Yeast: a Problem

the day, literary and other, it is prudent to bow to those fashions whe

s; some forty red coats and some four black; a sprinkling of young-farmers, resplendent in gold buttons and green; a pair of sleek drab stable-keepers, showing off horses for sale; the surgeon of the union, in Mackintosh and antigropelos; two holiday schoolboys with trousers strapped down to bursting point, like a penny steamer's

lungs might be saved by sea-breezes and sunshine; or his character developed by wearing guano in his shoes, and training himself against a south wall-we must have a weather description, though, as I shall presently show, one in flat contradiction of the

a shilling to a tramp. An inexpressible joy bounded through every vein, and the soft air breathed purity and self-sacrifice through my soul. As I watched the beetles, those

itch. I could not have degraded my

ebodings. Read Manfred, and doubted whether I should live long. The laden weight of destiny seemed to c

f taken late, goes far towards killing them. Lancelot had found Byron and Shelley pall on his taste and commenced devouring Bulwer and worshipping Ernest Maltravers. He had left Bulwer for old ballads and romances, and Mr. Carlyle's reviews; was next alternately chivalry-mad; and Germany-mad; was now reading hard at physical science; and on the whol

was very

ht to make

were very pleasant-beauti

be 'superior,' gentleman-lik

ought to be

h the same creed as he brought with him, except in regard to the last article. The scenery-and-natural-history mania was now somewh

ivate tutor to read Martial and Juvenal 'for the improvement of his style.' All conversation on the subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been always kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, p

comment, the foul devil's lies about it, which make up the mass of the Latin poets-and then go, fresh from teaching Juvenal and Ovid, to declaim at Exete

cription of the wea

r fowling, our hunting, our punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)-our golf and skating,-our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires modestly into

nd just proved its existence, by toothaches on the north side of all faces. The spiders having been weather-bewitched the night before, had unanimously agreed to cover every brake and brier with gossamer-cradles, and never a fly to be caught in them; like Manchester cotton-spinners madly glutting the markets in the teeth of 'no demand.' The steam crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked

d side of the cover, and dare not light a cigar; and lastly, his mucous membrane in general was not in the happiest condition, seeing that he had been dining the evening before with Mr. Vaurien of Rottenpalings, a young gentleman of a convivial and melodious turn of mind, who sang-and played also-as singing men are wont-in more senses than one, and had 'ladies and gentlemen' down from town to stay with him; and they sang and played too; and so somehow between vingt-un and champagne-punch, Lancelot had not arrived at home till seven o'clock that morning, and was in a fit state to appreciate the feelings of our grandfathe

at Shiver-the-timbers, who was no Griselda in temper-(Lancelot had bought him out of the Pytchley for half his value, as unrideably vicious, when he had killed a groom, and fallen backwards on a rough-rider, the first season after he came up from Horncastle)-responded by a furious kick or two, threw his head up, put his foot into a drain, and sprawled down all but on his nose, pitching Lancelot unawares shamefully on the pommel of his saddle. A certain fatality, by the bye, had la

hat's that book on the ground? Sapping and studying still? I let nobody come out with my hounds with their pocket full of

laughter, the gay

les: Introduction

to sit there ten physical seconds, or spiritual years, while the colonel solemnly returned him the book, complimenting him on

he walk became a trot-the trot a canter. Then a faint melancholy shout at a distance, answered by a 'Stole away!' from the fields; a doleful 'toot!' of the horn; the dull thunder of many horsehoofs rolling along the farther woodside. Then red coats, flashing like sparks of fire across the gray gap of mist at the ride's-mouth, then a whipper-in, bringing up a belated hound, burst into the pathway, smashing and plunging, with shut eyes, through ash-saplings and hassock-grass; then a fat farmer, sedulously pounding through th

bles, and thundered fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence thinned the cavalcade, till the madness began to stir all bloods, and with grim earnest silent faces, the in

bush, thro

park, thr

re and there a long melancholy line of tall elms, while before them the high chalk ranges gleamed above

'He's leading the squire straight home

*

rest bridge. Bracebridge looked back at Lancelot, who had been keeping by his side in sulky rivalry, following him successfully through all manner of desperate places, and more and more angry with himself and

nd,' quietly obs

o took for granted-poor thin-skinned soul! t

n rheumatic fever. There-"one fool makes many!" You'll kill Smith before you're done,

ake a fine r

ckford's, from the prize-ring to the continental courts,-his varied and ready store of information and anecdote,-the harmony and completeness of the man,-his consistency with his own small ideal, and his consequent apparent superiority everywhere and in everything to the huge awkward Titan-cub, who, though immeasurably beyond Brac

elot. 'Old Lavington will find us dry clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming

d islets in a sea of milk.-Up, between steep ridges of tuft crested with black fir-woods and silver beech, and here and there a huge yew standing out alone, the advanced sentry of the forest, with its luscious fretwork of green velvet, like a mountain of Gothic spires and pinnacles, all glittering and steaming as the sun drank up the dew-drops. The lark sprang upward into song, and called merrily to the new-opened sunbeams, while the wreaths and flakes of mist lingered reluctantly about the hollows, and clung with dewy fingers to every knoll and belt

few yews, and elders, and grassy graves. A climbing rose over the porch, and iron railings round the churchyard, told of human care; and from the graveyard itself burst up one of those noble springs known as winter-bournes in the

down the hillside, so close together 'that you might have

the still depths of the primeval chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. And here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon them! He felt asham

hich gives to hunting and fishing their unutterable and almost spiritual charm; which made Shakespeare a nightly poacher; Davy and Chantrey the patriarchs of fly-fishing; by which the twelve-foot rod is transfigured into an enchanter's wand, potent over the unseen wonders of the water-world, to 'call up spir

ther moment-they had leaped the rails; and there they swept round under the gray wall, leaping a

y-the mad noisy flesh, and the silent immortal spirit,-the frivolous game of life's outside show, and the terrible earnest of its inward abys

the hillside, gaining on their victim at every stride. The patter of the horsehoofs and the rattle of rolling flints died away above. Lancelot looked up,

ed out without observing him, and suddenly turning round, met him full, fac

ad marble cliff of polished forehead; her rich chestnut hair rippled downward round the towering neck. With her perfect masque and queenly figure, and earnest, upward gaze, she might have been the very model from which Raphael conceived his gloriou

by the decided interference of the horse, who, thoroughly disgusted at his master's whole conduct, gave a significant shake of his head, and shamming frightened (as both women and horses

said Argemone to herself, 'bu

Love, who is ashamed of his real pedigree, and swears

*

the famous Erototheogonic chorus of Aristophanes's Birds, with illustrations taken fro

, holding on, in fact, far more by his spurs than by his knees, to the utter infuriation of Shiver-the-timbers, who kicked and snorted over the down like one of Mephistopheles's Demon-steeds. They had mounted the hill-the deer fled before them in terror-

'He's had a fall!' 'No he hasn't!' ''Ware

ream by the long heave of the huge brute's shoulder, and the maddening sensation of sweeping through the air over the fence. He started, checked the curb, the horse threw up his head, fulfilling h

n knees. Then a crash as if a shell had burst in his face-a horrible grind

orrow in the old man's face, 'Come to himself!' and a great joyful oath rolled out. 'The boldest rid

ice from behind the curtain. 'Smith has a cle