It was in a Canadian village that I parted with this gentlemanly and generous New-Englander. When I left him, I was not penniless, but a bitter sense of my loneliness was upon me, and a consciousness of the uncandid and cruel turn I had done my father brought me almost to the verge of suicide. On Sunday morning I entered a church in Toronto, and tears flowed down my face as I heard the minister read the parable of the Prodigal Son. It seemed to me as a voice from home, and I determined to go to my father. Without hesitating, or stopping an hour, I took all the money I had to pay my way, and in about six days afterward, sitting beside the driver on the stage-coach, looked from a hill upon the house in which I was born. A pang shot through my heart at that instant. Until that moment I had dreamed of my father's seeing me whilst I was yet a great way off, of resting my weary head upon his warm, infolding heart. But now the dream faded, and a pain as of an undying worm gnawed already on my soul. I paused at the gate, nearly paralyzed by fear. Was he dead? No; I felt this was not the case; but I felt that something worse than this was about to befall me. I gained strength to enter the hall, and sat down there. I heard several voices. I went on to the well-known chamber. A physician and a nurse were there. Standing in the door a moment, I heard my father say in a whisper, "If he ever comes back, let him have all; tell him his father loved him to the last; but do not tell him more, do not make him suffer,--mark you!" A moment more, and I was kneeling by his dying bed. "My father, my father, I have murdered you!" After some moments it was impressed upon the old man that his penitent son was by his side. I almost looked for the curse that I deserved; but a peaceful light was on his face as he said,--"I'm sorry I hid the books from you, child. I meant well,--I meant well,--I erred. If I can help you from up there, I will." Life departed with these words.
It will not be wondered that I became a recluse. The recluse is usually one cast up from such bleak experiences of sin and grief that he fears to launch upon life again, and only seeks to hide him in any cavern that may be found along the shore that has received him. Thus it was with me, at least. I dreaded to look one of my townsmen in the face,--they knew all: and many years after, when the harsh judgments which would have received me were softened by my lonely penance and sadness, and proffers came from society, my solitude had become sacred to me; and that old star which the daguerrotypist had shown me still reigned.
My father had left me enough property to enable me to carry forward the investigations and experiments to which all voices seemed to call me. I had an upper room prepared with a skylight and all other appliances. I purchased an excellent instrument, and some very strong diameters for magnifying photographs. The trials I had made convinced me that the minuteness and extent of objects photographed were limited only by the comparative coarseness of the materials through and on which the object passed. So I was very particular in selecting lenses. Further trials, however, led me to believe that the plate was still more important. Obtaining a steel of perfect grain, I spent days in giving it the highest polish it would bear, and kept it ready for any important office. By means of a long and bright tin reflector, (the best,) my artificial light was ready, in case I should desire to photograph at night; and, indeed, it was the hope of making some astronomic discovery that was leading me on.
Calm and clear was the night on which I brought these my treasures forth. Jupiter was blazing in the heavens, and challenged Art to seize his majestic lineaments. It turned out a point of fire much like that which my master had exhibited to me. I mixed a finer nitrate, repolished my plate, and was this time rewarded by seeing, under all the diameters which I had, the satellites also. Very much thrilled even with this degree of success, and taking the picture on paper, I put my plate away, and set myself to study what I should do next. It had not yet occurred to me to inquire of myself what definite thing I really was after. My deepest hope was in the undefinableness of its object: I knew only that a clear idea (and Plato says all clear ideas are true) of the subtile susceptibilities of nitrate of silver, limited only by materials, had engendered within me, through much pondering, an embryo idea, to the development of which my life was intuitively consecrated. I would not define it to myself, because I felt (intuitively, also) that it was something illimitable, therefore indefinable.
I began to experiment now with lenses, placing various kinds and powers one above another. It occurred to me that I had hitherto brought their power to bear only upon whole, objects. But what would be the result of magnifying an object daguerrotyped until it covered the disc of the reflector, then photographing it, and afterward magnifying a central segment of the picture to its utmost, and again renewing the experiment on this? An infinite series of analyses might be carried into the heart of an image; and might not something therein, invisible not only to the naked eye, but to the strongest magnifier, be revealed? Following this reflection, I took a common stereoscopic view and subjected it to my lenses. It was an ordinary view of a Swiss hamlet, the chief object of which was an inn with a sign over the door surmounted by a bush. The only objects upon the sign discernible with a common convex eye-glass were a mug of beer on one side and a wine-bottle on the other. Their position indicated that something else was on the sign: the stronger diameters presently brought out "CARL ELZNERS"; the strongest I had were exhausted in bringing out "GARTEN UND GASTHAUS." When this, the utmost dimension, was reached, I photographed it. Then, taking ordinary magnifiers, I began upon that part of the sign where, if anything remained unevoked, it would be found. The reader will observe, that, each time that the result of one enlargement was made the subject for another, the loss was in the field or range which must be paid for intensity and minuteness. Thus, in the end, there might appear but one letter of a long sentence, or a part of a letter. In this case, however, the result was better than I had expected: I read distinctly, "--EIN, WEI--"; and Luther's popular lines, "Wer liebt nicht wein, weib," etc., were brought to my mind at once. Thus I had the sign in full: the powerful agent of the sun on earth had fixed Carl Elzner and his Protestant beer-garden on the stereoscopic view forever, whether the dull eyes of men could read them or not.
Thrilled and animated by this success, I hastened to apply the same plan of magnifying segment by segment to my photograph of Jupiter. But, alas, although something suggestive did appear, or so I fancied, the image grew dimmer with each analysis, until, under the higher powers, it disappeared, and the grainings of the card superseded the planet. Had I not proved that my principle was good in the case of the Swiss sign-board, I should now have given it up as the whim of an over-excited brain. But now I thought only of the assertion of the daguerrotypist, that "the nitrate was limited in sensitiveness only by the imperfection of the materials," (i. e. plates, glass, reflectors, etc.,) and I had heard the same repeated by the paper which had finally replaced the picture it held. I now determined to risk on the experiment the elegant steel plate on whose polish I had spent so much pains and time. I took the portrait of Jupiter thereon, and fixed it forever. This time I could not be mistaken in supposing that as the field of vision shrank some strange forms appeared; but I could be certain of none which were essentially different from those revealed by the largest telescopes. My narrowing and intensifying process then began to warn me of another failure: when I had reached the last point at which the image could be held at all, the grain of the steel plate was like great ropes, and it was only after resting my eyes for some time, then suddenly turning them upon it, that I could see any picture at all. For an instant it would look like an exceedingly delicate lichen,--then nothing was visible but huge bars of steel.
Ah, with what despair did I see the grand secret which had so long hovered before me and led my whole life now threatening to elude and abandon me forever! "But," I cried, "it shall not go so easily, by Heaven! If there be a genius in the casket, unsealed it shall be!"
I resolved to give up steel for some metal or substance of finer grain. I almost impoverished myself in purchasing plates of the finer metals, before it occurred to me to try glass, and had to laugh at my own stupidity when I discovered that in the last analysis glass showed much smoother than any of the rest. I immediately obtained a great many specimens of glass, and spent much time in subjecting them to my lenses only to see how much fibrous appearance, or unevenness, could be brought before the eye from a smooth surface. I found one excellent specimen, and gave myself up to grinding it to the utmost extent consistent with its strength.
I felt now that I was about to make a final test. It would be not only a test of my new plate, but of my own sanity, which I had at various times doubted. I felt, that, unless my idea should be proved true, I could no longer trust my reason, which had at every step beckoned me on to the next. I had studied medicine enough in my father's office long ago to know that either sanity or insanity may come as a reality from a mind's determined verdict on itself. When, therefore, I again sat down to analyze my daguerrotype of the planet, it was with the awe and fear which might beset one standing on a ledge between a frightful chasm and a transcendent height, and not knowing which was to receive him.
From the first burst of the sunlight over the world, I sat at my task. Each instrument, each lens I used, I spent an hour or hours over, giving it the finest polish or nicety of adjustment to which it could be brought. Into that day I had distilled my past; into it I was willing to distil the eternity that was before me. With each now application, the field of the planet shrank a thousand leagues, but each time the light deepened. According to my principle, there was no doubt that some object would be revealed before the space became too limited, provided nothing interfered with the distinctness of the picture. At length I calculated that I was selecting about twenty square miles from about seven hundred. Forms were distinct, but they were rigid, and painfully reminded me of the astronomic maps. About five removes from this, I judged that the space I was looking at must be about ten feet square. I was sure that the objects really occupying those ten feet must be in my picture, if I could evoke them.