am, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to
be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at
first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because,
with all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the
water was running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented
and experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in
the dark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry,
which it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night.
It is best to prove things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas
if you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get
educated.

Some things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you can't by
guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on
experimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is
delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If
there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to
find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find
out and finding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the
water was a treasure until I GOT it; then the excitement all went away,
and I recognized a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and
plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you
know that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing
it, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a
way--then THAT excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because by
and by when I have found out everything there won't be any more