John Timbs

“ What mere assertion will make any one believe that in one second of time, in one beat of the pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 miles, and would therefore perform the tour of the world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than the earth? ”

“ The movements of massive pieces of machinery, even though moving aimlessly, still more when working for a purpose, always awaken in us the idea of power; and often also create emotions of awe and sublimity akin to those which are begotten by the spectacle of great natural phenomena. The sweep of a railway train across the country, and the dash of a war-steamer against the waves with which it measures its strength, never become paltry pageants, even though we are ignorant of the errands on which these swift coursers are bound. ”

“ When in motion, its force is sufficient to level the most stately forests and stable buildings with the earth—to raise the waters of the ocean into ridges like mountains, and dash the strongest ships to pieces like toys. It warms and cools by turns the earth and the living creatures that inhabit it. It draws up vapours from the sea and land, retains them dissolved in itself or suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them down again as rain or dew when they are required. It bends the rays of the sun from their path to give us the twilight of evening and of dawn ”

“ These gardens, and the look of the cottages, the little flower-gardens, which you everywhere see, and the beautiful hedges of thorn and of privet,—these are the objects to delight the eyes, to gladden the heart, and to fill it with gratitude to God, and love for the people; and as far as my observation has gone, they are objects to be seen in no other country in the world. Those who see nothing but the nasty, slovenly places in which labourers live round London, know nothing of England. ”

“ Friends are lost to us by removal—for then even the dearest are often utterly forgotten. But let something that once was theirs suddenly meet our eyes, and in a moment, returning from the region of the rising or the setting sun, the friend of our youth seems at our side, unchanged his voice and his smile; or dearer to our eyes than ever, because of some affecting change wrought on face and figure by climate and by years. ”

“ I foresaw at once a mighty revolution in the art of the world for ever! I saw that union of nature and ideal perfected in high art, and before this period pronounced by the ablest critics as impossible! ”

“ The advantages of a Club do not end here: it becomes for each of its members a second domestic hearth, where the cares of business and household annoyances cannot assail him. As a retreat especially sacred against the visitations of idle acquaintances and tiresome creditors—a sanctuary in which each member feels himself in the society of those who act and sympathize with him—the Club will ever remain a resort, tranquil, elegant, and exclusive ”

“ The fairest productions of human wit, after a few perusals, like gathered flowers, wither in our hands and lose their fragrancy; but these unfading plants of Paradise become, as we are accustomed to them, still more and more beautiful. Their bloom appears to be daily heightened; fresh odours are emitted and new sweets extracted from them. He who hath once tasted their excellences will desire to taste them yet again; and he who tastes them oftenest will relish them best. ”

“ Swift thought little of the frequenters of Will's: he used to say, "the worst conversation he ever heard in his life was at Will's Coffee-house, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays or at least prologues, or had a share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with their trifling composures, in so important an air as if they had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them." ”

“ Pray mind this: this is a habit of mind which is very apt to beset men of intellect and talent, especially when their time is not regularly filled up, and left at their own arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak, and ends by limiting, if it does not destroy, the power of manly and necessary exertion. I must love a man so well, to whom I offer such a word of advice, that I will not apologise for it, but expect to hear you are become as regular as a Dutch clock,—hours, quarters, minutes, all marked and appropriated. ”

“ Purple and blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers, are cast upon the mist of the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of death upon the guilty ship as it labours amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight ”

“ The [Literary Club] room is before us, and the table on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke, and the tall thin form of Langton; the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. ”

“ I thought that philosophers were virtuous, upright men, who loved wisdom, and were above the little passions and foibles of humanity. I thought they assumed that proud title as an earnest to the world, that they intended to be something more than mortal; that they engaged themselves to be patterns of excellence, and would utter no opinion, would pronounce no decision, but what they believed the quintessence of truth; that they always acted without prejudice and respect of persons. ”

“ Just as the chemist owes all the perfection of his science to his dependence on the certainty of gravitation applied by the balance, so may the physical philosopher expect to find the greatest security and the utmost aid in the principle of the conservation of force. All that we have that is good and safe—as the steam-engine, the electric telegraph, &c.—witness to that principle; it would require a perpetual motion, a fire without heat, heat without a source, action without reaction, cause without effect, or effect without cause, to displace it from its rank as a law of nature. ”

“ And if death hath stretched out the absence into the dim arms of eternity, and removed the distance away into that bourne from which no traveller returns—the absence and the distance of her on whose forehead once hung the relic we adore—what heart may abide the beauty of the ghost that doth sometimes at midnight appear at our sleepless bed, and with pale uplifted arms waft over us at once a blessing and a farewell! ”

“ It is surely wiser and more manly to walk silently by the shore of that silent sea, than to boast with puerile exultation over the little sand-castles which we have employed our short leisure in building up. Life can never be matter of exultation, nor can the progress of arts and sciences ever really fill the heart of a man who has a heart to be filled. ”