Various

“ When that amiable young man the Prince Imperial fell, done to death by Zulu assegais, there arose from nearly every heart in the civilised world a sigh of sympathy for his bereaved mother, and a tear was dropped by many, as they thought of the far-reaching possibilities blotted out by African savages. Yet who can doubt that that tragedy saved a whole nation of men, perhaps for generations, from a host of plotters against the destiny of their own country, not for Bonapartism, but for ends at once selfish, unpatriotic, and unworthy. ”

“ When eminent men die, we are accustomed to say that the world has lost something; that their country or party is poorer; that none are left to fill their place, and other such expressions. But very seldom do we hear it said that the world gains when great men die; yet we have no hesitation in saying that the world often gains more by the death of leading men than it would do by their living indefinitely, or even much beyond ‘the allotted span.’ Again, it is not our custom to look forward to the day of our own death as a gain either to ourselves or the world. ”

“ Unmindful of scorn, in defiance of fate, he goes forward in the thorny path he has chosen for himself, gaining knowledge that is quite new, making discoveries that were reserved for such as he, and at last becomes possessed of an herbarium famous for containing specimens to be found in no other. All the while he is unheard of, or heard of unfavourably; but when he grows old, and, tottering on the brink of the grave, hands over his precious scraps to the nearest university, he becomes famous. ”

“ As the Angel of Death is the destroyer of prejudices, so is he the healer of national animosities. The Scotsmen and the Englishmen who fought so fiercely and hated so bitterly at Bannockburn and at Flodden are long since gone, and in their place there is a living race of Scotsmen and Englishmen who belong to one nation, and are proud of each other. Eighty years ago, Frenchmen and Englishmen hated and fought as fiends hate and fight; but death has taken the haters away, and a new race of Englishmen and a new race of Frenchmen to-day regard each other in a very different way. ”

“ In his then condition, it seemed to Mr Cross that he had perhaps been rather too hasty and prone to think evil. His daughter, as he well knew, had her ‘little tempers,’ and might herself to some extent have contributed to her wedded unhappiness. No doubt the young man would be amenable to reason, and with judicious management and some outlay, might make a tolerable son-in-law after all.
The talk at last centred itself upon diamonds, and Ferrard was in the midst of an animated description of those belonging to certain family connections of his own, when the auctioneer interrupted him. ”

“ When once we have chosen our way, we generally keep on till death stops us. Our religion, our politics, our very prejudices, we rarely modify; and we seldom inquire why we hold certain religious or political creeds. Occasionally, a more than ordinarily strong-minded man has courage to think for himself, and even goes the length of acting for himself; but such cases are comparatively rare. Were men not mortal, were men even to live as long as did the antediluvians, progress in the world would be very slow. Threescore years and ten we may hold the world back, but no longer. ”

“ In the backwoods of America is born the son of a struggling farmer, who dies ere his son can earn a crust to sustain life. A noble woman, his mother, has a hard battle to fight in the rearing of her family; but bitter though the{450} conflict is, her heroism gains the victory for her in the unequal contest with want and weakness. Her son, sharing his mother’s hard lot, showing her nobleness of character, determines to ‘be somebody;’ to serve the world in his day and generation; and, by efforts such as only heroes make, rises step by step in learning and in every art that dignifies man. ”

“ For centuries, misgovernment has sown evil seed in unhappy Ireland, and the result is a race of Irishmen smarting under a sense of wrong, and crying out accordingly. Were men to live for ever, were memories to live for ever, Ireland never would be pacified. ”

“ Though without his knowledge or design, yet in accordance with his morbid wish, and indirectly by his act, had Ferrard died a miserable death; and the auctioneer regarded himself as a murderer, though unpunishable by the laws of this world. An already enfeebled body was unable to resist the effect of the mental torture of ceaseless self-reprobation, and the end was not long in coming. ”

“ A poor shoemaker rises while others sleep, and searches among the wayside weeds of his native lanes, his only inspiration being his thirst for knowledge, and the joy of adding a few plants to the known flora of his native land. ”

“ We somehow think that no one could exactly fill our shoes or act the part we have done; but as a matter of fact, our shoes may be better filled and our part better acted by the generation which follows. ”

“ These diamonds—I meant them for Amy, poor girl; and if—— But never mind about that just now.’
‘As I understood you last night,’ said Ferrard, who was growing impatient, ‘you had something of importance to say to me this morning touching our mutual relations.’
‘Well, I don’t know—I don’t know,’ replied the auctioneer. ‘You mustn’t take everything for gospel a man says when he’s had a glass.’
The captain’s face grew long. ”

“ The inevitable necessity that a Levantine or Asiatic feels to ask more than double the actual value of his goods, and allow himself afterwards to be beaten down to something less than half what he originally asked, is a cause of bewilderment to the untravelled Briton, and a continual sore rankling in the bosom of the unwary tourist who has fallen a victim. It is not only the unlicensed hawker who takes his wares on board ships as they put in to the various ports along their route, and whose prices are merely a speculation as to how great an extent his customer may be imposed upon ”

“ Now, let us assume that instead of a dynamo-machine and its motor, a galvanic battery is employed, and that the amount of energy furnished is the same as before. In this case, we shall owe our energy to the combustion of zinc in lieu of coal; and instead of obtaining the oxygen for the process from the air, which costs nothing, we must of necessity get it from an acid, which costs a great deal. The total amount of zinc dissolved per hour in the acid, to furnish the current required for our one hundred lamps, will be about thirteen pounds-weight, the cost being nearly three shillings. ”

“ But when they are trying to find the men they want, they are fair and above-board. They have no dirty spies; they act honourably. You can always tell pretty well when a plain-clothes officer is after you. But the French have a low, sneaking way of going to work. You never know but what the landlord of the hotel, or the waiter, or the porter, or the shopman who brings you a parcel, may not be a detective in disguise. No; give me Old England to do business in! Everybody here, even the police, is on the square.’
To this patriotic sentiment (!) ”

“ Still, it is not every one who requires so many as a hundred lamps; and for smaller installations, an efficient, easily managed, and cheaply working battery would have a wide application. But it must be remembered that electricity can now be had at comparatively little cost to light a dozen lamps or so by employing a small dynamo-machine driven by a gas-engine. Inventors of batteries must, therefore, remember that they have rivals in the field, and that if they would successfully compete with them, they must offer something as cheap and efficient. ”

“ They had only been at Brighton five days, when Mr Cross, to his daughter’s surprise and chagrin, announced his intention of returning to town at once. Amy expostulated, but in vain; he declared that he was sick of the place; that it was doing him no good—which was quite true; that he must get back to work and occupy his mind. Finding opposition useless, Mrs Ferrard made her preparations with the best grace she might, and they took the noon-train to London the same day.
On arrival, they drove first to the lodgings in Duke Street, and the auctioneer entered the house with his daughter. ”

“ But it is not alone by the rich legacies of well-spent lives which men leave us when they die, that we gain. It is often necessary that even good men should be removed, to allow of the world’s progress—much more bad men, especially if they wield a far-reaching influence. ”

“ The success of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in the recent lifeboat competition will give general satisfaction. It is in the first place very gratifying that it should have won the substantial prize of six hundred pounds which was offered by the Committee of the International Fisheries Exhibition for ‘the best full-sized lifeboat, fully equipped, and on a carriage, adapted to aid stranded or wrecked vessels from the shore in gales of wind, and through heavy broken seas and surf;’ since it is now certain that the sum in question has been devoted to the best of all possible objects. ”

“ Now, one ton of metallic zinc can be transformed in this way to a ton and a quarter of oxide—a valuable white pigment—and as the oxide sells for a greater price than the original zinc, the promoters have some ground for their statement that electricity can be produced by this battery free of cost.
Unfortunately, recent experience of electric-lighting schemes has made the public very cautious in their reception of any new thing of an electrical nature, and there is little doubt that for some time really promising schemes will suffer for the shortcomings of their predecessors. ”

“ A servant looked in, and seeing him still there, begged pardon and withdrew, wondering when he would have finished breakfast. Then he softly moved the plate back, and again sat looking at the keys. One thought ebbed and flowed continually in his mind, flowing more and more fiercely, ebbing with surely decreasing force. To take the diamonds—theft. Not to take them—ruin.
Half-past eleven. No cab at the door, no hurried step in the hall. Cross must now be well on his way to Brighton, and under the idea that the keys were safe at his bank. At anyrate, the things must not be left lying there. ”

“ Sometimes men pursue a certain course, not that it is right, not even that they think it is right, but because they stand committed to it. Oftener, men hold upon a course that everybody but themselves sees is wrong, believing it to be right ”

“ Rumours are seldom circulated about an old established business without some good grounds for them. But for Philip’s business, you will have to prepare yourself for all sorts of ridiculous rumours. You must admit that his experiment is peculiar enough to provoke them.’
‘Then you do not think they can be true,’ she said, drawing a long breath of relief.
‘That would depend upon their source, as I am trying to make you understand. You need not in any case be anxious until you have definite information from Philip himself. I do not like to speak about Mr Shield ”

“ It is, too, by no means the first time that a battery has been brought forward with the intimation that it will pay its own cost by the value of its by-products. But the effect upon the price of such by-products of glutting the market with them, is generally omitted from the calculations. Hitherto, such schemes have proved illusory; though it by no means follows that they must always do so. We have the example of gas manufacture before us, where, by careful working, the cost of the gas could be more than covered by the value of the other products of the coal. ”

“ Enlightened as we think ourselves, it is quite probable that the generation that acts a century hence may wonder how we managed to rub along in our benightedness!
Many men are morbidly fearful of being thought inconsistent, and will rather hide their opinion than run the risk of being thought so. ”

“ Few boats can stand the terrible test of being launched from an exposed beach through mountains of surf, and fewer still prove manageable under either oars or sails in broken water. Further, the boats of the National Lifeboat Institution possess seven qualities which experience has proved to be essential, and in each of these they have some claim to be regarded as being as nearly perfect as possible. ”

“ We may here point out that the word ‘primary,’ as applied to batteries, has become necessary in quite recent times, to distinguish those which furnish a direct current from those which, under the name of accumulators, storage or secondary batteries, require charging, in the first instance, from another battery, or dynamo-machine. ”

“ In England, we set great value upon the publicity given by the press to everything that takes place. The company in which I found myself on this memorable evening—or at anyrate those with whom I spoke on the subject—praised this national peculiarity as much as, or even more than, most of us do. They said that the newspaper reports about ‘plants’ and the manner in which robberies are carried out, are, as a rule, the most utter rubbish ”

“ When guest and host met at the breakfast-table, the manner of the latter, to Ferrard’s surprise, had totally changed. He was nervous and irritable; he complained that he was growing old, and said that a bottle or two of wine overnight would not once have affected him in this way. He ate little, but drank a good deal of coffee, and kept fussing nervously with several keys which lay beside his plate, putting them{456} into his pockets, taking them out again, dropping them on the floor, and grumbling at his own awkwardness; altogether, behaving like a man considerably off his balance. ”