Various

“ This is to be done, in the first place, by making all intelligent young men (who are born with a fortune) familiar with the use of descriptive geometry, so that they may be able to employ their capital more profitably both for themselves and the nation, and also for those who have no other fortune than their education, so that their labour will bring them the greater reward. This art has two principal objects, the first to represent with exactness, from drawings which have only two dimensions, objects which have three, and which are susceptible of a strict definition ”

“ The custom of burning the dead had its foundation laid deep in nature: an anxious fondness to preserve the great and good, the dear friend and the near relative, was the sole motive that prevailed in the institution of this solemnity. "That seems to me," says Cicero, "to have been the most ancient kind of burial, which, according to Xenophon, was used by Cyrus. For the body is returned to the earth, and so placed as to be covered with the veil of its mother." Pliny also agrees with Cicero upon this point, and says the custom of burial preceded [pg 186] that of burning among the Romans. ”

“ It is not only fit to exercise the intellectual faculties of a great people, and to contribute thereby to the perfection of mankind, but it is also indispensable to all workmen, whose end is to give to certain bodies determined forms, and it is principally owing to the methods of this art having been too little extended, or in fact almost entirely neglected, that the progress of our industry has been so slow. ”

“ It is a singular circumstance that Italia, or, as it is called in English, Italy, has, under all the changes and revolutions to which it has been subjected, always preserved its name. Every other country in Europe is now known to its inhabitants by other names than were given to it by their ancestors in the time of the Romans; but Italia continues to be the name of the country at the present day, and we have no authentic records by which we can ascertain that it ever bore any other. ”

“ It is no less advantageous to extend the knowledge of those phenomena of nature which may be turned to the profit of the arts. The charm which accompanies them will overcome the repugnance that men [pg 179] have in general for manual operations, (which most regard as painful and laborious,) as it will make them find pleasure in the exercise of their intellect; thus there ought to be in the formal school a course of descriptive geometry. ”

“ If you see half-a-dozen faults in a woman, you may rest assured she has a hundred virtues to counterbalance them. I love your faulty, and fear your faultless women. When you see what is termed a faultless woman, dread her as you would a beautiful snake. The power of completely concealing the defects that she must have, is of itself a serious vice. ”

“ But such could not have been the origin of the form which addressed itself to the view of Lord Londonderry. Fear is a quality that was never known to mingle in the character of a Stewart. Lord Londonderry examined his chamber—he made himself acquainted with the forms and faces of the ancient possessors of the mansion, who sat up right in their ebony frames to receive his salutation; and then, after dismissing his valet, he retired to bed. His candles had not been long extinguished, when he perceived a light gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopy over his head. ”

“ Fear is acknowledged to be a most mighty master over the visions of the imagination. It can "call spirits from the vasty deep"—and they do come, when it does call for them. It trembles at the anticipation of approaching evil, and then encounters in every passing shadow the substance of the dream it trembled at. ”

“ As yet we have no well compiled elementary work on that art, because till this time learned men have taken too little interest in it, or it has only been practised in an obscure manner by persons whose education had not been sufficiently extended, and were unable to communicate the result of their lucubrations. A course simply oral would be absolutely without effect. It is necessary then, for the course of descriptive geometry, that practice and execution be joined to the hearing of methods; thus pupils will be exercised in graphic construction of descriptive geometry. ”

“ As beggars, the whole world will not produce their match. They do not attempt to coax you, but firmly rely on incessant importunity; following you, side by side, from street to street, as constant as your shadow, pealing in your ears the never ceasing sound of "Massa, gim me a dum! massa, gim me a dum!" ”

“ Lastly, it is requisite to extend among our artists the knowledge of the advancement of the arts and that of machines, whose object is either to diminish manual labour or to give to the result of labour more uniformity and precision; and on those heads it must be confessed we have much to draw from foreign nations.1 All these views can only be accomplished by giving a new turn to national education. ”

“ For our artists to become, from their youth, familiar with geometry, and to be in a condition to attain it, it is necessary in the second place to render popular the knowledge of a great number of natural phenomena that are indispensable to the progress of industry ”

“ The second object of descriptive geometry, is to deduce from the exact description of bodies all that necessarily follows of their forms and their respective positions; in this sense it is a means of seeking truth, as it offers perpetual examples of the passage from what is known to what is unknown, and as it is always applied to objects susceptible of the minutest evidence, it is necessary that it should form part of the plan of a national education. ”

“ The graphic arts have general methods with which we can only become familiar by the use of the rule and compass. Among the different applications that may be made of descriptive geometry, there are two which are remarkable, both for their universality and their ingenuity ”

“ He makes sure of your understanding by an emphasis, which reminds one of the loudness of tone used towards a person supposed to be hard of hearing—a proceeding not very flattering where there happens to be neither dulness nor deafness in the case. In a word, the measured pedantry of his whole deportment betrays the happy conviction in which he rejoices of being conversant with matters little dreamt of in your philosophy. ”

“ To draw the French nation from the dependence, which, even in the present day it is obliged to place in foreign industry, it is necessary first to direct the national education towards the knowledge of those objects which require a correctness which hitherto has been totally neglected ”

“ Gaspard Monge, whose remains are deposited in the burying ground in Pere la Chaise, at Paris, in a magnificent mausoleum, was professor of geometry in the Polytechnique School at Paris, and with Denon accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his memorable expedition to Egypt; one to make drawings of the architectural antiquities and sculpture, and the other the geographical delineations of that ancient country. He returned to Paris, where he assisted Denon in the publication of his antiquities. ”

“ Never in my life have I seen a more perfect form. Her dress consisted of a short white tunic, almost transparent, fastened only at the throat by a clasp. A veil, negligently thrown over one shoulder, permitted part of her beautiful ebony tresses to be seen. Her trousers were of an extremely fine tissue, and her socks of the most delicate workmanship. The old man received us in a room adjoining the staircase: he was seated on the carpet, smoking a small pipe, according to the custom of the inhabitants of the Caucasus, who cultivate tobacco. ”

“ Our blessed Saviour chose the garden sometime for his oratory, and, dying, for the place of his sepulture; and we also do avouch, for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit to bury our dead in than in our gardens and groves where our beds may he decked with verdant and fragrant flowers. ”

“ If you have the fortitude to resist firmly, on two or three assaults, you may enjoy ever after a life of immunity; but by once complying, you entail yourself a plague which you will not readily throw off, every gift only serving to embolden them in making subsequent demands, and with still greater perseverance. ”

“ The Romans commonly built tombs for themselves during their lifetime. Hence these words frequently occur in ancient inscriptions, V.F. Vivus Facit, V.S.P. Vivus Sibi Posuit. The tombs of the rich were usually constructed of marble, the ground enclosed with walls, and planted round with trees. But common sepulchres were usually built below ground, and called hypogea. There were niches cut out of the walls, in which the urns were placed: these, from their resemblance to the niche of a pigeon-house, were called columbaria. ”

“ Hanging is a punishment that seldom, if ever, takes place.
The manner in which slighter punishments are made is peculiar to the Burmans, and, as nearly as I can make it out, according to our pronunciation, is called "toung." The delinquent is obliged to kneel down, and a man stands over him with a bent elbow and clenched fist. He first rapidly strikes him on the head with his elbow, and then slides it down until his knuckles repeat the blow, the elbow at the same time giving a violent smack on the shoulders. ”

“ The Romans prohibited burning or burying in the city, both from a sacred and civil consideration, that the priests might not be contaminated by touching a dead body, and that houses might not be endangered by the frequency of funeral fires. ”

“ There are a set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder characters to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he has years to know the value of it.—Sheridan. ”

“ The unrelenting hand of death (says his biographer) set a period to his labours, and deprived the world of further benefit from his talents, when he had only attained an age at which most other men are but beginning to be useful. ”

“ They mark all you do, and most of them are more wise than you may imagine.
Men of genius make the most ductile husbands. A fool has too much opinion of his own dear self, and too little of women's to be easily governed. ”

“ A beautiful illustration of an ancient Grecian sepulchre or funeral chamber, heads the second chapter of Mr. Britton's "Union of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting," from which work we have copied the annexed engraved view. The interior of the chamber exhibits a skeleton and the urns containing the ashes of the dead. The combat leads us to the conclusion, that the tomb contains the remains of a chief; for it was the barbarous custom of the Greeks to sacrifice captives at the tombs of their heroes. ”

“ The eye is never to be mistaken. A person may discipline the muscles of the face and voice, but there is a something in the eye beyond the will, and we thus frequently find it giving the tongue the lie direct. ”

“ FINE ARTS. THE CARTOONS OF RAPHAEL.
These Cartoons were executed by the famous Raphael, while engaged in the chambers of the Vatican, under the auspices of Pope Julius II. and Leo X. As soon as they were finished, they were sent to Flanders to be copied in tapestry, for adorning the pontifical apartments; but the tapestries were not conveyed to Rome till after the decease of Raphael, and probably not before the dreadful sack of that city in 1527, under the pontificate of Clement VII ”

“ The master of the mansion, perhaps an old and valued schoolfellow:—his wife, a well-bred, accomplished, and still beautiful woman—cordial, without vulgarity—refined, without pretension—and informed, without a shade of blue! Their children!... But my reader will complete the picture, and imagine, better than I can describe, how one of my temperament must suffer at quitting such a scene. At six o'clock on the dreaded morning, the friendly old butler knocks at my room-door, to warn me that the [pg 187] mail will pass in half an hour at the end of the green lane. ”

“ At his decease the pupils of the Polytechnique School erected this mausoleum to his memory, as a testimony of their esteem, after a design made by his friend, Monsieur Denon. The mausoleum is of Egyptian architecture, with which Denon had become familiarly acquainted.
There is a bust of Monge placed on a terminal pedestal underneath a canopy in the upper compartment, which canopy is open in front and in the back. In the crown cavetto of the cornice is an Egyptian winged globe, entwined with serpents, emblematical of time and eternity ”

“ They induce a mood of last wills and testaments—a sense of dislocation, which, next to a vacuum, Nature abhors—and create a species of moral decomposition, not unlike that effected on matter by chemical agency. ”

“ Upon Wednesday last (being the 20th of this instant, June 1649) , Richard Brandon, the late executioner and hangman, who beheaded his late majesty, king of Great Britain, departed this life; but during the time of his sicknesse his conscience was much troubled, and exceedingly perplexed in mind, yet little shew of repentance for remission of his sins, and by past transgressions, which had so much power and influence upon him, that he seemed to live in them, and they in him. ”

“ On arriving towards the end of the relay, he began to blow a bugle with all his might, surprising us with a number of flourishes. Mr. Koch informed me that we were going to cross a small river, and that the blast with which we had been regaled was a warning for the bargeman. Our vehicle then stopped before the door of an inn, which stood on an elevated spot, and the postilion, alighting, asked Mr. Koch's permission to enter the inn to drink a glass of brandy, whilst the bargeman answered his sign. ”