Various

“ We fall into the habit, in other words, of writing and speaking, just as our muscles fall into the way of guiding our movements. No doubt, a large part of the difficulty is smoothed away for us by the fact that we inherit the aptitude for the performance of these common actions. But they fall, nevertheless, into the category of repeated and inherited habits; and equally with the newer or fresh ideas and tasks we set ourselves, the actions of common life may be regarded as merely illustrating the curious and useful effect of repeated and fixed habit on our organisation. ”

“ Of course, a man must satisfy himself he’s doing something to justify his existence in the world; and much as I love music, I hardly feel as though playing the violin were in itself a sufficient end for a man to live for. ”

“ Let investors be satisfied with a reasonable rate of interest, never buy stock without the advice of a stockbroker, never buy what they cannot pay for, or sell what they are not prepared to deliver, and we are certain there would be fewer sleepless pillows and more money in the coffers.
Speculation, we fear, is inherent in the human constitution, and all that we can say on the subject is not likely to put a stop to it. It is natural to the human animal to desire to make money without working for it, and no doubt such a state of affairs will exist to the end. ”

“ The profound shade and gloom of the forest, the great roof of overarching foliage, the flutter of the endless leaves before the breeze, the confused murmur of the myriad wings and voices of the insects, nay, even the very stillness and silence itself of which he had spoken, all seemed to breathe forth deeply and solemnly on his quivering strings. It was a triumph of art over its own resources. On the organ or the flute, one would have said beforehand, such effects as these might indeed be obtained, but surely never, never on the violin. ”

“ Examples of a total want of chlorophyll are seen in the fungi, that large group of plants which harbours our mushrooms, toad-stools, and like organisms as its familiar representatives. If we inquire how the non-green fungus lives, we shall discover, firstly, that it is like an animal in respect, firstly, of the gas on which it feeds. The green plant, we saw to feed on carbonic acid gas; but the fungus, like the animal, inhales oxygen. Furthermore, a still more remarkable fact must be detailed respecting the difference between the habit of the green plants and their non-green neighbours. ”

“ Instead of the plant-world being a huge living domain which never evinces a sign of sensation or activity, the botanist can point to numerous cases in which not only are the signs of sensibility as fully developed in the plant as in the animal, but in which also many other phases of animal life are exactly imitated. We thus know of plants which droop their leaves on the slightest touch, and exhibit as delicate a sensitiveness as many high animals, and a much finer degree of sensibility than most low animals. ”

“ Passing over without comment the practice of shipping ‘ne’er-do-wells’ off to the colonies in the vain hope that they will do better there than at home, we cannot help remarking that numbers of promising young men, who are utterly unfitted for the life of an emigrant, are constantly being sent out, and either they, or the country to which they are sent, subsequently get blamed for an almost inevitable failure. Nothing, too, could be more injudicious than the placing of capital in the hands of inexperienced young emigrants at the outset of their career. ”

“ The old maxim regarding the power of habit is usually and rightly regarded as exhibiting a thorough application to the regulation of animal life. Not merely in human affairs is habit allowed to be ‘a second nature;’ but in lower life as well, the influence of use and wont is plainly perceptible. A dog or cat equally with a human being is under the sway of the accustomed. ”

“ It should be clearly recognised that, in most cases, if the pupil works in such a way as he must do if he is to obtain a useful practical knowledge of his occupation, his labour alone will amply remunerate the farmer, even if the latter has to find both board and lodging. Clearly, therefore, if a substantial premium be added, the advantage to the settler is considerable. The pupil-system often affords a good deal of amusement to keen-sighted Americans who are in a position to see its weak points. ”

“ Dense—so dense that only an indistinct glimmer of the sky can be seen here and there through the great canopy, just as you see Orion’s belt over yonder through the fringe of clouds upon the gray horizon; and even the intense tropical sunlight only reaches the ground at long intervals in little broken patches of subdued paleness. ”

“ If the young emigrant follows the course thus suggested, he may not find his path quite so smooth as that of the young man who has paid his premium; but he will have a better chance of obtaining practical experience of farming. He will live in his master’s house, board at his table, and be treated very much as a member of the family—indeed, the premiumed pupil could hardly be better off; but he will be compelled to learn in a way which he who pays a premium can hardly be, and he will actually be paid for gaining the experience he requires, instead of paying for it! ”

“ The effects of habit on plant-life are nowhere better seen than in the curious differences which exist between the food and feeding of certain plants and the practices of their more familiar plant-neighbours. The food of an ordinary green plant, as is well known, consists of inorganic matters. Water, minerals in solution, ammonia, and carbonic acid gas, constitute the materials from which an ordinary plant derives its sustenance. ”

“ In these days of competition, the division of knowledge is as necessary as the division of labour; and it is the duty of those who are practically acquainted with emigration or any other subject to advise those who are not so well informed. This is what we now propose to do. We desire that our remarks upon the farm-pupil system in the British colonies be understood to apply equally to the Western States of America, which, so far as this article is concerned, are to all intents and purposes British colonies. ”

“ Many investors, while looking very sharply after their rights, entirely lose sight of their duties, and altogether forget that there must be two parties to every contract. When a man sells stock, he is entitled to a cheque for the proceeds the moment he hands the executed transfer to his broker, and no sooner; and when stock is purchased, the broker is entitled to receive the purchase-money when he delivers the transfer to his client for signature, and no sooner. ”

“ It is curious to reflect that all the beauty of flower and foliage merely represents so much carbonic acid gas, water, and minerals, fashioned by the wondrous vital powers of the plant into living tissues. Yet such is undoubtedly the case.{114} Between the food of animals and green plants, we perceive this great difference—namely, that whilst the animal demands water, oxygen gas, and minerals—all three being inorganic materials—it also requires ready-made living matter to supply the wants of its frame. This ready-made living matter the animal can only obtain from other animals or from plants ”

“ To the youth who has been brought up in a comfortable English home, under the care of watchful parents, emigration to any of the colonies brings a very rude and abrupt change of life. Thenceforth, parental oversight will be no longer obtainable, and the young emigrant will have to seek his own living among strangers in a strange land, where evil influences are generally numerous, where the ordinary mode of life is often very rough, and where no one need hope for success unless he is willing and able actually to perform hard manual labour. ”

“ Plants without green colour are, however, not the only members of the vegetable world in which the habit of feeding like animals has been inaugurated. Some of the most remarkable chapters in botany have been recently written on the habits of so-called carnivorous or insectivorous plants—that is, plants which subsist on insects in other forms of animal life, and which lay traps designed to capture their unwary prey. ”

“ In one sense, the plant, then, exhibits higher powers than the animal, for it is more constructive. It can build up its frame from non-living matter entirely; whilst the animal, less constructive, requires a proportion of already living matter in its food. What has just been said of the food of plants applies to those which possess green colouring-matter associated with the plant-tissues. This green colour, so universally diffused throughout the plant kingdom, is called chlorophyll by the botanist. ”

“ For the green leaves of mistletoe, like the leaves of other plants, take in carbonic acid gas, and decompose it, as already described, retaining the carbon, and setting the oxygen free. On the other hand, a parasitic fungus will not elaborate any food-products for itself; and hence it is, if anything, a more complete and typical ‘boarder’ even than mistletoe. The effects of habit in plant-life are here seen in a double sense and aspect. Not only is it through the exercise of ‘habit’ that a plant becomes a parasite ”

“ That which may be at first unusual, soon becomes the normal way of life. Even, as the physiologist can prove, in a very large part of ordinary human existence, we are the creatures of habit quite as much as we are the children of impulse. ”

“ Then, again, when, with the microscope, we inspect that inner plant-life which is altogether hidden from the outer world, we see that the tissues of plants exist in a state of high activity. Currents of protoplasm are seen to run hither and thither through the plant-cells, and active movements to pervade the whole organisation of the living organism. Vital activity is the rule, and inertness the exception, in plant-life ”

“ Only the low hum of the insects in the forest shade, the endless multitudinous whisper of the wind among the foliage, the faint sound begotten by the tropical growth itself, breaks the immemorial stillness in our West Indian woodland. ”

“ Again, those fungi which cause skin-diseases in man (for example, ringworm) feed on the tissues in which they are parasitic, and in so doing absorb organic matter. The plants which are not green, in this way appear to prefer organic matters, like animals. In habits, therefore, they present a striking contrast to their green neighbours.
The habit of parasitism, however, which has just been alluded to is a powerful means of inaugurating and maintaining change of life and living in plants. A parasitic being is one which lives in or upon some other living organism. ”

“ Besides, there’s one thing greater even than the alleviation of human suffering, greater than art with all its allurements, greater than anything else that a man can interest himself in—though I know most people don’t think so—and that’s science—the knowledge of our relations with the universe, and still more of the universe’s relations with its various parts.—No, Mrs Hawthorn; my second absorbing passion, next to music, and higher than music, is one that I’m sure ladies won’t sympathise with—it’s only botany.’
‘Goodness gracious!’ Nora cried, surprised into speech. ”

“ Under these circumstances, it naturally appears desirable to most parents to do all that lies within their power to obtain for their sons some training to fit them for their future life. This desire has called into existence the system under which many moderately well-to-do young emigrants, on first leaving England, agree to pay a premium to some colonist who is already established on a farm of his own, in order that they may be taught colonial farming. ”

“ The botanist thus becomes aware of the existence of a ‘taste,’ or ‘selective power’ as it is termed, in the plant-world, influencing their food, and, as a matter of logic, affecting also their structure, functions, and entire existence. ”

“ It may be added that the want of light converts even the green plant to somewhat animal habits. In the dark, the decomposition of carbonic acid is suspended, chlorophyll alone being insufficient for the analysis. Then, the green plant seems to inhale oxygen and to emit carbonic acid, like the animal and its non-green relative; to return, however, to its normal habit with the returning light. At the same time, the plain difference of habit in respect of the want of green colour in the fungi and other plants, is in itself a remarkable fact of plant-life. ”

“ When a contract has been rendered, broker and client are equally bound to fulfil their part of it: the broker, in the case of a purchase, to deliver to, his client an authentic certificate of the stock, and in the case of a sale, to pay for the stock on delivery of a properly executed transfer; the client to pay the consideration-money, &c., when the stock is purchased for him, and to deliver the transfer duly executed, with the certificate, when the stock is sold. ”

“ The object of our remarks is to present to the fathers of these young emigrants what the writer—who has seen much, both of emigrants and emigration, on both sides of the Atlantic—regards as a piece of sorely needed advice upon one point of the great question of emigration, as it affects the sons of English gentlemen and ‘blue-blooded boys’ in general.
The average British parent is, as a rule, very ignorant of everything connected with life and labour in the colonies. He is perhaps a fairly successful man of business, or has risen in his profession ”

“ In most cases, these men know well enough that there is no real need for the system to be followed; but if they can succeed in obtaining a pupil, they are hardly to be blamed for so doing, as it is no slight advantage to themselves. In the colonies, the harvest usually is plentiful, while the labourers are few, and labour, consequently, is expensive. Obviously, therefore, a pupil who will pay to work and who will not be constantly wanting to leave, is a very great boon to any settler. ”