Mrs. Marcet

“ But cannot you imagine that when water, holding in solution some particles of earth, filters through the crevices of hills or mountains, and at length dribbles into some cavern, each successive drop may be slowly evaporated, leaving behind it the particle of earth which it held in solution? You know that crystallisation is more regular and perfect, in proportion as the evaporation of the solvent is slow and uniform; nature, therefore, who knows no limit of time, has, in all works of this kind, an infinite advantage over any artist who attempts to imitate such productions. ”

“ The art of good management, if not acquired in youth, can only be gained by bitter experience. You will perceive, then, that I became a real hard-working, drudging farmer; and you will wonder, probably, how we could get on, when I had such an ignorant wife.—My dear sir, I cannot do her sufficient justice—I cannot describe the strength of mind with which she cheerfully submitted to the change of life, nor the energy with which she sought the common knowledge requisite for our situation. ”

“ There was something so encouraging in my uncle’s manner of questioning me, that instead of frightening, it helped me to think. “Perhaps it is that which guides us in putting together the materials which we have been selecting;—or rather of arranging and suiting them to each other;—taste, I think.”
“Right, Bertha; taste adapts and redisposes them in the best manner; and the more or less successfully as the judgment is more or less consulted. Without taste and judgment, the imagination would jumble them all together at random, and would produce nothing but confusion and deformity. ”

“ Faint and imperfect as are the ideas which our limited perceptions enable us to form of divine wisdom, still they cannot fail to inspire us with awe and admiration. What, then, would be our feelings, were the complete system of nature at once displayed before us! So magnificent a scene would probably be too great for our limited and imperfect comprehension, and it is no doubt among the wise dispensations of Providence, to veil the splendour of a glory with which we should be overpowered. ”

“ The larch trees are shewing their gay green tinge, the spurge laurel is in bloom; and every tree, and plant, and bird, are rapidly advancing toward the perfection of summer.
I said to my aunt this evening, that I thought the appearance of all nature wakening, as it were, from the torpor or death of winter, seemed to be peculiarly suitable to the hopes of that glorious change in ourselves which this period so forcibly brings to our minds. ”

“ I must first consult my uncle, because I have great plans in view; but I am afraid all these strangers will prevent him from having time to listen to me.
I find that this is a busy season in the garden, though the decline of the year, and that several plants, and almost all deciduous trees and shrubs, should be transplanted now. I have quite got into the spirit of gardening, I think; it is indeed a delightful occupation to the mind, as well as the body. There is not only much to think of, and to remember to do at the right time, but also to know why it should be done. ”

“ I have said that water forms the chief nourishment of plants; it is the basis not only of the sap, but of all the vegetable juices. Water is the vehicle which carries into the plant the various salts and other ingredients required for the formation and support of the vegetable system. Nor is this all; part of the water itself is decomposed by the organs of the plant; the hydrogen becomes a constituent part of oil, of extract, of colouring matter, &c. whilst a portion of the oxygen enters into the formation of mucilage, of fecula, of sugar, and of vegetable acids. ”

“ Frederick brought home a lump of these icy pillars on the spade, and my uncle laid aside his letters, to shew, he said, how much pleasure he felt when he saw us in pursuit of knowledge. As soon as he looked at our pillars, he said, “In that sort of spongy soil where you found them, these icy crystals are formed so immediately under the surface, that only a thin crust of earth remains over their tops; and the film of clay, which sticks to the bottom of the column, shews you that the frost has not penetrated below it, but that the earth beneath continues soft. ”

“ I asked Miss Perceval whether South America{10} or India had the greatest number of plants. “India, I believe,” said she; “its inhabitants have been so long in some degree civilized that, in addition to its native vegetation, many plants must have been naturalized, and many varieties produced by culture; and India exclusively boasts of the perfume of the most precious spices.
“But there is another part of the world which we must not forget,” continued Miss Perceval, “where nature seems to delight in multiplying the species belonging to each genus. ”

“ Ladies are always very anxious to be fashionable, but I assure you, Bertha, though your dresses may be of the newest patterns, you will not look well dressed without something more. Fashion changes continually; the furbelows of to-day give place to-morrow to some other whim—and the vulgar and the empty-minded have the never-ending delight of altering their dresses, but fail after all in acquiring the air of gentlewomen. ”

“ We are very far from understanding all the secret resources of nature; but I do not think the spontaneous formation of the crystals, which we call precious stones, one of the most difficult phenomena to comprehend.
By the slow and regular work of ages, perhaps of hundreds of ages, these earths may be gradually dissolved by water, and as gradually deposited by their solvent in the undisturbed process of crystallisation. The regular arrangement of their particles, during their reunion in a solid mass, gives them that brilliancy, transparency, and beauty, for which they are so much admired ”

“ The brightness of the morning sun makes the dewy trees and grass look so beautiful; and then the birds seem so happy, and so active, in the sweet fresh air. These are pleasures that I knew not till I came to England, and they are every day within my reach. ”

“ Since their calamitous expulsion, the Jews have wandered over the face of the globe for one thousand seven hundred years, without national possessions, government, or laws. Their riches have exposed them to plunder, and their poverty to contempt. Driven from place to place, they have been persecuted even in Christian countries with unrelenting cruelty; they seem to have lost their rank in the creation, and have been made to feel the ‘trembling heart,’ ‘the sorrow of mind,’ and the uncertainty of their lives, of which their great prophet so emphatically warned them. ”

“ I wish, Mamma, you could know your nieces. There is a nice mixture of gaiety and steadiness in both. Mary would be almost perfect, if she were not too timid. Caroline is the handsomest; she has such a fresh, bright complexion, and such pretty waving ringlets; yet she never seems to think of herself or her beauty. She is very active and very useful; always punctual, and ever ready to oblige and assist others, to walk out or stay at home with them—to search for a book, or to hunt out a passage in it—to converse or to remain silent. ”

“ AS you have now acquired some elementary notions of Natural Philosophy, I am going to propose to you another branch of science, to which I am particularly anxious that you should devote a share of your attention. This is Chemistry, which is so closely connected with Natural Philosophy, that the study of the one must be incomplete without some knowledge of the other; for, it is obvious that we can derive but a very imperfect idea of bodies from the study of the general laws by which they are governed, if we remain totally ignorant of their intimate nature. ”

“ In truth this light-house must be a melancholy abode; the wind always howling above, and the sea continually roaring below, and sometimes even throwing its spray over the windows. It was, however, very nice and clean, and as comfortable as such a place can be: my uncle took us up into what is called the lantern, and explained the use of the concave metallic reflectors which are placed behind the lamps for the purpose of increasing the brilliancy of their light by reflection. ”

“ Accomplishments are not neglected; but my aunt thinks that most people make them of too much importance, as they should be the ornament, not the object of our life. Mary says she considers the various things she learns, not as tasks, but as the means of enabling her to get through the business of life with pleasure and success; and that were she to call them lessons, she should feel as if they were to be laid aside with childhood.
That reminds me of what my uncle said just after I came here.—“At your age, Bertha, all you learn must be voluntarily acquired, not hammered into your head. ”

“ It is difficult to determine at what point precisely it may be most eligible to enter on the history of vegetation; every part of the subject is so closely connected, and forms such an uninterrupted chain, that it is by no means easy to divide it. Had I begun with the germination of the seed, which, at first view, seems to be the most proper arrangement, I could not have explained the nature and fermentation of the seed, or have described the changes which manure must undergo, in order to yield the vegetable elements. ”

“ When we are able to ascertain the nature of a substance by both these methods, so that the result of one confirms that of the other, we obtain the most complete knowledge of it that we are capable of acquiring. This is the case with water, with the atmosphere, with most of the oxyds, acids, and neutral salts, and with many other compounds. But the more complicated combinations of nature, even in the mineral kingdom, are in general beyond our reach, and any attempt to imitate organised bodies must ever prove fruitless; their formation is a secret that rests in the bosom of the Creator. ”

“ My uncle asked me, if there were many such salt marshes in Brazil as abound in North America, and of which cattle are so fond. I forgot at first, and said very foolishly, that I could not tell—I was in a silly fit, till at last I recollected myself, and told him I had heard that there were some, though they are obliged to import a great deal of salt. What an extraordinary appearance a salt plain must have, where the salt is open and uncovered! When we went up stairs, Mary showed me Mr. Salt’s description of one in Abyssinia. ”

“ It is true that there at first appears to be a great analogy between radiation and reflection, as they equally convey the idea of the transmission of caloric.
But if you consider a little, you will perceive that when a body radiates caloric, the heat which it emits not only proceeds from, but has its origin in the body itself. Whilst when a body reflects caloric, it parts with none of its own caloric, but only reflects that which it receives from other bodies. ”

“ I asked if America, which abounds in delightful plants, has given any thing useful in return to Europe.
“Yes,” said my aunt, “one plant in particular, which is so useful that its cultivation is almost universal. In this country it makes so important a part of the food of millions, that I think it better deserves the name of ‘the hundred ounces of gold’ than the famous Peony tree, called in China ‘Pe-hang-king,’ which has that meaning on account of the enormous price given for it.” ”

“ When animals are arrived at a state of maturity, and their bones have acquired a sufficient degree of solidity, the phosphat of lime which is taken with the food is seldom assimilated, excepting when the female nourishes her young; it is then all secreted into the milk, as a provision for the tender bones of the nursling.
EMILY.
So that whatever becomes superfluous to one being, is immediately wanted by another; and the child acquires strength precisely by the species of nourishment which is no longer necessary to the mother. Nature is, indeed, an admirable economist! ”

“ My uncle explained to me, that vegetation is the common source from whence all animals{99} derive their food; either at once, from the growing plant, or at second hand from their prey, who had been nourished by it; and that vegetables, in their turn, live on all that has already lived and vegetated. There is a continual succession of production and decay; for it is by decay, and the decomposition that follows, that nature restores to the ground those substances of which it is robbed by vegetation. ”

“ Organised bodies are such as are endowed by nature with various parts, peculiarly constructed and adapted to perform certain functions connected with life. Thus you may observe, that mineral compounds are formed by the simple effect of mechanical or chemical attraction, and may appear to some to be in a great measure the productions of chance; whilst organised bodies bear the most striking and impressive marks of design, and are eminently distinguished by that unknown principle, called life, from which the various organs derive the power of exercising their respective functions. ”

“ These people have preserved their independence, and probably owe it to the quaking and swampy soil which they alone know how to pass over, to their dwellings in the trees.
This mauritia palm is called the Tree of Life by the missionaries; for it not only affords the Indian a safe dwelling, but supplies him with food and wine, and cordage. Its fruit and farinaceous pith supply food—its saccharine juice ferments into wine, and the fibres of the leaf-stalks furnish thread fit for weaving hammocks, or twisting into ropes. ”

“ It is sometimes as much beyond our power to obtain a simple body in a state of perfect purity, as it is to imitate a complicated combination; for the operations by which nature separates bodies are frequently as inimitable as those which she uses for their combination. This is the case with carbon; all the efforts of chemists to separate it entirely from other substances have been fruitless, and in the purest state in which it can be obtained by art, it still retains a portion of hydrogen, and probably of some other foreign ingredients. ”

“ On Midsummer-day the dwarf birch opened its buds; a fortnight afterwards the ice on the larger lakes broke up, and several plants flowered. But on the 5th of September a storm set in, which clothed all the country with snow for the winter; and in the beginning of October the party again walked over the lakes which they had crossed on the ice in the middle of June; an interval of only 116 days.
The sap of the trees and shrubs freezes there in winter; and the wood becomes so hard that the chips produced by an axe flew off more like splinters of stone than of wood. ”