Various

“ Herself the goal, the bride’s-maid, fluttering in white and scarlet, had ascended{189} to a knoll before the cottage, and some time afterwards held up a silk handkerchief to the eyes of the expectant runners.
I fancy there are few spectacles that produce in one’s mind a stronger sense of savage freedom than that of civilised human beings let loose, coatless, vestless, bonnetless, to race among the hills. ”

“ If kept in confinement, exceeding care is required to supply the creatures with such requisites as their maternal instincts seem to require. What we suggest is, that cottagers, farmers, and others possessing sufficient scope for keeping poultry, should go far more largely into the business of egg-culture than they do at present. Why should they allow the great egg-supply for this country to be in the hands of others? The answer, we fear, is, that our farming classes generally look down contemptuously on the supplying of eggs for market. It is too small an affair to invite consideration. ”

“ A mouse hears a suspicious or threatening sound, and at once, so to speak, accommodates its actions and movements to its protection. The ear of the mouse, as one of its ‘gateways of knowledge,’ is situated so close to the brain that the interval which elapses between the reception of the sound by the ear, or between its transmission as an impulse to the brain and the issue of a command or second impulse from the brain to the muscles of the body for the purpose of movement, is too short to be perfectly appreciated by the observer. ”

“ If it be true that we are largely the products of past time, and that our physical and mental constitutions are in great measure woven for us and independently of us, it is none the less a stable fact, that there exists a margin of free-will, which, however limited in extent, may be made in the criminal and debased, and under proper training and encouragement, the foundation of a new and better life. ”

“ Toby was revengeful to a degree, and if any one struck him, he would wait his chance, even if for days, to pay him out with interest in his own coin. He was at first very jealous of two little pigs which were bought as companions to him; but latterly he grew fond of them, and as they soon got very fat, Toby used to roll them along the deck like a couple of foot-balls. There were two parties on board that Toby did not like, or rather that he liked to annoy whenever he got the chance, namely the cook and the cat. ”

“ Such was the letter which Sir Sykes Denzil had unguardedly left upon his library table; and it may be admitted that a more impudent epistle has rarely been addressed to a gentleman of equal station to that of the proprietor of Carbery. It was difficult at first sight to believe that a demand so audacious in itself, and so offensively urged, could be intended as anything else than a sorry jest. Yet that the writer was quite in earnest, nay more, that he felt himself assured of not craving in vain for the coveted boon, was palpable to so attentive a critic as was Ruth Willis. ”

“ The production of eggs for market is one thing, and the hatching of them another. We do not here go into the question of hatching, though much that is interesting could be written on the subject. It is enough to say that all the ingenious plans that have been set on foot for the artificial hatching and rearing of poultry have broken down through the costliness of the arrangements and management. Those who have tried any of these plans have arrived at the conclusion that both eggs and poultry can only be produced on a cheap scale by farmers or cottagers. ”

“ It would in fact be a most unwonted violation of the commonest law of nature, were we to find the children of criminals free from the moral taints of their parents. As physical disease is transmissible, and as the conditions regulating its descent are now tolerably well ascertained, so moral infirmities pass from one generation to another, and the ‘law of likeness’ is thus seen to hold true of mind as well as of body. Numerous instances might be cited of the transmission of criminal traits of character, often of very marked and special kind. ”

“ The common phrase ‘as quick as thought’ is found to be by no means so applicable as is generally supposed, especially when it is discovered that thought or nervous impulse, as compared with light or electricity, appears as a veritable laggard. For whilst light travels at the rate of many thou{182}sands of miles—about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles according to the latest researches—in a second of time, nerve-force in man passes along his nerves at a rate varying from one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty to two hundred feet per second. ”

“ There are few persons who have not considered the bearings and influence of criminal antecedents upon the offenders of the present day. Although to a very large extent our temperaments and dispositions are of our own making, and are susceptible of the favouring influences of education and moral training, there can be no doubt of the truth of the converse remark, that to a very great extent the traits of character we inherit from our parents exercise an undeniable influence over us for weal or for woe. ”

“ Some days would pass during which the memory of the wedding would be continually in their thoughts, forming a mental picture that gave them solace in the midst of outward dreariness. But gradually the lines of the picture would lose their vividness, and it would be less frequently recurred to by the fancy, less fervently yearned after by the heart. Emotions that had been stirred by that night’s entertainment would after a while subside again; the old duties would present themselves anew, calling for the old labour and attention ”

“ But confining ourselves to the domain of human thought, it seems perfectly clear that the differences between persons of different temperament are in reality referable in great part to the varying rates at which nervous impulses are transmitted through the nerves, and to or from the brain. The difference between a person of phlegmatic disposition and a person of sanguine temperament, may thus be properly enough referred to the varying rates with which sensations and feelings are appreciated and acted upon. ”

“ The answer is, that the demand for eggs is steadily increasing, while the home produce is either lessening or stationary in amount.
Why the home supply does not advance with the increase of demand, is a question that calls for a little attention to the commercial aspects of farming. So many small holdings have been absorbed by large farms, that many a cottage housewife has been withdrawn from rural life who would otherwise have reared cottage poultry; neither the allotment-holder nor the artisan has range and space enough for rearing eggs to advantage. ”

“ A merchant will sometimes buy twenty thousand eggs at one market; he takes them to his warehouse, where they are sorted and packed, and possibly sent off the same day to Paris or to London. According to the conditions required by the buyers, the eggs are sometimes counted, sometimes ‘sized’ by passing them through a ring, sometimes bought in bulk. In many of the north-west districts of France, poultry villages send almost their whole supply of eggs to England, from Calais, Cherbourg, and Honfleur, packed in cases containing from six hundred to twelve hundred each. ”

“ In no country is the management of our best poultry-yards excelled. These should serve as a model for the rest; to bring up the wholesale results to their true national importance, all we require is an extension of the taste for poultry-farming amongst those who earn their living on the land.’
The real new-laid eggs of home produce are comparatively few. Their excellence is best appreciated by obtaining them at country farmhouses. The small farmers who do not take nor send their eggs to open market sell them to country shopkeepers, or barter them for other commodities. ”

“ But Lavater’s system is on the whole much too loose and elementary to be regarded as satisfactory by modern scientists, whose repudiation of phrenology as a system capable of explaining the exact disposition of the brain functions, has unquestionably affected Lavater’s method also. Mr Galton refers at the outset of his address to the fact we have already alluded to—namely, that physiologists have determined the rate at which nerve-force, representing a sensation or impulse of thought and action, travels along the nerves. ”

“ The unlettered shepherd nestling in her shaggy bosom, unless she has gifted him with genius, rarely dreams of the truths that she is symbolically publishing around him. And I think of the future life of him whose marriage we have been celebrating as something far different from that of a home-bred philosopher or poet. ”

“ But immured in this mountain fastness, away from human din, his mind will probably never be unfolded to the least self-conscious effort; and he will leave life at seventy little advanced in intellectual attainment on what he was at twenty-five. ”

“ Now and then a distant neighbour, leading a life as lonely as himself, or some wandering angler, will drop in upon him, and be treated to a hospitable meal. But he will hardly see another face the whole year through, except perchance on Sunday—until the ‘clipping’ season comes round, when he will be called away, now in one direction now in another, to days of social labour. ”

“ When Toby arrived with his vessel in Queen’s Dock, Liverpool, on a rainy morning, some nice fresh hay was brought on board. This was a great treat for our pet, and after he had eaten his fill, he thought he could not do better than sleep among it, which thought he immediately transmuted to action, covering himself all up except the head. By-and-by the owner of the ship came on board, and taking a survey of things in general he spied Toby’s head. ”

“ The bride was led out of an anteroom, resting on her father’s arm. He was a rather oldish man, with the history of a good many troubles plainly written upon his face. The bride was a broad-shouldered, brown-visaged, and gray-eyed maiden of about four-and-twenty; and her future husband, a loose-limbed, amiable-looking youth in a lavender necktie and fiery red hair, looked possibly a year or two younger. ”

“ Again and with deliberate care did the baronet’s ward read the letter through. Then she refolded it and replaced it in her pocket, and then consulted her watch. Only a few minutes had as yet elapsed since her escape—for it was little else—from the mansion.
‘I must not go back as yet,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘By this time the whole household will be astir like a hive of angry bees, if, as is all but certain, Sir Sykes has not had self-control enough to keep his own counsel as to the loss he has sustained. ”

“ As he goes his rounds in summer-time, he will see the wide stillness of morning upon the hills; in winter he will have to battle with the fury of the storm. The gloaming will find him cultivating an unfruitful garden, or gathering hay out of morasses for his cow, or sitting over his peat-fire knitting homespun stockings or reading legends of the Covenanters. ”

“ But as we have said, a large supply from abroad has become a necessity; and the characteristics of this supply are worth knowing; because they shew that the trade can be conducted profitably without having recourse to artificial incubation or hatching—a system which has at times had many advocates in England.
The importation of French eggs into this country has increased in an almost incredible degree, owing in part to the facilities afforded by the commercial treaty between England and France. ”

“ For although Nature is an open book, teeming over with wise and great lessons, it is only after toiling through initiatory stages of culture that we can intelligently read her book, or even believe that it exists. ”

“ Mr Galton, however, does not rest merely with the announcement of this latter result. He goes much further in his theoretical inquiry, and suggests that peculiarities in the respect just noted might be found to be related to special points in the conformation of the body. Thus could the ‘personal equations’ of astronomers be related to the height of body, age, colour of hair and eyes, weight, and temperament, some valuable facts might be deduced regarding the union of definite characters to form a special constitution. ”

“ As an eminent authority in physical science has remarked, ‘the interval required for the kindling of consciousness would probably more than suffice for the destruction of the brain by lightning, or even by a rifle-bullet. ”

“ As an angel sent by some gracious fate, it stirs the stagnant pool of existence, and revives hearts that may have drooped through dreary days of solitude. The people who have participated in it are livelier in their talk and wear a blither aspect for days and weeks afterwards. ”

“ In a whale, on the contrary, which may attain a length of eighty feet, a much longer interval will elapse before action of body follows on nervous impulse, seeing that the nerve-impulse has a longer distance to travel. ”

“ This desultory mode of leaving poultry to find their food as best they may is, however, quite a mistake, and can never be adequately remunerative. Fowls, to pay, must be well looked after, and systematically fed and housed.
Ireland used to supply England with a considerable number of eggs, and perhaps may continue so to do; but statistical details of the trade between the two portions of the United Kingdom are not now published. About thirty years ago, fifty million eggs were annually shipped from Dublin alone to London and Liverpool, value about a hundred and twenty thousand pounds ”

“ The eggs are brought over chiefly in steamers, and landed at Southampton, Folkestone, Arundel, Newhaven, and Shoreham.
The egg-culture in France is almost exclusively confined to small farmers, who carry it on in a vigorous and commercial spirit, chiefly in Burgundy, Normandy, and Picardy. Every village has its weekly market, to which farmers and their wives bring their produce, in preference to selling at the farmyard to itinerant dealers. ”