During those twenty years, Priestley dabbled in a dozen different fields, concocted hundreds of novel experiments in his home lab, engaged in extensive conversations with the leading intellectuals of the day. A minuscule percentage of that time was devoted directly to the problem of plant respiration. He just kept it alive in the back of his mind. Sustaining the slow hunch is less a matter of perspiration than of cultivation. You give the hunch enough nourishment to keep it growing, and plant it in fertile soil, where its roots can make new connections. And then you give it time to bloom.
