Genre:

Short Fiction

Subjects:

Amusement, Experiment, Instruments, Physics, Design, Anthropocentrism

    Mr. Wordsworth has been showing his son Edwin, nephew Charles, and other members of the family some 'amusing experiments with his air-pump, one evening during the Christmas vacation (50). He shows them that a shrivelled apple loses its wrinkled appearance when placed in the air-pump, and Charles explains why. Mr. Wordsworth tells the children that the 'health and vigour' of living beings depends to a large extent on the 'due adjustment of the external and internal air', and relates this to vigorous or languid feelings in humans in different climatic conditions. He observes: 'Is it not very good of our all-wise Creator, to suit as he has done, our circumstances to us, and us to them?'. (51) The contrasting appearance of the apple under different conditions is made the basis of moral reflections. Mrs. Wordsworth draws an analogy between the apple in the receiver of the air-pump and the children in the home from which their parents 'extract almost every breath that can try [them]'. She asks them: 'If you were more exposed to the atmosphere of the world, how would you conduct yourselves?'. (52)