Various

“ There are innumerable miscreants who thrive upon the possession of some discreditable secret or family skeleton, which throws a desolating blight over many a life, to all appearance surrounded by every comfort and luxury wealth can command. Scoundrels of this description, secure in the helplessness of their victims, pursue with impunity their merciless system of extortion, being well aware that the terror of exposure is so great, that silence will be purchased at any price. ”

“ One man who was going towards the town, stopped suddenly, as his quick ear caught the sound of an approaching footstep, and with the caution of one accustomed to frontier-life, drew himself up by the side of one of the very few trees which remained in the vicinity of Flume City, so that in the obscurity it was almost impossible for any passing eye to detect him. The next instant a single man hurried by, passing between the first comer and the starry sky, so that his figure was visible with tolerable distinctness to the concealed watcher. ”

“ As the reeds and reed canary-grass come up and form a cover—as the sedges grow green and advance to the edge of the water—as the sword-flags lift up and expand, opening from a centre, the sedge-reedling issues from the bushes and enters these vigorous growths, on which he perches, and about which he climbs as if they were trees. ”

“ For the rest, Caleb contented himself with saying simply: ‘I ain’t working for Mr Hadleigh, and I wasn’t hired by him.’
‘Daresay he contracted with some un?’
A nod would be the response to his inquisitive friend; and Caleb would proceed with his work as earnestly as if his life depended upon accomplishing a given task within the day. His example inspired the younger men with some spirit of emulation, and the women, old and young, with admiration. The old stagers bluntly told him at the close of the first day that they could not keep pace with him, and did not mean to try. ”

“ Gnats are fascinated by a powerful electric lamp, and dance about it as they do in a beam of evening sunshine. Light has an attraction for many animals besides insects. Flying-fish spring out of the sea when sailors hang a lantern by the ship’s side; and in California now it is the custom to submerge a cluster of Edison lamps from the bows of a boat with a net expanded below. When the fish gather round the light the net is closed on them, and after being hauled out of the water they are put into water-tanks, and sent alive on special cars by overland rail to New York and the Eastern States. ”

“ Each instalment of hush-money only serves to whet the appetites of these social harpies. It is infinitely preferable to face boldly at first the worst, no matter of how serious a nature, than to supply blackmail for the purchase of what can never be security. ”

“ The incandescence lamp itself is very safe, since if one be enveloped in light dry muslin and broken, the muslin is not burnt. In fact, the rush of air caused by the broken vacuum entirely dissipates the red-hot filament.
From its injurious aspects we turn now to its beneficial qualities. The arc-light by its brilliance is not good for the eyesight when looked at direct, but there is probably nothing harmful in the light itself, unless it should be the excess of violet rays. It is a cool light; and hot lights, by drying the natural humours of the eye, are the most prejudicial to the sight. ”

“ The willow-wren, his friend, comes later, and has a gentler, plaintive song.
Meadow-pipits are not migrants in the sense that the swallows are; but they move about and so change their localities, that when they come back they have much of the interest of a spring-bird. They rise from the ground and sing in the air like larks, but not at such a height, nor is the song so beautiful. These, too, are early birds. They often frequent very exposed places, as the side of a hill where the air is keen, and where one would not expect to meet with so lively a little creature. ”

“ Sometimes he may be seen flitting across the pond, or perched for a moment on an exposed branch; but he quickly returns to the dry sedges or the bushes, or climbs in and out the willow-stoles. It is too bare and open for him at the pond, or even by the brook-side. So much does he love concealment, that although to be near the water is his habit, for a while he prefers to keep back among the bushes. ”

“ In two localities with which I am familiar, and know every path, I never saw a wheatear. I heard of them occasionally as passing over, but they were not birds of the district. In Sussex, on the contrary, the wheatear is as regularly seen as the blackbird; and in the spring and summer you cannot go a walk without finding them. They change their ground three times: first on arrival, they feed in the gardens and arable fields; next, they go up on the hills; lastly, they return to the coast, and frequent the extreme edge of the cliffs and the land by the shore. Every bird has its different manner ”

“ Nothing that I have ever read of, or seen, or that I expect to see, equals the beauty and the delight of a summer spent in our woods and meadows. Green leaves and grass, and sunshine, blue skies, and sweet brooks—there is nothing to approach it; it is no wonder the birds are tempted to us. ”

“ At the Electrical Exhibition, Vienna, there is a model theatre with numerous scenic effects never before attempted by gas; and moonlight, sunrise, sunset, twilight, and night are all imitated with great fidelity. In the drama of Love and Money at the Adelphi Theatre, a flood of daylight bursting in upon some entombed miners through a hole cut in the coal by a rescuing party was very well imitated by a beam of ‘arc’ light. The practice of wearing tiny star lamps on the hair or dress has also come more into fashion. ”

“ Is it requisite to remind the enlightened and thinking portion of the public here assembled that the chances and changes of human life are dependent upon circumstances, and not upon ourselves?’
Here all shouted: ‘Ay, ay; bravo!’
The manager, pointing to the man in the pit, went on: ‘And you, sir, who are so loud in your demand for Mr Carles, cannot you also imagine that his absence may be occasioned by some sore distress, some occurrence not within human foresight to anticipate or divert? ”

“ Now, the wheatears move in numbers, and yet not in concert; in spring, perhaps twenty may be counted in sight at once on the ground, feeding together and yet quite separate; just opposite in manner to starlings, who feed side by side and rise and fly as one. ”

“ The ordinary observer, while reading in some sensational novel the evil deeds and extortion perpetrated by the class of knaves who subsist on hush-money, would be inclined to attribute them to romance. It is, however, well known to those who have had experience in criminal matters, that the novelist’s fertile imagination pales before stern reality. Innocent persons have been threatened with an accusation of some infamous crime, and at the same time money has been demanded as the price of silence. ”

“ A bird must be common and plentiful before people generally observe it, so that there are many of the labouring class who have never seen the goatsucker, or would say so, if you asked them. Few observe the migration of the turtle-doves, perhaps confusing them with the wood-pigeons, which stay in the fields all the winter. By the time the sap is well up in the oaks, all the birds have arrived, and the tremulous cooing of the turtle-dove is heard by those engaged in barking the felled trees. ”

“ With a platinum filament, the metal would ‘silver’ the interior of the bulb. Curiously enough, when the copper ‘electrodes’ or wires conveying the current inside the bulb to the filament of an Edison lamp are accidentally dissipated by excess of current, the carbon thread seems to shelter the glass from the copper shower, for Dr J. Fleming has observed that there is always a blank line on the glass opposite the filament, while all the rest is coated with a film of copper. When the carbon itself is dissipated, this blank line is not seen, and the whole interior of the bulb appears to be smoked. ”

“ Fog, however, has a peculiarly strong quenching power over the arc-light, owing to the preference it has for absorbing all the blue rays, and to the comparative poverty of the orange colour. Hence it is that electric arc-lamps look so white and dim in a dense fog. A single gas-jet can be seen about as far as a two-thousand-candle arc-lamp. This is because the gas-jet is rich in those red rays which penetrate a fog without being absorbed; whereas it is poor in the blue rays which are quenched. For this reason, also, the incandescence lamp is preferable to the arc for a misty atmosphere. ”

“ A Christmas-tree looks very pretty when lighted by a hundred incandescence lamps; the first attempted being in all probability that in the Swedish section of the Electrical Exhibition held in Paris two years ago. At the Vienna Electrical Exhibition there are, while we write, some novel effects of electric illumination; for instance, there is a hall lighted entirely from the ceiling by electricity. The ceiling is painted a deep blue to represent the sky, and studded with innumerable stars in the shape of incandescence lamps. ”

“ The thicker the undergrowth of nettles and wild parsley, rushes and rough grasses, the more the whitethroat likes the spot. Amongst this tangled mass he lives and feeds, slipping about under the brambles and ferns as rapidly as if the way was clear. ”

“ It is very pleasant indeed to hear him; one’s hands are dry and the skin rough with the east wind; the trunks of the trees look dry, and the lichens have shrivelled on the bark; the brook looks dark; gray dust rises and drifts, and the gray clouds hurry over ”

“ It has been placed upon record how Fanny Horton, a once celebrated actress, won her first applause in a somewhat singular manner. During her performance in a particular scene, she was loudly hissed, when, advancing to the footlights, she asked: ‘Which do you dislike—my playing or my person?’ ‘The playing, the playing!’ was the answer from all parts of the house. ”

“ This was terribly tantalising; and after the brief illumination of the match, a more impenetrable darkness seemed to have settled upon the pass and the rocks around; so, at all hazards, he resolved to get still nearer. He was perhaps a little unguarded in his eagerness, and made some slight noise, and it is certain that he had not calculated all the hazards which might environ him, for a low fierce growl showed that a dog was with the men, and the spy shuddered with horror as he heard the sound. ”

“ CALLS BEFORE THE CURTAIN.
It has often been said that an actor exists upon the breath of applause; and to a certain extent this is literally as well as figuratively true; for during a long period of his early career he is fated to undergo many hardships, and frequently finds himself playing week after week for one of those unscrupulous ‘managers’ who can hardly be got to pay their company their salaries, while revelling in all possible comfort themselves. ”

“ The vicar, Paul Havens, was a hale, sunny-faced man of about fifty years, with bushy iron-gray hair and whiskers, and square muscular frame. He was one of those men whose strong, kindly nature reflects itself upon all who come in contact with him, and inspires them too with a sense of strength. ”

“ The food they find is so abundant, that after all their efforts, little apparent diminution can be noticed; to this fertile and lovely country, therefore, they hasten every year. It might be said that the spring-birds begin to come to us in the autumn, as early as October, when hedge-sparrows and golden-crested wrens, larks, blackbirds, and thrushes, and many others, float over on the gales from the coasts of Norway. Their numbers, especially of the smaller birds, such as larks, are immense, and their line of flight so extended that it strikes our shores for a distance of two hundred miles. ”

“ An accident of this kind recently caused great alarm in a New York theatre. Sparks from the red-hot carbons of arc-lamps, or between wire and wire of the conductors, have also led to many small fires; but none of any great consequence. A spark is so feeble a source of heat that, unlike the spilling of an oil-lamp, it does not produce a powerful fire, provided the materials it falls among are not highly inflammable. On the whole, the danger of fire with electric lighting, especially incandescence lighting, has probably been exaggerated. ”

“ The electric light is not free from danger; but, from not being explosive, it is far from being as fatal in its effects as gas. There have been several deaths from electric shock caused by the very powerful currents of the Brush and Jablochkoff machines. For instance, a man was killed instantly on board the late Czar’s yacht Livadia when crossing the Bay of Biscay. He had accidentally grasped the bare connections of one of the electric lamps and received the current through his breast. Others have been killed by touching bare wires conveying the current ”

“ An author frequently announces, through the medium of the manager, that he has betaken himself abroad, or, say, to Scotland, fearing the result of his piece, whereas he may be quietly looking on at the back of the pit, or has concealed himself behind the curtains of a private box. In another case, the successful author will attempt to make a speech, while bowing his acknowledgments, and signally fail, retiring considerably more abashed than triumphant. ”

“ In their breeding-grounds they will not permit a man to approach so near as when they arrive, or as when the nesting is over. At the time of their arrival, any one can walk up within a short distance; so again in autumn. During the nesting-time the wheatear perches on a molehill, or a large flint, or any slight elevation above the open surface of the downs, and allows no one to come closer than fifty yards.
The hedge-sparrows, that creep about the bushes of the hedgerow as mice creep about the banks, are early in spring joined by the whitethroats, almost the first hedgebirds to return. ”