The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a
beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying
round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and
playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called
'The Triumph of Galatea'; and there is a burning mountain in the picture
behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever
since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so
beautiful, that it must be true."
But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things were
true, merely because people thought them beautiful. For at that rate, he
said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat
their grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them
underground. The professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man
was forced to believe anything to be true, but what he could see, hear,
taste, or handle.
He held very strange theories about a good many things. He had even got
up once at the British Association, and declared that apes had
hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have. Which was a
shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become of the
faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions? You may think that there
are other more important differences between you and an ape, such as
being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and
say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a
child's fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great
hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you
are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than
the apes of all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered
in one single ape's brain, nothing will save your great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatest-grandmother
from having been an ape too. No, my dear little man; always remember
that the one true, certain, final, and all-important difference between
you and an ape is, that you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, and
it has none; and that, therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a
very wrong and dangerous thing, at which every one will be very much
shocked, as we may suppose they were at the professor.--Though really,
after all, it don't much matter; because--as Lord Dundreary and others
would put it--nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains; so, if
a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape's brain, why it would not be
one, you know, but something else.
But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than
that; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne,
Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found
himself the better or wiser for the news, that there were not, never
had been, and could not be, any rational or half-rational beings
except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow; that _nymphs_, _satyrs_,
_fauns_, _inui_, _dwarfs_, _trolls_, _elves_, _gnomes_, _fairies_,
_brownies_, _nixes_, _wilis_, _kobolds_, _leprechaunes_, _cluricaunes_,
_banshees_, _will-o'-the-wisps_, _follets_, _lutins_, _magots_, _goblins_,
_afrits_, _marids_, _jinns_, _ghouls_, _peris_, _deevs_, _angels_,
_archangels_, _imps_, _bogies_, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure
bosh and wind. And he had to get up very early in the morning to prove
that, and to eat his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his
own satisfaction. Whereon a certain great divine, and a very clever
divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite
right. Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee;
and probably he was quite right too. But they did not quarrel in the
least; for, when men are men of the world, hard words run off them like
water off a duck's back. So the professor and the divine met at dinner
that evening, and sat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and
talked over the state of female labour on the antarctic continent (for
nobody talks shop after his claret), and each vowed that the other was
the best company he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be
men of the world!
From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of
little Ellie's opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium of his
famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the
youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments against
water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat
them here.
Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead of
being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she only asked
the same question over again.
"But why are there not water-babies?"
I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment
on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly,
that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man,
and therefore ought to have known that he couldn't know; and that he was
a logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a
universal negative--I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel
hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:
"Because there ain't."
Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must
know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if
he was so angry as to say anything of the kind--Because there are not:
or are none: or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt
Agitate too) because they do not exist.
And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it
befell, he caught poor little Tom.
He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
entangled in the meshes.
"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! It
must be connected with Synapta."
And he took him out.
"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is
most extraordinary!"
"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be
called bad names.
"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.
"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned away
sharply.
There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment
ago that there were none. What was he to do?
He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket. He
would not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He would have kept him
alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), and
written a book about him, and given him two long names, of which the
first would have said a little about Tom, and the second all about
himself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon
Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like that; for they are
forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up
all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of
one. But--what would all the learned men say to him after his speech at
the British Association? And what would Ellie say, after what he had
just told her?
There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur pueris
reverentia"--The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that
grown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lest
they should set them a bad example.--Cousin Cramchild says it means,
"The greatest respectfulness is expected from little boys." But he was
raised in a country where little boys are not expected to be respectful,
because all of them are as good as the President:--Well, every one knows
his own concerns best; so perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cramchild,
to do him justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral
mission, and being no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an
authority--why, it was a very great temptation for him. But some people,
and I am afraid the professor was one of them, interpret that in a more
strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out,
behind-before fashion than even Cousin Cramchild; for they make it mean,
that you must show your respect for children, by never confessing
yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that you are so, lest
they should lose confidence in their elders.
Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a
water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little I
know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years' honest labour. I
was just telling you that there could be no such creatures; and,
behold! here is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature
can do, and has done, beyond all that man's poor fancy can imagine. So,
let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His
wonderful and glorious works, and try and find out something about this
one";--I think that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would
have believed him more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved
him better, than ever she had done before. But he was of a different
opinion. He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half
wished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid
of him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of
anything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid, you
must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of
them."
Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the
while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a
Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that
if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too,
and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the
professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright
and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit
the professor's finger till it bled.
"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped
him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gone
in a moment.
"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah, it is
gone!" And she jumped down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he
slipped into the sea.
Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fell
some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.
The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,
and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not waken
at all. So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess,
and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there
quite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about the
water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not
tell, for he was ashamed to tell.
And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in at
the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could
not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and
over the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody
heard or saw anything of her for a very long while.
And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For
my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are
out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard
again, for fear of spoiling their theories. But, you see the
professor was found out, as every one is in due time. A very terrible