Various

“ Every well-to-do inhabitant, irrespective of cuticular peculiarities, was duly bidden to the governor’s table: ebony and ivory mingled freely together once in a moon at the governor’s At Homes and dances. And Dr Whitaker had made up his mind that on that one solitary possible occasion he would venture on his sole despairing appeal to Nora Dupuy, and stand or fall by her final answer. ”

“ There was just one dance still left vacant—the next waltz. ‘I’m too tired to dance it out,’ Nora cried pettishly. ‘The horrid man! I hope he won’t see me.’
‘He’s coming this way, dear,’ Mrs Pereira put in with placid composure. ‘You’ll have to sit it out with him, now; there’s no help for it.’
‘Sit it out with him!—sit it out with Tom Dupuy! O no, Mrs Pereira; I wouldn’t do it for a thousand guineas.’
‘What will you do, then?’ Dr Whitaker asked tremulously, still holding the programme and pencil in his undecided hand. Dare he—dare he ask her to dance just once with him? ”

“ The governor’s dance was the great event of the Trinidad season—the occasion to which every girl in the whole island looked forward for months with the intensest interest. And it was also a great event to Dr Whitaker; for it was the one time and place, except the Hawthorns’ drawing-room, where he could now meet Nora Dupuy on momentary terms of seeming equality. In the eye of the law, even in Trinidad, white men, black men, and brown men are all equal ”

“ Without the accustomed occupation, the day is a blank; he must still journey to the office, still add sovereign to sovereign, and take what comfort is possible from the reflection that another may perhaps spend them, and that they may serve to keep in ease and idleness one who never worked for them—a poor and second-hand solace, indeed, for no man yet ever started life with the intention of acquiring wealth for the sole benefit of his successor. ”

“ The artist who labours to create forms, hues, and ideas of beauty; the author who enriches the world with fresh treasures of thought; the physician whose aim and whose reward is to relieve suffering; the carpenter to whom his craft is a pride and a triumph; the labourer in the field who loves the soil he tills, and delights to watch from season to season the checkered success of his operations: these, and such as these, are the truly fortunate men, into whose annual money-winnings we have no need to inquire before pronouncing them happy. ”

“ It is doubtful whether a man who, by a stroke or two of the pen, can flutter the innocent dovecots of the Exchange, is, by virtue of that power, any happier than the humble farmer whose year’s income may be straitened by one night’s rain. Far in advance of wealth, in estimating what meed of fortune has fallen to any man’s lot, should be placed health, upon the state of which our welfare so largely depends, and the preservation of which is so nearly contingent upon the method of life we adopt. Riches without health do not bring with them the capacity for their enjoyment ”

“ The fog detained the ship for another twenty-four hours; and when the vessel arrived in London, the strain on the smuggler’s system had been so enormous that he was completely exhausted; his courage oozed out with his strength; and at last he gave himself up to the Customs’ officials, who had had a watchful eye on his suspiciously distressed-looking features.
Since the so-called ‘good old days’ of the novelist, smuggling has lost much of its attractiveness. ”

“ What Darwin’s hypothesis suggested was, not that man was descended from the monkey, but that both man and the monkey may be descendants of a common progenitor, a common type, now extinct, and of which no indisputable traces have yet been found. From this common type, or ground-form, so to speak, the process of development may, according to Darwin, have resulted in two distinct branches or offshoots—the one branch of development ending in the monkey tribe, the other branch ending in man. ”

“ He put a question to Jean in French, and the latter answered him volubly in the same language.
‘Jean is right, monsieur,’ said the cafetier to me in his broken English, which I had some difficulty in comprehending, and with an air of polite deprecation. ‘We do not let out beds to strangers. The lamp shall be altered to-morrow. I am sorry—truly sorry, monsieur.’
‘So am I sorry,’ I answered stoutly. ‘I am an utter stranger in London, never having set foot in it till three hours ago, and I know no more where I am than the man in the moon. Besides, think of the fog! ”

“ Let us but once recognise that it is necessary and right that any piece of work should be done, and that it has fallen to our lot to do it, and a genuine pleasure may be derived from its thorough performance. ‘The manly part,’ says Emerson, ‘is to do with might and main what you can do.’ Indifference as to the excellence of the work turned out, hurried or perfunctory or slovenly execution, will result in lethargy and self-dissatisfaction; while a right pride in a piece of good work well done will leave the nerves braced and not relaxed, and the faculties developed instead of diminished. ”

“ People who use coal, gas, water, or any of the necessities of existence do not, as a rule, view with very great disfavour the people whom they pay to supply these commodities. Why they should dislike those whose business it is to collect the funds which provide government with the wherewithal to insure protection for life, property, and trade, is an anomaly which it is difficult to comprehend. In olden days, the bold and daring smuggler was the darling of the coast, and the officers who endeavoured to prevent his depredations the most disliked of all government officials. ”

“ Professor Hartmann observes that Huxley’s statement, that the lowest apes are further removed from the highest apes than the latter are from men, is, according to his experience, still perfectly valid. ‘It cannot be denied that the highest order of the animal world is closely connected with the highest created being.’ But it does not follow therefrom that man is descended from apes, or is simply an improved kind of ape. There is, we fear, still prevailing among large sections of intelligent persons the belief that Darwin’s theory was intended to prove that the monkey was the progenitor of man. ”

“ From what we have written, it would appear that though smuggling on an extensive scale belongs more to past than to present days, yet the same spirit still exists among people, otherwise honest enough, whose education and social position ought to free them from thieving propensities. It is almost against human nature to expect that revenue frauds will ever be thoroughly eradicated while the present high duties on special commodities are maintained. ”

“ Ivory of the best quality comes from the west coast of Africa, under the names of Cameroon, Angola, and Gaboon ivory. This is brought down from the interior, and retains a larger proportion of the ‘fat’ or gelatine, from the fact, probably, that it is more recently from the animal. In this state it is called ‘green’ ivory. It is more translucent, and not so white as the Egyptian and other kinds, called ‘white’ ivory, that have been lying a longer time and in a more sandy region, and exposed to the heat of the sun until the animal matter has disappeared. ”

“ Still, notwithstanding his seeming indifference to everything that was going on around him, an impression somehow got possession of me that not a man entered or left the place without being keenly scrutinised from behind those gold-rimmed spectacles, while more than once I had an uneasy consciousness that I was the object who was being photographed by that coldly penetrative gaze. ”

“ Fortunate, again, beyond the power of mishap to depress, is the man who is endowed with such elasticity of spirit that he can shake off the anxieties and wearinesses of the mind in the mere delight of existence ”

“ Man-like, or in scientific parlance, Anthropoid Apes, are distinguished from others of the monkey tribe on account of their greater size and their greater resemblance to the human species. Within the last quarter of a century, they have, owing to the growing prominence of the doctrine of evolution, been raised to a much higher place than before as subjects of study for the naturalist, the scientist, the philosopher. ”

“ The large proportion of very small tusks which are now brought to market annually is a sure indication of the increasing number of elephants that die young. To show to what size these tusks might attain, the American consul states that there was in a Sheffield showroom an African elephant’s tusk nine feet long, twenty-one inches in girth, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. The value of the tusk was one hundred and thirty pounds, and it is said that an animal large enough and strong enough to carry such a pair would attract far more attention than Jumbo did. ”

“ Even where the choice presented to us is so narrow as seemingly to preclude all chance of satisfying our aspirations, there is but little work in the world which we cannot ennoble by our method of performing it and by the spirit in which we undertake it. ”

“ They differ from each other and among themselves in external form according to the age and sex, the difference between the sexes being most strongly marked in the gorilla, and least apparent in the gibbon. ‘When a young male gorilla is compared with an aged animal of the same species, we are almost tempted to believe that we have to do with two entirely different creatures.’ Into the distinguishing physiological peculiarities of the external form of these creatures, we cannot of course enter here, and must refer to the full and elaborate investigations placed on record by Professor Hartmann. ”

“ Yet, though petty smuggling is, in the main, the special offence with which Customs’ officers have now to deal, wholesale smuggling has not yet become a thing of the past. In 1881, a daring attempt to defraud the revenue took place in London. The writer happened to be stationed there at the time, and can well remember the excitement caused in official circles by the discovery, and can recollect the crowds of officers who used daily to visit the quayage front of the Custom House, where lay a pair of marine boilers in which five tons of tobacco had been conveyed to this country from Rotterdam. ”

“ There is just now great anxiety as to the future supply of ivory. The stocks in public warehouses are{288} smaller than for many years past, and the rapid increase in prices is causing great anxiety to manufacturers. At a recent sale at Liverpool, the best African ivory sold by the ton at over twelve shillings and sixpence per pound. This will explain the fact that the principal factor in the value of the best table cutlery is the handle. When the ivory comes into the hands of the cutler, much skill is required to make the most of the precious material, and every scrap is turned to account. ”

“ The proper image of such a man, wearing out his days in the dull monotonous round of business, is the ass in the great hollow wheel of the water-well in Carisbrooke Castle, which walks for ever up-hill, but which never advances, and never rises, and the end of whose labour is to draw water that others may drink it. ”

“ Leisure has become a weariness to him; the pursuits for which he once coveted it have lost their attraction for him; the studies he once desired opportunities to follow up, have lost their interest; he has no longer the robust health and bodily strength demanded for the sports and pastimes which once seemed to him to make life worth living. ”

“ They are skilful climbers, and when ranging from tree to tree, will go to their very tops. The gorilla is regarded as a dreadful and very dangerous animal by the negroes who inhabit the same country; though Professor Hartmann considers that Du Chaillu’s descriptions are greatly exaggerated ‘for the benefit of his readers.’ When the animal is scared by man, he generally takes to flight screaming, and he only assumes the defensive if wounded or driven into a corner. ”

“ The ideal life which presents us with the spectacle of the Master washing the feet of his disciples and kneading the common clay of the ground, teaches us how to invest with dignity the meanest labour of our hands. ”

“ It is, in the absence of any certain traces of the extinct common type or progenitor, not a subject on which to dogmatise, but is a theory or hypothesis which, in the opinion of Darwin and many other scientists after him, best accounts for the morphological development of man viewed merely from the physical side.
Professor Hartmann admits that his investigations have not brought the problem any nearer to a solution. A baby gorilla is much nearer in physical constitution to a human baby, than the full-grown gorilla is to the mature man ”

“ But he who has been fortunate enough to find work for his hands to do which will bring him food and shelter, and in which at the same time his soul can rejoice, will lay aside his task with a spirit fresh for a new study, a new enterprise, or with a zest for innocent and healthy enjoyment. ”

“ And, once more, a measure of this good fortune is within the reach of most of us. The temper that broods over trouble, that cries over spilt milk, and forebodes unrealised ills, is one easy indeed to yield to, but one which can be put to rout with a little fortitude and resolve ”

“ After cutting out the scales of all sizes for pocket-knives, and the solid handles for table cutlery, the small pieces are usually sold to the button-makers, or maybe made into ‘pearls.’ These latter are the small pieces of ivory, pearl, or horn inserted into the handles of tea and coffee pots as non-conductors of heat, and are so called because they were originally made of pearl. The fine sawdust is sold for fertilising purposes, for the manufacture of gelatine, and for making a fine white sizing used in the manufacture of lace curtains and other fabrics. ”