FROM that day Dredge’s progress continued steadily. If not always
perceptible to the untrained eye, in Lanfear’s sight it never deviated,
and the great man began to associate Dredge with his work, and to lean
on him more and more. Lanfear’s health was already failing, and in my
confidential talks with him I saw how he counted on Galen Dredge to
continue and amplify his doctrine. If he did not describe the young man
as his predestined Huxley, it was because any such comparison between
himself and his great predecessors would have been repugnant to his
taste; but he evidently felt that it would be Dredge’s role to reveal
him to posterity. And the young man seemed at that time to take the same
view of his calling. When he was not busy about Lanfear’s work he was
recording their conversations with the diligence of a biographer and the
accuracy of a naturalist. Any attempt to question or minimize Lanfear’s
theories roused in his disciple the only flashes of wrath I have ever
seen a scientific discussion provoke in him. In defending his master
he became almost as intemperate as in the early period of his literary
passions.
Such filial dedication must have been all the more precious to Lanfear
because, about that time, it became evident that Archie would never
carry on his father’s work. He had begun brilliantly, you may remember,
by a little paper on _Limulus Polyphemus_ that attracted a good deal
of notice when it appeared in the _Central Blatt_; but gradually his
zoological ardour yielded to an absorbing passion for the violin,
which was followed by a sudden plunge into physics. At present, after a
side-glance at the drama, I understand he’s devoting what is left of his
father’s money to archaeological explorations in Asia Minor.
“Archie’s got a delightful little mind,” Lanfear used to say to me,
rather wistfully, “but it’s just a highly polished surface held up to
the show as it passes. Dredge’s mind takes in only a bit at a time,
but the bit stays, and other bits are joined to it, in a hard mosaic of
fact, of which imagination weaves the pattern. I saw just how it would
be years ago, when my boy used to take my meaning in a flash, and answer
me with clever objections, while Galen disappeared into one of his
fathomless silences, and then came to the surface like a dripping
retriever, a long way beyond Archie’s objections, and with an answer to
them in his mouth.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account