Those who have been in the habit of using a correct Kaleidoscope, furnished with proper objects, will have no hesitation in admitting that this instrument realizes, in the fullest manner, the formerly chimerical idea of an ocular harpsichord. The combination of fine forms, and ever-varying tints, which it presents in succession to the eye, have already been found, by experience, to communicate to those who have a taste for this kind of beauty, a pleasure as intense and as permanent as that which the finest ear derives from musical sounds. An eye for admiring and appreciating the effect of fine forms, seems, indeed, to be much more general than an ear for music; and we have heard of many cases where the tedium of severe and continued indisposition has been removed, and where many a dull and solitary hour has been rendered cheerful, by the unceasing variety of entertainment which the Kaleidoscope afforded. In one respect, indeed, this instrument is superior to all others. When it is once properly constructed, its effects are exhibited without either skill or labour; and so numerous are its applications, and so inexhaustible its stores, that the observer is constantly flattered with the belief that he has obtained results which were never seen before, and that he has either improved the instrument, or extended its power, by new applications.
Such are the advantages, as an instrument of amusement, which the Kaleidoscope possesses, even in its present imperfect state. To what degree of perfection it may yet arrive, it is not easy to anticipate; but we may venture to predict, because we see the steps by which the prediction is to be fulfilled, that combinations of forms and colours may be made to succeed each other in such a manner as to excite sentiments and ideas with as much vivacity as those which are excited by musical composition. If it be true that there are harmonic colours which inspire more pleasure by their combination than others; that dull and gloomy masses, moving slowly before the eye, excite feelings of sadness and distress; and that the aërial tracery of light and evanescent forms, enriched with lively colours, are capable of inspiring us with cheerfulness and gaiety; then it is unquestionable, that, by a skilful combination of these passing visions, the mind may derive a degree of pleasure far superior to that which arises from the immediate impression which they make upon the organ of vision. A very simple piece of machinery is alone necessary for introducing objects of different forms and colours, for varying the direction of the motion across the angular aperture, and for accommodating the velocity of their motion to the effect which it is intended to produce.
These combinations of colours and forms may be adapted to a piece of music, and their succession exhibited on a screen by means of the electric, or lime-ball, or other lights to which we have already had occasion to refer. The coloured objects might be fixed between long stripes of glass, moved horizontally or obliquely across the ends of the reflectors; and the effects thus obtained might be varied by the occasional introduction of revolving object-boxes, containing objects of various colours and forms, partly fixed and partly movable. Similar forms in different colours, and in tints of varying intensity, losing and resuming their peculiar character with different velocities, and in different times, might exhibit a distinct relation between the optical and the acoustic phenomena simultaneously presented to the senses. Flashes of light, coloured and colourless, and clouds of different depths of shadow, advancing into, or emerging from the centre of symmetry, or passing across the radial lines of the figure at different obliquities, would assist in marking more emphatically the gay or the gloomy sounds with which they are accompanied.
A slight idea of the effects which might be expected from an ingenious piece of mechanism for creating and combining the various optical phenomena, and exhibiting them in connexion with musical sounds, may be obtained by a single observer, who looks into a fine Kaleidoscope, firmly fixed upon a stand, and produces with his two hands all the variations in form and colour which he can effect by such inadequate means, and which he considers appropriate to the musical piece that accompanies them.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HISTORY OF THE COMBINATIONS OF PLANE MIRRORS
WHICH HAVE BEEN SUPPOSED TO RESEMBLE
THE KALEIDOSCOPE.
It has always been the fate of new inventions to have their origin referred to some remote period; and those who labour to enlarge the boundaries of science, or to multiply the means of improvement, are destined to learn, at a very early period of their career, that the desire of doing justice to the living is a much less powerful principle than that of being generous to the dead. This mode of distributing fame, injurious as it is to the progress of science, by taking away one of the strongest excitements of early genius, has yet the advantage of erring on the side of generosity; and there are few persons who would reclaim against a decision invested with such a character, were it pronounced by the grave historian of science, who had understood and studied the subject to which it referred.
The apparent simplicity, both of the theory and the construction of the Kaleidoscope, has deceived very well-meaning persons into the belief that they understood its mode of operation; and it was only those that possessed more than a moderate share of optical knowledge, who saw that it was not only more difficult to understand, but also more difficult to execute, than most of the philosophical instruments now in use. The persons who considered the Kaleidoscope as an instrument consisting of two reflectors, which multiplied objects, wherever these objects were placed, and whatever was the position of the eye, provided that it received only the reflected rays, were at no loss to find numerous candidates for the invention. All those, indeed, who had observed the multiplication and circular arrangement of a fire blazing between two polished plates of brass or steel; who had dressed themselves by the aid of a pair of looking-glasses, or who had observed the effects of two mirrors placed upon the rectangular sides of a drawing-room, were entitled, upon such a definition, to be constituted inventors of the Kaleidoscope. The same claim might be urged for every jeweller who had erected in his window two perpendicular mirrors, and placed his wares before them, in order to be multiplied and exhibited to advantage; and for every Dutch toy-maker, and dealer in optical wonders, who had manufactured show-boxes, for the purpose of heaping together, in some sort of order, a crowd of images of the same object, of different intensities, seen under different angles, and presenting different sides to the eye. This mode of grouping images, dissimilar in their degree of light, dissimilar in their magnitude, and dissimilar in their very outlines, produced such a poor effect, that the reflecting show-boxes have for a long series of years disappeared from among the number of philosophical toys.
From these causes, the candidates for the merit of inventing the Kaleidoscope have been so numerous, that they have started up in every part of the world; and many individuals, who are scarcely acquainted with the equality of the angles of incidence and reflexion, have not scrupled to favour the world with an account of the improvements which they fancy they have made upon the instrument.[19]