Charles Wheatstone

“ A semicircular arch from one one to two feet radius is fixed vertically on a horizontal wheel, and may thus be moved with any degree of rapidity from any one azimuth to another. A rider slides along the inner edge of the arch, which is graduated, and may be fixed at any degree marked thereon. ”

“ This observed independence of the plane of oscillation on the point of attachment led M. Foucault to assume, that were a flexible pendulum suspended from a fixed point in the prolongation of the axis of the Earth, that is above the plane of oscillation maintaining an invariable position in space would appear to a spectator on the earth's surface and moving with it to make an entire revolution in twentyfour hours, but in the opposite direction to that of the rotation of the Earth.
What takes place at other points of the earth's surface is more difficult to determine ”

“ Gladstone, this man has per-, haps the most attached personal following of any politician in England. This unique position he has won by his daring, by his intellect, by his Titanic energy, and by his general thoroughness of character. If he is not a real hero, he is a surprisingly clever counterfeit. In his own way, and by his own example, he has inspired many thousands of the most abject of his countrymen with re-invigorated feelings of self-reliance and renewed hope on earth. He has taught them the inestimable lesson of self-help, of righteous indignation against oppression. ”

“ So far as we can judge from the history of the human race and of the past, I am of opinion that, as long as history lasts, the name of Wheatstone will be associated with that of Watt and Stephenson as men who, in the era of Queen Victoria, were prominent in the introduction of those magnificent enterprises by which the whole world has been practically reduced to one-twentieth part of its former size. ”

“ I feel that in order to appreciate how great a man he has been we must look forward many years—I mean by that a very great many years—if we can take our stand in imagination a thousand years hence, the name of Wheatstone will still be well known and highly honoured. ”

“ Gladstone will talk with much charm about matters that he does not understand, or books that he is not really competent to criticize; but his conversation has no merit to those who are acquainted with the subjects on which he speaks. Men like Lord Rosslyn, [Footnote: Lord Rosslyn died in 1890.] Lord Houghton, Lord Granville (before his deafness) , had a pleasant wit and some cultivation, as had Bromley Davenport, Beresford Hope, and others, as well as Arthur Balfour, but none of these men were or are at a high level; and where you get the high level in England, you fall into priggism. ”

“ It was only recently that any of his neighbors, barring Judge Leslie and Tom Colton, who shared his secret, had definitely proposed a political career to him, in other words divined his abilities and ambitions. But Mr. Wheaton had once been young and adventurous himself, and much if not all of his success in life was due to his shrewd divination of human nature. No man could drive a harder bargain than "Wash" Wheaton (he was named for the father of his country) , but he had never been wanting in a vein of humorous sympathy, nor in a fair capacity for friendship as well as enmity. ”

“ He was appointed select preacher at Oxford in 1868, and the next year accepted the post of chaplain to Moberly, when he became bishop of Salisbury, preaching the consecration sermon. He was select preacher at Oxford for the second time in 1876-8 and again in 1881-2. In politics Church, though he describes himself as 'conservative in spirit,' was long a follower of Gladstone. For Gladstone's character and talents he had great admiration, though not without a clear perception of his weak points, and Gladstone's adoption of home rule in 1886 ultimately alienated Church's political sympathies. ”

“ Gladstone were united by a common conservatism:
'The ridiculous question of the Duke of Wellington's statue had come up again at the Cabinet of August 9th, and the numbers were taken three times over by Mr. Gladstone, who was in favour of the old statue and against all removals, in which view I steadily supported him, the Cabinet being against us, and Mr. Gladstone constantly trying to get his own way against the majority. ”

“ Wheaton is not a member of the church; and, to tell the truth, his reputation for success is greater than his reputation for integrity. But he is president of the Koniwasset branch railroad, and a leading director of the Koniwasset coal mines, and a large operator in stocks, and lives in one of the finest houses in Wheathedge, and keeps the handsomest carriage, and hires the most expensive pew, and it was considered quite a card, I believe, to get him to take the presidency of the Board of Trustees. ”

“ Wheaton, who had had as little to do with politics as possible, was a bit of a dreamer, there was no question that his dreams were shared by more practical men at the present moment than for many years past ”

“ Such a good influence for Mr. Whetstone! So fortunate! He was now known to be a strictly well behaved young man; what a pity nobody had a daughter old enough for him! Marriage was just what he needed, and he would make such a good husband! His hair grew so nicely over his ears, and had you ever noticed his eyelashes? Would it do to ask Mrs. Frankish or Verbena if they really were shooting quail? Or could it be something about the stage? Had the patrol really been drawn from the road? ”

“ Wheatley, who has just left me, is certainly a very amusing man. I cannot tell much about his principles; and he seems to vent his scoffs and jests at everything. But he has a good deal of originality of thought, no bad conceit of himself, and some very strong and fixed opinions, springing rather, I suspect, from the suggestions of his own mind than from anything which has been instilled into him by others. He always seems to set out from the beginning of things ”

“ Houghton said to me as we sat in the library at Fryston. I could hardly believe my own ears, and expressed my surprise at hearing such a sentiment from the lips of one of Mr. Gladstone's greatest admirers. "Don't you see," responded Houghton, "that if he dies now he will be one of the greatest figures in English history? He has just won the greatest triumph a statesman ever enjoyed. It is impossible that he can remain at this dazzling height. Now is the time for him to die." ”

“ War, moreover, would only be waged against Spain, and Weston's pro-Spanish proclivities were as marked as his devotion to peace. The same desire to avoid or postpone difficulties—‘quieta non movere’—actuated Weston's domestic policy. It was on his introduction that Wentworth was taken into favour and made a peer, and it was he who dissuaded Charles from erecting a monument to Buckingham, partly from fear of popular resentment and partly because he had no money to spare. ”

“ Kimberley and Northbrook had come over to Mr. Gladstone's side, and the other view was chiefly represented by Lord Spencer and Lord Selborne; and I could not help feeling that if, as I expected, the split with Whiggery had to come, it had better be this split, so that we should have the great names of Gladstone and Bright upon our side. One could not help feeling that we had no men to officer our ranks, and that really, besides Mr. Gladstone, who was an old man, there was only Chamberlain.... ”

“ No English statesman has been more fervently adored or more intensely hated than Gladstone. While his political admirers were extolling him to sympathetic crowds as equal or superior to the most illustrious of the human race, he was being accused in anonymous letters of the foulest crimes. Even his religion was set down in some quarters as the basest hypocrisy. But his personal enemies, as distinguished from his political opponents, were men who did not know him. ”

“ I quite concur with him that, though a strong case can be made against the Government for their deliberate status quo policy during the months of June, July, and August, there is little fault to find with what they have been doing since Derby has taken the matter into his own hands in September. There is a decided reaction against Gladstone's agitation. The Brooksite Whigs are furious with him, and so are the commercial gents and the Norwood-Samuda [Footnote: Leading shipowners and Members of Parliament.] lot, whose pecuniary interests are seriously compromised. ”

“ Gladstone, I thought, had moral force, because he believed in the particular thing of which he was speaking at the particular moment at which he spoke. I somewhat differed from the others with regard to Bright, thinking that he was seldom really in earnest, although I admitted that no man gave more strongly the impression of earnestness to his hearers, and therefore no man had "moral force" in a higher degree.... ”

“ Gladstone, on the Treasury Bench, is constantly in a state of irrepressible energy. He converses eagerly with the colleague sitting on his right or left, driving home with emphatic gestures his arguments or assertions. In quieter mood he makes a running commentary on the speech that is going forward, his observations, I have been told, being refreshingly pungent and often droll. His deep, rich voice carries far. Occasionally it crosses the table, and the right honourable gentleman on his legs at the moment is embarrassed or encouraged by what he cannot help overhearing. ”

“ A critic, even a friendly critic, might say of Gladstone that he tried to do too many things at a time. From 1886 to 1894 home rule absorbed him, and he considered almost every subject as it affected that great issue. But at other times, even when he was prime minister, he occupied his scanty leisure with art, with theological speculations, with literature, with historical research, and with practical philanthropy. In his zeal to reclaim the fallen and to console the wretched he did what no man of the world would have dared to do without fear of misconstruction, or even of scandal. ”

“ Across the water we miss some who did as much as any men in their generation to make the name of England great—Faraday and Wheatstone, Stephenson and Brunel—all of whom gave us freely of their invaluable counsel, refusing all compensation, because of the interest which they felt in the solution of a great problem of science and engineering skill. ”

“ There is no suggestion in the correspondence of the ferment which was working in Midlothian. Mr. Gladstone was apart from both Whigs and Radicals in these days.
So closed the last years of Sir Charles's second Parliament. He had played in it a commanding part in debate upon matters of war and of foreign policy without abating his activity in domestic politics, such as the franchise, or flogging in the army, which he helped finally to abolish. No man could well seem to have fewer enemies or more friends. ”

“ The mind of William Whewell, by natural, impetuous action, invades all territories of knowledge, and grasps at a dominion forbidden by the term allotted to human life: but that mind, clearly and beyond all doubt, has power to grapple and to deal effectually with all that it has time to apprehend and seize. It is not to be wondered, that the temper of so ardent a spirit should be hasty: that its nature is frank, generous, and noble. ”

“ To the great Prime Minister’s absolute fearlessness he did full justice, as one of the finest features in his character; and loved to quote an epigram by Lord Houghton, to whom Gladstone had complained in a moment of weariness that he led the life of a dog. “Yes,” said Houghton, “but of a St. Bernard dog, ever busied in saving life.” He loved to contrast the twofold biographical paradox in the careers of the two famous rivals, Gladstone and Disraeli; the dreaming Tory mystic, incarnation p. 146of Oxford exclusiveness and Puseyite reserve, passing into the Radical iconoclast ”

“ Once again Gladstone was seated on the summit of power, and with every prospect of a long-continued reign. Although an old man, his vigor of mind and body had not abated. He was never stronger, apparently, than when he was past seventy years of age. At no previous period of his life was his fame so extended or his moral influence so great. Certainly no man in England was more revered than he or more richly deserved his honors. ”

“ Huxley once wrote this terse sentence of Gladstone: "It is to me a serious thing that the destinies of this great country should at present be to a great extent in the hands of a man who, whatever he may be in the affairs of which I am no judge, is nothing but a copious shuffler in those that I do understand." Gladstone crossed swords with Huxley, Spencer and Robert Ingersoll, and in each case his blundering intellect looked like a raft of logs compared with a steamboat that responds to the helm. ”

“ Gladstone is grave, sober, earnest, proud, passionate, and at times romantic to a rare degree. He rebukes, refutes, contradicts, defies, and has a magnificent capacity for indignation. He will roar you like a lion, his eyes will flash, and his clenched fist will shake as he denounces that which he believes to be error. ”

“ Gladstone humbly placed his firm reliance, begging that He will remember to His great servant how ardently he loved his fellow men, without distinction of race, while he lived among them, and how mightily he labored for their good. ”

“ Gladstone, the remainder, who included a majority of the Irish, having announced their intention of walking out, or having refused to take sides.... With Lord Hartington and against Mr. Gladstone were, of course, nearly all the Front Bench, even those who at first promised to support Mr. Gladstone having seen fit to change under pressure. One curious fact about my list is the large number of persons at first marked with a single line, as having promised Mr. Gladstone, and afterwards altered to crosses as having yielded under Front-Bench pressure. The Basses were with Lord Hartington ”