small, yet significant lives

Smith mentions multiple times throughout his article, how he has trouble expressing his true love for the small forms of life he can observe for hours. He confesses that his wife becomes annoyed and frustrated with him when he attempts to share his enthusiasm. His nieces and nephews only stayed interested for roughly 30 seconds. He cannot find anyone who shares his intrigue for these tiny creatures and he cannot understand why. He finds them wondrous. They are the smallest forms of life, much closer than planets in space. They are live creatures that all you need is a telescope to see them and a backyard to find them. He finds them amazing and even notes that they have been described by Jennings as having higher life characteristics like showing fear or hunger and that they can even be conditioned. Although it is quite controversial, Smith enjoy's Jennings' notion.

Although Smith feels that he cannot successfully express his passion for the small creatures, he did. He describes them as "tiny angels hovering in the light" (265). That one drop is a "blizzard of life ... swirling and spinning like snowflakes" (259). The one drop is simply a drop to the naked eye, but under a microscope there is an a whole ecosystem of life that never sleeps and constantly moves--life that he can watch for hours on end. When he looks up, he sees the flowers as "ragged" in comparison to the "bright world beneath the lenses" (260). He finds it as a beauty. Cheap entertainment, nature is. The fact that "nature is everywhere, costs nothing, [and] requires minimal equipment" to observe and take pleasure in (262). In fact, he does express his love for the "little subjects" well through his appreciation for their small, yet significant lives.