Probably you have heard of Hapley—not W.T. Hapley, the son, but the celebrated¹ Hapley, the Hapley of Periplaneta Hapliia, Hapley the entomologist. If so you know at least of the great feud² between Hapley and Professor Pawkins. Though certain of its consequences may be new to you. For those who have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary, which the idle reader may go over with a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him.  
It is amazing how very widely diffused³ is the ignorance of such really important matters as this Hapley-Pawkins feud. Those epoch-making controversies⁵, again, that have convulsed the Geological Society, are, I verily believe, almost entirely⁶ unknown outside the fellowship of that body. I have heard men of fair general education even refer to the great scenes at these meetings as vestry-meeting squabbles. Yet the great Hate of the English and Scotch⁷ geologists⁸ has lasted now half a century, and has “left deep and abundant marks upon the body of the science.” And this Hapley-Pawkins business, though perhaps a more personal affair, stirred passions as profound, if not profounder. Your common man has no conception of the zeal¹⁰ that animates¹¹ a scientific investigator¹², the fury of contradiction you can arouse in him. It is the odium theologicum in a new form. There are men, for instance, who would gladly burn Professor Ray Lankester at Smithfield for his treatment of the Mollusca in the Encyclopaedia¹³. That fantastic extension of the Cephalopods to cover the Pteropods ... But I wander from Hapley and Pawkins.
 
It began years and years ago, with a revision of the Microlepidoptera (whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new species created by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome, replied by a stinging impeachment¹⁴ of the entire classification of Pawkins[A]. Pawkins, in his “Rejoinder[B],” suggested that Hapley’s microscope was as defective¹⁵ as his powers of observation, and called him an “irresponsible meddler”—Hapley was not a professor at that time. Hapley, in his retort[C], spoke¹⁶ of “blundering collectors,” and described, as if inadvertently, Pawkins’ revision as a “miracle of ineptitude¹⁷.” It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely interest the reader to detail how these two great men quarrelled, and how the split between them widened until from the Microlepidoptera they were at war upon every open question in entomology. There were memorable¹⁸ occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Society meetings resembled nothing so much as the Chamber¹⁹ of Deputies. On the whole, I fancy Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But Hapley was skilful²⁰ with his rhetoric²¹, had a turn for ridicule²² rare in a scientific man, was endowed with vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in the matter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins was a man of dull presence, prosy of speech, in shape not unlike a water-barrel, over-conscientious with testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museum appointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded him. It was a long struggle, vicious from the beginning, and growing at last to pitiless antagonism²³. The successive turns of fortune, now an advantage to one side and now to another—now Hapley tormented²⁴ by some success of Pawkins, and now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong rather to the history of entomology than to this story.
 
A [ “Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera.” Quart. Journ. Entomological Soc. 1863.]
 
B [ “Rejoinder to certain Remarks,” &c. Ibid. 1864.]
 
 
 
C [ “Further Remarks,” &c. Ibid.]
 
But in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had been bad for some time, published some work upon the “mesoblast” of the Death’s Head Moth²⁵. What the mesoblast of the Death’s Head Moth may be, does not matter a rap in this story. But the work was far below his usual standard, and gave Hapley an opening he had coveted²⁶ for years. He must have worked night and day to make the most of his advantage.
 
In an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters—one can fancy the man’s disordered black hair, and his queer dark eyes flashing as he went for his antagonist—and Pawkins made a reply, halting, ineffectual, with painful gaps of silence, and yet malignant²⁷. There was no mistaking his will to wound Hapley, nor his incapacity to do it. But few of those who heard him—I was absent from that meeting—realised how ill the man was.
 
Hapley had got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed with a simply brutal²⁸ attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon the development of moths²⁹ in general, a paper showing evidence of a most extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note witnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion of face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterly³⁰ contemptuous in tone; an awful thing for the declining years of a man’s career.
 
The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder from Pawkins. He would try one, for Pawkins had always been game. But when it came it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was to catch the influenza³¹, to proceed to pneumonia³², and to die.
 
It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make under the circumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against Hapley. The very people who had most gleefully cheered on those gladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no reasonable doubt the fret³³ of the defeat had contributed to the death of Pawkins. There was a limit even to scientific controversy³⁴, said serious people. Another crushing attack was already in the press and appeared on the day before the funeral. I don’t think Hapley exerted himself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his rival, and forgot that rival’s defects. Scathing³⁵ satire³⁶ reads ill over fresh mould. The thing provoked comment in the daily papers. This it was that made me think that you had probably heard of Hapley and this controversy. But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers live very much in a world of their own; half the people, I dare say, who go along Piccadilly to the Academy every year, could not tell you where the learned societies abide³⁷. Many even think that Research is a kind of happy-family cage in which all kinds of men lie down together in peace.
 
In his private thoughts Hapley could not forgive Pawkins for dying. In the first place, it was a mean dodge³⁸ to escape the absolute pulverisation Hapley had in hand for him, and in the second, it left Hapley’s mind with a queer gap in it. For twenty years he had worked hard, sometimes far into the night, and seven days a week, with microscope, scalpel, collecting-net, and pen, and almost entirely with reference to Pawkins. The European reputation he had won had come as an incident in that great antipathy³⁹. He had gradually worked up to a climax⁴⁰ in this last controversy. It had killed Pawkins, but it had also thrown Hapley out of gear, so to speak, and his doctor advised him to give up work for a time, and rest. So Hapley went down into a quiet village in Kent, and thought day and night of Pawkins, and good things it was now impossible to say about him.
 
At last Hapley began to realise in what direction the pre-occupation tended. He determined⁴¹ to make a fight for it, and started by trying to read novels. But he could not get his mind off Pawkins, white in the face, and making his last speech—every sentence a beautiful opening for Hapley. He turned to fiction—and found it had no grip on him. He read the “Island Nights’ Entertainments” until his “sense of causation” was shocked beyond endurance by the Bottle Imp⁴. Then he went to Kipling, and found he “proved nothing,” besides being irreverent and vulgar. These scientific people have their limitations. Then unhappily, he tried Besant’s “Inner House,” and the opening chapter set his mind upon learned societies and Pawkins at once.
 
So Hapley turned to chess, and found it a little more soothing⁴². He soon mastered the moves and the chief gambits and commoner closing positions, and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical⁴³ contours of the opposite king began to resemble Pawkins standing⁴⁴ up and gasping⁴⁵ ineffectually against Check-mate, and Hapley decided⁴⁶ to give up chess.
 
Perhaps the study of some new branch of science would after all be better diversion. The best rest is change of occupation. Hapley determined to plunge⁴⁷ at diatoms, and had one of his smaller microscopes and Halibut’s monograph⁴⁸ sent down from London. He thought that perhaps if he could get up a vigorous quarrel with Halibut, he might be able to begin life afresh and forget Pawkins. And very soon he was hard at work, in his habitual⁴⁹ strenuous⁵⁰ fashion, at these microscopic⁵¹ denizens⁵² of the way-side pool.
 
It was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley became aware of a novel addition to the local fauna⁵³. He was working late at the microscope, and the only light in the room was the brilliant little lamp with the special form of green shade. Like all experienced microscopists, he kept both eyes open. It is the only way to avoid excessive fatigue⁵⁴. One eye was over the instrument, and bright and distinct before that was the circular field of the microscope, across which a brown diatom was slowly moving. With the other eye Hapley saw, as it were, without seeing[A]. He was only dimly conscious of the brass⁵⁵ side of the instrument, the illuminated⁵⁶ part of the table-cloth, a sheet of note-paper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkened room beyond.
 
A [ The reader unaccustomed to microscopes may easily understand this by rolling a newspaper in the form of a tube and looking through it at a book, keeping the other eye open.]
 
Suddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the other. The table-cloth was of the material called tapestry⁵⁷ by shopmen, and rather brightly coloured. The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of crimson⁵⁸ and pale blue upon a greyish ground. At one point the pattern seemed displaced, and there was a vibrating movement of the colours at this point.
 
Hapley suddenly moved his head back and looked with both eyes. His mouth fell open with astonishment⁵⁹.
 
It was a large moth or butterfly;............