Speaker 1: A moth genus unknown by H. G. Wells. Probably you
have heard of Happily, not w T Happily the Sun,
but the celebrated happily, the happily of Periplenetta Happilier Happily
the entomologist. If so, you know at least of the
great feud between Happily and Professor Porkins, though certain of
its consequences may be new to you for those of
you who have not a word of two of explanation
is necessary, which the idle reader may go over with
a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him. It
is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of
such really important matters as this Happily Porkin's feud. Those
epoch making controversies again that have convulse the geological society
are I verily believe, almost entirely unknown outside the fellowship
of that body. I have heard men of fair general
education even refer to the great scenes at these meetings
as vestry meeting squabbles. Yet the great hate of the
English and Scottish geologists has lasted now half a century,
and has left deep and abundant marks upon the body
of the science, and this happly Porkin's business, though perhaps
a more personal affair stirred passions as profound, if not profounder.
Your common man has no conception of the zeal that
animates a scientific investigator, the fury of contradiction you can
arouse in him. It is the odium theologicum in a
new form. There are men, for instance, who would gladly
burn Professor Ray Lancaster at Smithfield for his treatment of
the molluscer in Encyclopedia, that fantastic extension of the cephalopods
to cover terrapods. But I wonder from Haply and Porkins's
It began years and years ago with a revision of
the microlepidopter, whatever these might be, by Porkin, in which
he extinguished a new species, created by Happily Happily, who
was always Quarrelsome replied by a stinging impeachment of the
entire classification of Porkins. Footnote remarks on a recent revision
of Microlepidopter Quarterly Journal, Entomological Society, eighteen sixty three, end footnote.
Porkins in his rejoinder footnote rejoinder to certain remarks et
cetera ibid. Eighteen sixty four end footnote suggested that Happily's
microscope was as defective as his powers of observation, and
called him an irresponsible meddler. Happily was not a professor
at that time. Happily, in his retort footnote further remarks
et cetera ibid. End footnote, spoke of blundering collectors and
described as if inadvertently, Porkins's revision as a miracle of ineptitude.
It was a war to the knife. However, it would
scarcely interest the reader to detail how these two great
men quarreled, and how the split between them widened, until
from the microlepidopteru they were at war upon every open
question in entomology. There were memorable occasions. At times the
Royal Entomological Society meetings resembled nothing so much as the
Chamber of Deputies. On the whole, I fancy Porkin's was
nearer the truth than Happily, But Happily was skillful with
his rhetoric, had a turn of ridicule rare in a
scientific man, was endowed with vast energy, and had a
fine sense of injury in the matter of the extinguished species.
While Porkins was a man of dull presence, prosy of speech,
in shape not unlike a water barrel, over, conscientious with testimonials,
and suspected of jobbing museum appointments. So the young men
gathered around happily and applauded him. It was a long struggle,
vicious from the beginning, and growing at last to pitiless antagonism.
The successive turns of fortune, now an advantage to one side,
and now to another, now happily tormented by some success
of Porkins, and now Porkins outshone by happily belong rather
to the history of entomology than to this story. But
in eighteen ninety one Porkins, whose health had been bad
for some time, published some work upon the mesoblast of
the Death's head Moth. What the mesoblast of the Death's
head Moth may be does not matter a rap in
the story. But the work was far below his usual
standard and gave Happily an opening he had coveted for years.
He must have worked night and day to make the
most of his advantage. In an elaborate critique, he rent
Porkins to tatters. One can fancy the man's disordered black
hair and his queer dark eyes flashing as he went
for his antagonist, And Porkins made a reply halting, ineffectual,
with painful gasps of silence, and yet malignant. There was
no mistaking his will to wound happily, nor his incapacity
to do so. But few of those who heard him,
I was absent from that meeting realized how ill the
man was. Happily had got his opponent down and meant
to finish him. He followed with simply brutal attack upon
Porkin's in the form of a paper upon the development
of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of the
most extraordinary amount of mental labor, and yet couch in
a violently controversial tone. Violent as it was an editorial note.
Witnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Porkin's
with shame and confusion of face. It left no loophole.
It was murderous in argument and utterly contemptuous in tone,
an awful thing for the declining years of a man's career.
The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder from Porkins.
He would try one for Porkins had always been game,
but when it came it surprised them, for the rejoinder
of Porkins was to catch influenza, to proceed to pneumonia,
and to die. It was perhaps as effectual a reply
as he could make under the circumstances, and largely turned
the current of feeling against Happily. The very people who
had most gleefully cheered on the gladiators became serious at
the consequence. There could be no reasonable doubt the threat
of the defeat had contributed to the death of Porkins.
There was a limit even to scientific controversy, said serious people.
Another crushing attack was already in the press and appeared
on the day before the funeral. I don't think Happily
exerted himself to stop it. People remembered how Happily had
hounded down his rival, and forgot that his rival's defects
scale something satire reads ill over fresh mold. The thing
provoked comment in the daily papers. This it was that
made me think that you had probably heard of Happily
and his controversy. But as I have already remarked, scientific
workers live very much in a world of their own.
Half the people, dare I say, who go along Piccadilly
to the Academy every year, could not tell you where
the learned societies abide. Many even think that research is
a kind of happy family cage, in which all kinds
of men lie down together in peace. In his private thoughts,
Happily could not forgive Porkins for dying. In the first place,
it was a mean dodge to escape the absolute pulverization
Happily had in mind for him, and in the second
it left Happily's mind with a queer gap in it.
For twenty years he had worked hard, sometimes far into
the night, and seven days a week with microscope scalpel,
collecting net and pen, and almost entirely with reference to Porkins.
The European reputation he had won had come as an
incident in that great antipathy he had gradually worked up
to a climax. In this last controversy, it had killed Porkins,
but he had also thrown Happily out of gear, so
to speak, and his doctor advised him to give up
work for a time and rest. So Happily went down
into a quiet village in Kent and thought day and
nights of porkins and good things. It was now impossible
to say about him. At last, Happily began to realize
in what direction the preoccupation tended. He determined to make
a fight for it, and started by trying to read novels.
But he could not get his mind of porkins white
in the face and making his last speech every sentence
a beautiful opening. For Happily, he turned to fiction and
found it had no grip on him. He read The
Island Knight's Entertainments until his sense of causation was shocked
beyond endurance by the bottle imp Then he went to
Kipling and found he proved nothing besides being irrelevant and vulgar.
These scientific people have their limitations. Then, unhappily he tried
Beissants in a House, and the opening chapter set his
mind upon learned societies and porkins at once. So happily
turned to chess and found it a little more soothing.
He soon mastered the moves and the chief gambits and
the commoner closing positions, and began to beat the vicar.
But then the cylindrical contours of the opposite king began
to resemble porkins standing up and gasping ineffectually against checkmates,
and Happily decided to give up chess. Perhaps the study
of some new branch of science would, after all be
better diversion. The best rest is change of occupation. Happily
determined to plunge into diatoms and had one of his
smaller microscopes and Halibert's monograph sent down from London. He
thought that perhaps if he could get up a vigorous
quarrel with Halibit, he might be able to begin life
afresh and forget Porkin's. And very soon he was hard
at work in his habitual strenuous fashion at these very
microscopic denizens of the wayside pool. It was on the
third day of the diatoms that Happily became aware of
a novel addition to the local fauna. He was working
late at the microscope, and the only light in the
room was a brilliant little lamp with a special form
of green lamp shade. Like all experienced microscopists, he kept
both eyes open. It is the only way to avoid
excess of fatigue. One eye was over the instrument and
bright and distinct. Before that was the circular field of
the microscope a cross which a brown diatom was slowly moving,
but the other eye happily saw as it were without
seeing footnote. The reader unaccustomed to microscopes may easily understand
this by rolling a newspaper in the form of a
tube and looking through it at a book, keeping the
other eye open end footnote. He was only dimly conscious
of the brass side of the instrument, the illuminated part
of the tablecloth, a sheet of notepaper, the foot of
the lamp, and the darkened room beyond. Suddenly his attention
drifted from one eye to the other. The tablecloth was
of the material called tapestry by shopmen, and rather brightly colored.
The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of
crimson and pale blue upon a grayish background. At one
point the pattern seemed displaced, and there was a vibrating
movement of colors. At this point, Happily suddenly moved his
head back and looked with both eyes. His mouth fell
open with astonishment. It was a large moth or butterfly,
its wings spread in butterfly fashion. It was strange it
should be in the room at all, for the windows
were closed. Strange that it should not have attracted his
attention when it fluttered into its present position. Strange that
it should match the tablecloth stranger far to him, Happily,
the great entomologist, it was altogether unknown. There was no delusion.
It was crawling slowly towards the foot of the lamp. Genius,
unknown by heavens and in England, said happily, staring. Then
suddenly he thought of Porkins. Nothing would have maddened Porkins more,
and Porkins's was dead. Something about the head and body
of the insect became singularly suggestive of Porkins's, just as
the chest king had confound. Porkins said, happily, but I
must catch this, And, looking around him for some means
of capturing the moth, he rose slowly out of his chair.
Suddenly the insect rose struck the edge of the lamp shade.
Happily heard the ping, and vanished into the shadow. In
a moment, Happily had whipped off the shade, so that
the whole room was illuminated. The thing had disappeared, but
soon his practiced eye detected it upon the wall paper
near the door. He went towards it, poising the lamp
shade for capture. Before he was within striking distance, however,
it had risen and was fluttering round the room. After
the fashion of its kind, it flew with sudden starts
and turns, seeming to vanish here and reappear there. Once
happily struck and missed. Then again the third time he
hit his microscope. The instrument swayed, struck and overturned the
lamp and fell noisily on the floor. The lamp turned
over on the table and very luckily went out. Happily
was left in the dark. With a start. He felt
the strange moth blunder into his face. It was maddening.
He had no lights. If he opened the door of
the room, the thing would get away. In the darkness,
he saw Porkins quite distinctly laughing at him. Porkins had
ever an oily laugh. He swore furiously and stamped his
foot on the floor. There was a timid rapping at
the door. Then it opened, perhaps a foot and very slowly.
The alarmed face of the landlady appeared behind a pink
candle flame. She wore a night cap over her gray hair,
and had some purple garment over her shoulders. What was
that fearful smash? She said, has anything? The strange moth
appeared fluttering about the chink of the door. Shut the door,
said Happily, and suddenly rushed at her. The door slammed hastily.
Happily was left alone in the dark. Then in the
paws he heard the landlady scuttle upstairs, lock her door,
and drag something heavy across the room and put against it.
It became evident to Happily that his conduct and appearance
had been strange and alarming. Confound the moths and porkins, However,
it was a pity to lose the moth. Now he
felt his way into the hall and found the matches.
After sending his hat down upon the floor with a
noise like a drum. With the lighted candle, he returned
to the sitting room. No moth was to be seen,
yet once for a moment it seemed that the thing
was fluttering around his head. Happily very suddenly decided to
give up the moth and go to bed, but he
was excited all night long. His sleep was broken by
dreams of the moth, porkins, and the landlady. Twice in
the night, he turned out and soused his head in
cold water. One thing was very clear to him. The
landlady could not possibly understand about the strange moth, especially
as he had failed to catch it. No one but
an entomologist would understand quite how he felt. She was
probably frightened at his behavior, and yet he failed to
see how he could explain it. He decided to say
nothing further about the events of last night. After breakfast,
he saw her in the garden and decided to go
out and talk to her to reassure her. He talked
to her about beans and potatoes, bees, caterpillars, and the
price of fruit. She replied in her usual manner, but
she looked at him a little suspiciously and kept walking
as he walked, so that there was always a bed
of flowers or a row of beans, or something of
that sort between them. After a while, he began to
feel singularly irritated at this, and to conceal his vexation,
he went indoors and presently went out for a walk.
The moth or butterfly, trailing an odd flavor of porkins
with it, kept coming into that walk, though he did
his best to keep his mind off it. Once he
saw it quite distinctly, with its wings flattened out upon
the old stone wall that runs along the west edge
of the park. But going up to it, he found
it was only two lumps of gray and yellow lichen. This,
said Happily, is the reverse of mimicry. Instead of a
butterfly looking like a stone, here is a stone looking
like a butterfly. Once something hovered and fluttered around his head,
but by an effort of will he drove that impression
out of his mind again. In the afternoon, Happily called
upon the Vicar and argued with him upon theological questions.
They sat in the little arbor covered with brier, and
smoked as they wrangled. Look at that moth, said Happily, suddenly,
pointing to the edge of the wooden table where, said
the vicar. You don't see a moth on the edge
of the table there, said Happily, certainly not, said the vicar.
Hapily was thunderstruck. He gasped. The vicar was staring at him.
Clearly the man saw nothing. The eye of the faith
is no better than the eye of science, said Happily, awkwardly,
I don't see your point, said the vicar, thinking it
was part of the argument. That night, happily found the
moth crawling over his counterpane. He sat on the edge
of the bed in his shirt sleeves, reasoned with himself.
Was it pure hallucination? He knew he was slipping, and
he battled for his sanity with the same silent energy
he had formerly displayed against porkins. So persistent his mental
habit that he felt as if it were a struggle
with porkins. He was well versed in psychology. He knew
that such visual illusions do not come as a result
of mental strain. But the point was he did not
see the moth. He had heard it when it touched
the edge of the lamp shade, and afterwards when it
hit against the wall, and he had felt it strike
his face in the dark. He looked at it. It
was not at all dream like, but perfectly clear and solid.
Looking in the candlelight, he saw the hairy body and
the short, feathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place
where the dawn was rubbed from the wing. He suddenly
felt angry with himself for being afraid of a little insect.
His landlady had got the servant to sleep with her
that night, so she was afraid to be alone. In addition,
she had locked the door and put the chest of
drawers against it. They listened and talked in whispers after
they had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm them.
About eleven they had ventured to put the candle out
and had both dozed off to sleep. Then they woke
up with a start and sat up in bed, listening
in the darkness. Then they heard the slippered feet going
to and fro. In Hapley's room, a chair was overturned.
There was a violent dab at the wall, then a
china mental ornament smashed upon the fender. Suddenly the door
of the room opened and they heard him upon the landing.
They clung to one another listening. He seemed to be
dancing upon the staircase. Now he would go down three
or four steps quickly, then up again, then hurry down
into the hall. They heard the umbrella s danger over
and the fan like brake. Then the bolt shot and
the chain rattled. He was opening the door. They hurried
to the window. It was a dim, gray night, and
almost broken sheet of watery cloud was sweeping across the moon,
and the hedge, and the trees in front of the
house were black against the pale roadway. They saw happily,
looking like a ghost, in his shirt and white trousers,
running to and fro in the road and beating the air.
Now he would stop. Now he would dart very rapidly
at something invisible. Now he would move upon it with
stealthy strides. At last he went out of sight up
the road towards the down. Then, while they argued who
should go down and lock the door, he returned. He
was walking very fast, and he came straight into the house,
closed the door carefully, and went quietly up to his bedroom.
Everything was silent, Missus Colville said, happily, calling down the staircase.
Next morning, I hope I did not alarm you last night.
You may well ask that, said Missus Carvill. The fact
is I am a sleep walker, and the last two
nights I have been without my sleeping mixture. There's nothing
to be alarmed about. Really, I'm sorry I made such
an ass of myself. I will go over the down
to shore him and get some stuff to make me
sleep soundly. I ought to have done it yesterday but
half way over the down by the chalk pits, the
moth came upon Happily again, he went on trying to
keep his mind upon chest problems, but it was no good.
The thing fluttered into his face, and he struck at
it with his hat and self defense. Then rage, the
old rage, the rage he had so often felt against Porkin's,
returned once more. He went on leaping and striking at
the eddying insect. Suddenly he trod on nothing and fell headlong.
There was a gap in his sensations, and Happily found
himself sitting on the heap of flints in front of
the opening of the chalk pits, with a leg twisted
back underneath him. The strange moth was still fluttering around
his head. He struck at it with his hand, and
turning his head, saw two men approaching him. One was
the village doctor. It occurred to Happily that this was lucky.
Then it came into his mind with extraordinary vividness that
no one would ever be able to see the strange
moth except himself, and that it behooved him to keep
silent about it. Late that night, however, after his broken
leg was set, he was feverish and forgot his self restraint.
He was lying flat on his bed, and he began
to run his eyes round the room to see if
the moth was still about. He tried not to do this,
but it was no good. He soon caught sight of
the thing resting close to his hand by the night light,
on the green tablecloth. The wings quivered with a sudden
wave of anger. He smote at it with his fist,
and the nurse woke up with a shriek. He had
missed it, that moth, he said, And then it was
fancy nothing. All the time, he could see quite clearly
the insect going round the cornice and darting across the room,
And he could also see that the nurse saw nothing
of it, and looked at him strangely. He must keep
himself in hand, and he knew he was a lost
man if he did not keep himself in hand. But
as the knight waned, the fever grew upon him, and
the very dread he had of seeing the moth made
him see it about five, just as the dawn was gray.
He tried to get out of bed and catch it,
though his leg was afire with pain. The nurse had
to struggle with him. On account of this, they tied
him down to the bed. At this the moth grew bolder,
and once he felt it settle in his hair. Then,
because he struck out violently with his arms, they tied
these also. At this the moth came and crawled over
his face, and Happily wept, swore, screamed, prayed for them
to take it off him. Unavailingly. The doctor was a blockhead,
a half qualified general practitioner, and quite ignorant of mental science.
He simply said there was no moth. Had he possessed
the wit, he might still perhaps have saved Happily from
his fate by entering into his delusion and covering his
face with gauze, as he prayed might be done. But
as I say, the doctor was a blockhead, and until
the leg was healed, happily was kept tied to his bed,
with the imaginary moth crawling over him. It never left
him while he was awake, and it grew to a
monster in his dreams. While he was awake, he longed
for sleep, and from sleep he awoke screaming. So now
happily is spending the remainder of his days in a
padded room, worried by a moth that no one else
can see. The asylum doctor calls it hallucination, but happily,
when he is in his easier mood and can talk,
says it is the ghost of porkins, and consequently a
unique specimen and well worth the trouble of catching end
of a moth. Genius unknown,