chills it.

Dressed again in the fairy dress of tissue, she appeared as lovely as ever. Peregrine felt himself streamed through by the electric warmth of her body, and yet, amidst it all, a cold mysterious shudder thrilled through him like the breathing of death. For the first time he thought that he saw something singular and lifeless deeply seated in her eyes, while the tone of her voice—nay, even the rustling of her dress—betrayed a strange being, who was never to be trusted.

What you would see if you could look through an eye into the brain.

Now, as usual, Peregrine saw behind the tunicle of the eyes the strange interweaving of nerves and veins, which pierced deep into the brain. But with these were twined bright silver threads, a hundred times thinner than the thinnest spider’s web, and it was these very threads that confused him, for they seemed to be endless, branching out into something indistinguishable even by the microscopic eye; perhaps they were thoughts of a sublimer kind, the others of a sort more easily comprehended. Then he observed flowers, strangely blended, which took the shape of men, then again men, who dissolved as it were into the earth, and peeped forth again as stones and metals. Amongst these all manner of beasts were in motion, who underwent innumerable changes, and spoke strange languages.

The men who first looked through microscopes, and what their lenses missed.

“But you, poor dupes, unhappy Swammerdam, wretched Leeuwenhoek, your whole life was one incessant error. You sought to inquire into Nature, without suspecting the import of her inward being. You were presumptuous enough to wish to penetrate into her workshop and watch her secret labours, imagining that you could, without punishment, look into the fearful mysteries of those depths, which are inscrutable to the human eye. Your hearts remained cold and insensible; the real love has never warmed your bosom. You imagined that you read the holy wonders of nature with pious admiration, but in endeavouring to find out the condition of those wonders, even in their inmost core, yourself destroyed that pious feeling, and the knowledge after which you strove was a phantom merely, that has deceived you, like prying, inquisitive children.

The case against sentimental charity, put by a man who won't be gentle.

Ha! how this alms-giving disgusts me, when I think that what you thus waste in a day would be sufficient to support them for months in a moderate manner. Then too you overload them with glittering gewgaws, when a common toy, presented by their fathers or mothers, gives them infinitely more pleasure. They eat themselves sick with your infernal marzipan, and with the knowledge of your splendid gifts, which in the end must be denied to them, you sow in their young minds the seeds of discontent and uneasiness. You are rich, full of youth, and yet withdraw yourself from all society, and thus frustrate the approaches of well-meaning minds.

A small voice takes offence at your suspicion.

“That was a very pitiful idea, Mr. Tyss!” exclaimed Master Flea, interrupting Peregrine’s soliloquy. “Do you imagine that the mystery I have entrusted to you is a trifle? Should not this gift pass for the most decided proof of my sincere friendship? Shame on you for being suspicious! You are surprised at the reason, the mind, of a little despised insect, and that proves—don’t be offended—the narrowness of your education in science.

Even a man brooding on love has to yawn, and the street can hear.

But, however it may lower Mr. Peregrine Tyss with the ladies, it must not be concealed that, in spite of all his enthusiasm, he gaped twice, and so loudly, that a drunkard in the streets below called out to him, “Holla! you there with the white nightcap, don’t swallow me.” This of course was a sufficient cause for his dashing down the window so violently, that the frame rattled again. It is even affirmed that, in so doing, he cried out loud enough, “Impudent scoundrel!” But this cannot be relied upon, as it by no means accords with his general suavity of disposition. Enough; he shut the window, and went to bed. The necessity for sleep, however, seemed to be superseded by that immoderate gaping.

Under the magnifying glass, a toy theatre becomes an act of impossible tailoring.

But it was not till you overlooked the table with a good magnifying glass that the art of the flea-tamer developed itself in its full extent, for then first appeared the splendour and grace of the vessels, the fine workmanship of the arms, the glitter and neatness of the uniforms, all of which excited the profoundest admiration. It was quite impossible to imagine what instruments the flea-tamer could have used in making neatly and proportionately certain little collaterals, such as spurs and buttons, compared to which that matter seemed to be a very trifling task, which else had passed for a masterpiece of the tailor, namely, the fitting a flea with a pair of breeches; though, indeed, in this the most difficult part must have been the measuring.

Some children are disqualified from commerce by a single sound.

The elder Mr. Tyss had always considered it a bad omen that Peregrine, as a little child, should prefer counters to ducats, and next should manifest a decided abhorrence of moneybags, ledgers, and waste books. But what seemed most singular was that he never could hear the word “bill of exchange” pronounced without having his teeth set on edge, and he assured them that he felt at the sound as if someone was scratching up and down a pane of glass with the point of a knife. Mr. Tyss, therefore, could not help seeing that his son was spoilt for a merchant, and however he might wish to have him treading in his footsteps, yet he readily gave up this desire, under the idea that Peregrine would apply himself to some decided occupation.