“I want to make lightning,” said Two-Legs.
“Two-Legs wants to make lightning,” they said and nudged one another. “Take care it doesn’t strike you!”
They laughed and went away. Two-Legs sat and meditated and thought and did not mind their scorn. The boy sat at his feet.
8
The years passed and the boy grew to be a man. He was always with Two-Legs, listening to his talk, helping him in his work and rejoicing with him each time that he came a step nearer to the goal.
They moved more than once from one country to another. Either it was the folk of the country who drove them away with their foolish fears, when they heard reports or saw sparks come from Two-Legs’ workshop, or else it occurred to him that his labours would meet with better success under another climate. But, whether he was in one place or another, he constantly thought of the same thing: how he was to catch the electric spirit and make him strong, so that he might be useful in man’s service.
He thought no more of the thunder and the lightning up in the sky. He knew well that it was the electric spirit that struck sparks up there and he wanted him to do the same in his workshop. Since he had begun the work with the magnetic iron, he no longer troubled about the glass tube and the amber and the sulphur ball. He did not even care to rub them any more, so small was the spirit when he came from them and so soon did he disappear again.
“The lightning also lasts only for a moment,” said his disciple. “It is mighty, Father Two-Legs, a thousand times mightier than any spark that you can rub out of the sulphur ball; but it only flames for a moment and then it is all over.”
“That’s just why I can’t use it,” said Two-Legs. “I want the lightning to last as long as I please ... for ever if I please. I must be able to kindle it and extinguish it and kindle it again, as easily as I can snap my fingers. Oh, if I only knew where the spirit really dwelt!”
“We know that,” said the disciple. “He lives in the amber and in the glass tube and in the sulphur ball, in iron and in the thunder-cloud and in me and in you and in everything in the world, you said.”