“We have been most prosperous in everything, voyage, journey, and health; and when I look back and think of all we have gone through since you and I parted, I cannot help feeling surprise, mixed with gratitude, to that merciful Being, who has watched over us and protected us all.”
16th.—I was talking to Mary after dinner, about the ant and the little puceron, and praising their mutual good feeling; but she said there were very few instances of such friendship among insects, and a great many of their hostility to each other. She mentioned the following fact, which will, I think, amuse Marianne.
The pierce-bois, or wood-boring bee, an inhabitant of warm countries, and distinguished by her beautiful violet wings, is remarkable for boring long cylindrical cells in decayed trees, or even in window frames. She first bores obliquely into the wood with her strong mandibles, and then follows the direction of the fibres, forming a hole or tunnel of more than a foot in length, and half an inch in diameter. At the inner end of this pipe she deposits an egg, along with a sufficient store of honey and farina, for the support of her future offspring; and covering it with a thin partition, made of the particles of wood she had scooped out and cemented together with wax, she proceeds to deposit another egg and another supply of provision; and so on till the whole pipe is full. I must also tell you, that from the innermost cell she had previously bored a small channel to the outside of the wood, as a kind of back door, by which the young produced from the first laid eggs should escape in succession, each of them instinctively piercing the partition in the right direction. But now, mamma, for my fact: there is a small species of beetle that watches the operations of the bee, and slily deposits its egg also in the cell. If this egg should escape the vigilance of the poor bee, it is hatched into a larva before her own eggs, and consuming all the food she had so industriously prepared, the right owner of the dwelling perishes.
The wood-boring-bee reminded my uncle of the teredo or ship-worm, which destroys the planks on ships’ bottoms, by piercing them in all directions; and he told us that the ingenious Mr. Brunel had himself stated to a friend of his, that it was from the operations of this worm that he had borrowed the method which has been adopted in forming the tunnel under the Thames.
Mr. Brunel observed that the teredo’s head is covered with a strong armour, through a little hole in which it perforates the wood first in one direction and then in another, till the arched way is complete; when it daubs both roof and sides with a kind of varnish. In like manner, Mr. B. conducts his operations in the tunnel; removing the ground in front, through the small apertures of a strong iron frame, which he calls the shield, in imitation of the teredo’s armour; and then constructing a circular arch of brick-work, with strong cement, so as to resist the utmost pressure of the water. The shield is then moved forward nine inches (the length of a brick), a fresh ring of brick-work is built, and a fresh portion of ground is excavated.
This curious anecdote led to another of the same nature, an ingenious contrivance borrowed from a lobster’s tail. On the other side of the Clyde, opposite the city of Glasgow, there was abundance of fine water, which it was desirable to convey across the river for the use of the inhabitants; but so as not to interfere with the shipping, and not to be contaminated with the salt water. Mr. Watt, the celebrated engineer, undertook to carry it in iron pipes fitted one into the other like the joints of a lobster’s tail, so that when laid across the river they should adapt themselves to the form of the bottom. He perfectly succeeded; these flexible pipes have been in use for twenty years, and the inhabitants have been admirably supplied with this necessary of life, through that great man’s happy power of observation.
17th.—My aunt has been very unwell for the last three days; she is now recovering, but still requires constant care. My cousins are most assiduous and tender nurses. They are attentive, without being officious, and they arrange the time of their attendance, so as to permit each to have some leisure for her own daily occupations. This gratifies my aunt particularly; I have frequently heard her say, that it is a duty of those who attend on the sick to be as cheerful as possible, and that nothing contributes to cheerfulness so much as employment. She thinks it no proof whatever of real sensibility, to lay aside all one’s usual pursuits because a friend or relation is ill; it only weakens the mind, and produces on the countenance that expression of anxiety which distresses or alarms the patient.
I do not know exactly what my aunt’s illness has been—her eyes have been so much affected, that she has been condemned for some time to total idleness, and hitherto she has not been permitted to listen to much reading or even conversation. I should have thought that a person who is so active in general, would have been doubly sensible of the weight of idle time. But her mind has such various stores of knowledge, deep and light, that she never can be in want of novelties to employ it; to-day I was allowed to stay with her for some time, and she repeated to me some beautiful moral reflections, as well as some lighter poetical compositions on which she had employed her mind last night. It is thus she beguiles the wakeful hours, and habituates herself to think more slightly of the sufferings which she sometimes endures.
19th, Sunday.—My dear aunt is certainly much better.—By her desire I was permitted to take care of her while the rest of the family went to church; and I was thus left sole guardian of this good patient, so precious to us all.
Immediately after they went away, she fell into a gentle slumber, and as I had not provided myself with a book, and was fearful of disturbing her by walking to the book-case, I sat quietly near the bed, so that I could watch her. For want of other employment I amused myself with comparing my former with my present life; and though on the whole they are very different, there is one point, dear mamma, in which they are perfectly similar—for the friends I am now with are, just like you, really and rationally religious. My reverie over, I repeated to myself some of our favourite sacred poetry, among which was Mrs. Barbauld’s address to the Deity. I then tried to recollect the various religious books I had read since I came here; and afterwards I endeavoured to arrange the knowledge which I had acquired not only from them but from my uncle’s conversations.