Various

“ If it be true that literary excellence is only to be attained by the patient bestowal of ‘infinite pains,’ that there is no easy method of reaching it, it is no less the fact that, as a general rule, the time is wasted—perhaps worse than wasted—which is devoted by the young writer to a laborious imitation of the style of any distinguished author. ”

“ In a few minutes, he came out again, dressed in his black coat for meeting, with a Bible and hymn-book in one hand, and a curious volume in the other, written in strange, twisted, twirligig characters, such as Rosina had never before in her life set eyes on. ‘See here!’ he cried, opening it wide before her; ‘dat is book ob spells. Dat is African spell for gain lubber. I explain him to you’—and his hand turned rapidly over several of the brown and well-thumbed pages: ‘Isaac Pourtalès, mulatto; Rosina Fleming, black le-ady; dat is de page. ”

“ No young writer can afford to write carelessly, till such time, at all events, as he has become fully versed in his art, when he will probably find that to write with the effect of carelessness is beyond his power. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the speech of educated Americans differs but little from that of the same class in Great Britain; whilst, as regards the great bulk of the people of the United States, there can be no question but that they speak purer and more idiomatic English than do the masses here. In every State of the Union the language of the inhabitants can be understood without the slightest difficulty. ”

“ Well, then, Louis Delgado, I give you fair warning; if you don’t want a white man to go and look on at your nigger meetings, depend upon it, it’s because you’re brewing some mischief or other up there against the constituted authorities. I shall tell my uncle to set his police to look well after you. You were always a bad-blooded, discontented, disaffected fellow, and I believe now you’re up to some of your African devilry or other. ”

“ Down, I tell you!—He’s death on niggers, Delgado—death on niggers. You should stand out of the way, you know, when you see him coming. Of course, these dogs never can abide the scent of you black fellows. The bookay d’Afreek always drives a bloodhound frantic.’
The old negro drew himself up haughtily and sternly, and stared back in the insolent face of the slouching young white man with a proud air of native dignity. ‘Buckra gentleman hab no right, den, to go about wid dem dog,’ he answered angrily, fixing his piercing fiery eye on the bloodhound’s face. ”

“ Den him sweep away buckra, an’ bloodhound, an’ all before him; an’ seize de country, colour for colour. De land is black, an’ de land for de black man. When de black man burst him heart like ribber burst him bank in de rainy season, white man’s house snap off before him like bamboo hut when de flood catch it!’ As he spoke, he pushed his hands out expansively before him, and gurgled in his throat with fierce inarticulate African gutturals, that seemed to recall in some strange fashion the hollow eddying roar and gurgle of the mountain torrents in the rainy season. ”

“ Tom Dupuy laughed carelessly. ‘It’s their nature, you see, Delgado,’ he answered with a pleasant smile, still holding the dog and caressing it lovingly. ‘They and their fathers were trained long ago in slavery days to hunt runaway niggers up in the mountains and track them to their hiding-places, and drag them back, alive or dead, to their lawful masters; and of course that makes them run naturally after the smell of a nigger, as a terrier runs after the smell of a rat. When the rat sees the terrier coming, he scuttles off as hard as his legs can carry him into his hole ”

“ In September and October a child grows only a fifth of what it did in June and July. In other words, during a part of the year—autumn and beginning of winter—the child accumulates bulk, but the height is stationary. In the early summer the bulk remains nearly unchanged, but the vital force and the nourishment are expended to the benefit of height. While the body works for{80} bulk there is rest for the growth, and when the period of growth comes, the working for bulk is suspended. The human body has, consequently, the same distinctly marked periods of development as plants. ”

“ For it must be remembered that there is no fixedness in the canon either of public opinion or of criticism in literature; that which fails to win attention to-day, may attract to-morrow; and success, especially that form of it which results from passing popularity, is in many cases very much dependent on the proverbial fickleness of the reading public. ”

“ Those who know what religion really means to inferior races—a strange but sincere jumble of phrases, emotions, superstitions, and melodies, permeating and consecrating all their acts and all their passions, however evil, violent, or licentious—will recognise at once that in his{70} own mind Louis Delgado was not conscious to himself in the faintest degree of any hypocrisy, craft, or even inconsistency. ”

“ When a word is already in existence which is fully adequate to express the idea it is employed to convey, it seems not a little curious that the use of it should be superseded by another, not, indeed, coined for the purpose, but by one divorced from its original meaning. Yet this has been the case in various instances in the United States. A place where goods are sold at retail is called a ‘store,’ not a shop, the use of the latter word being exclusively confined to those establishments in which some manufacturing or other mechanical industry is carried on. ”

“ Lamm, to beat, to maltreat, is an American word of English parentage. In a north-country ballad of the time of Edward VI., one line runs, ‘They lammed him and bammed him;’ and the word may also be found in Marlowe. Sick is an expression universally used in the United States in the sense of indisposition. A man will say, ‘I am sick,’ never, ‘I am ill.’ It scarcely need be said that the phrase was perfectly good English two centuries and a half ago, the word ‘ill,’ with the meaning now attaching to it, not once occurring in the translation of the Bible. ”

“ I don’t know F sharp from a bull’s foot; but I can feel it. When the artist presiding at the instrument pulls out that wonderful stop like a human voice, I feel real mean, and that’s a fact—yes, sir.’
‘It is wonderful what an effect music has on the human understanding,’ Edgar replied. ‘“Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.” My wife always says’——
‘Your wife! I didn’t know you were married.’
‘Considering I never told you that interesting fact, I do not see very well how you could know,’ Edgar replied with a smile; which was, however, not so cordially received by Mr Slimm. ”

“ Ruskin tells us in one of his treatises on Landscape Painting, that in some of the greatest works of genius, an effect which is almost magical at the proper focal distance, is conveyed by what appears, to the uninstructed eye and viewed close at hand, to be a mere dash of loaded colour, but which in reality could not be added to or diminished by the smallest particle without detracting from the effect. ”

“ Large factories have been established, which produce goods of the highest quality, and compare favourably with those of foreign make. No expenses have been spared to import the best machines; the sons of the most prominent manufacturers are sent to America, England, and France, to learn the manufacture of the leather trade in all its details. The largest firms study principally the American methods of manufacturing, and the consequence is that many German factories are managed after the American system. ”

“ His tour through this little-known region covered a period of eighteen months, during which time he was able to make extensive observations of its flora and fauna, as well as of the condition of its inhabitants. During the long winter, the people have to seek the shelter of their tents, and seem in the spring to wake up from a kind of lethargy with the joy and light-heartedness of children. ”

“ Railway in America becomes ‘railroad;’ station, ‘depôt;’ line, ‘track;’ carriage, ‘car;’ whilst for tram, the phrase employed is ‘horse-car.’ A timber building is a ‘frame-building;’ a row of houses is a ‘block’ of houses. For poorhouse or workhouse, the expression used is ‘almshouse.’ When the idea intended to be conveyed is that which an Englishman attaches to the latter phrase, the word ‘asylum’ or ‘home’ is used by an American. ”

“ To this it is sufficient to reply that much positive good must result from an endeavour to follow the best examples in the practice of any art, and further, that such an endeavour will be found the surest way by which to avoid all faulty and careless work, which can under no possible conditions be praiseworthy or even tolerable. ”

“ Such a style, though eminently beautiful in itself, would practically nowadays be out of date, even if faithfully reproduced, while at the same time it is most likely that the student would overlook that deficiency of force with which the manner of Addison is fairly chargeable. The best model for style is not that of any particular or favourite writer, but rather the excellency of the best writers generally—the highest qualities of the highest types. ”

“ Edgar Allan Poe, indeed, in his Philosophy of Composition introduces us to what he would have us believe to be the very beginnings of invention, endeavouring to portray the very earliest growth of his marvellous constructive faculty exemplified in his poem of The Raven. ”

“ At the same time, young writers should be careful not to adopt for imitation a style of too great elevation, for by so doing they may find that they have contracted that worst of all literary diseases—bombast. ”

“ There will always be a host of aspirants for literary honours, and the reason of this may perhaps lie, to a certain extent, in that very uncertainty which attends the pursuit of letters as an avocation; the brilliant rewards which have been earned and the underlying risk of failure, present together the very conditions of enterprise most powerfully attractive to many minds. ”

“ A literary composition may be characterised by the most perfect accuracy of expression, may be faultless in every detail, and yet be after all a very mediocre piece of work at the best, though it may be difficult exactly to indicate in what respect it is defective. ”

“ We have hitherto spoken of that perfect mastery of our language in writing which has been the possession of those famous in the history of English letters, and it may be inquired if such a high standard should in all cases be necessarily aimed at, seeing that for many purposes of everyday life a lesser degree of cultivation might be found as practically useful. ”

“ No doubt, a great impetus has been given to literary endeavour by the periodical press, which, by popularising ephemeral literature among the masses, and by its own requirements of supply, has thus increased its production. ”

“ Again, the fluency of expression and command of language possessed by Americans even in the humbler ranks of life forms a marked contrast to the poverty of speech of the same class in this country, where, as an eminent philologist has declared, a very considerable proportion of the agricultural population habitually make use of a vocabulary not exceeding three hundred words. ”

“ To avoid the present dangerous practice of brake-power being cut off and rendered useless by the introduction of an unfitted vehicle, it ought to be the law that the Company should not be allowed to send vehicles over the line of another Company unless each vehicle is provided with the same form of continuous brake as that used by such foreign Company. ”

“ But undoubtedly there is, for all perfect, and still more for all enduring work in the world of letters a certain measure and standard of excellence in the mode of expression, which even the most brilliant genius cannot afford wholly to disregard, but which is as incapable of exact definition as it is difficult of attainment. ”

“ The writer remembers hearing of a gentleman who, not wishing to pay the legal and recognised fee for a consultation with his lawyer, devised an expedient whereby he expected to gain the information he required without the usual cost. He accordingly invited the man ‘learned in the law’ to dine at his house on a particular evening, as a friend and an old acquaintance. The lawyer gladly accepted the invitation, and attended at the house of his friend and client prompt to the minute. ”

“ The paper pulp during manufacture is mixed with chloride of zinc in solution, and the more concentrated this solution is, the tougher is the finished paper. It is said that the new material has been successfully used in boxmaking, combmaking, and has actually taken the place of leather in bootmaking. This last application of the material is perhaps not quite so much of a novelty as it seems to be; for in the cheaper kinds of boots and shoes, the soles, instead of being of solid leather, are often made of a compound of which brown-paper pulp seems to be the chief constituent. ”

“ I’m not particularly learned, nor no scholar; but I do remember some lines of your immortal poet which tells us “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” The more I think of life, the more it puzzles me, and that’s a fact. To think of you and I—two people in five millions—meeting by such chance! And to think of your wife being the niece of my old friend!’
‘Did he speak much of her to you?’ Edgar asked.
‘A few. “Speak” is no word for it: he raved about her. If ever a man loved a girl, it was your uncle. You must not judge him harshly.’
‘I do not ”

“ In connection with the phrase, ‘A man of talent,’ made use of by my countrywoman in the course of the above conversation, I may observe that ‘talent’ or ‘talented’ is an expression seldom heard from the lips of a native of New England. ”

“ It would be difficult, we think, on other grounds than that of this attractiveness of the chances and prizes of the literary occupation, to account for the active competition which is so observable in the profession. That the pure literary faculty, as a stimulus, does not form a distinguishing characteristic of all aspirants, is plain enough. ”

“ Fullalove, in Charles Reade’s Very Hard Cash; the younger Fenton in Yates’s Black Sheep; or the American traveller in Mugby Junction—in each and every instance the result is to convey a most erroneous idea as to the manner in which our common tongue is ordinarily spoken in the United States.
It is the same on the stage. The dialect in which Americans are usually made to express themselves in English dramas is as incorrect and absurd as was the language put into the mouths of their Irish characters by the playwrights of the early part of the eighteenth century. ”

“ Professor Germain Sée, of Paris, during a course of lectures on dietetics, has recently pointed out the importance of water in connection with food, that fluid being the only one which can dissolve the salts taken with the food into the body, and eliminate them from the system. ”

“ The common impression is, no doubt, that increase in bulk and height of the human body during the years of growth progresses evenly all through the year. This is not so. Three distinct periods are marked out, and within them some thirty lesser waverings have been observed. As for bulk, the maximum period extends from August until December; the period of equipoise lasts from December until about the middle of April; and then follows the minimum period until August. The lasting increase of bulk or weight is all accumulated during the first stage ”