Edward Wilson

“ Some of the most prominent men of Topeka Were associated with him on the board of education, including P. I. Bonebrake and Edward Wilder. It is noteworthy that while a stanch republican Mr. Wilson has never been a politician, and his public services have been rendered without any expectation of material reward. ”

“ Wilson was a kind man and would not harm a living thing. So he pointed the gun away from the bird and fired. The loud report not only frightened the bird, but startled little Edward also, which made his cousins laugh heartily. The children all thought they had rather lose the apples than such a pretty bird, and were not quite satisfied with Mr. ”

“ WILSON, WILLIAM EDWARD (1851–1908) , astronomer and physicist, born at Belfast on 19 July 1851, was only son of John Wilson, of Daramona, Streete, co. Westmeath, by his wife Frances Patience, daughter of the Rev. Edward Nangle. He was educated privately, and showed great interest in astronomy while still a boy. In 1870 he joined the British party under Huggins which went to Oran in Algeria to observe the total eclipse of the sun in that year, and on his return he set up a private observatory on his father's estate at Daramona, equipped with a twelve-inch refractor by Grubb. ”

“ Mr. Wilson was brother of Sir Archdale Wilson, Bart., of Delhi, and first cousin to Henry Wilson, Lord Berners, at whose decease the barony, one of the oldest in England, passed, through an heiress, into another name. The family was descended from Bourchier, Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, and through him from Bourchier, the Earl of Essex and his wife, a granddaughter of Edward III.
NOVEMBER.
6.—Died at Lynn, Mr. F. Reynolds, formerly of Newton next Castleacre, at an advanced age, and in very reduced circumstances. ”

“ Edward thought they were; so they set off, shouting and racing through the fields, while Mr. Wilson followed leisurely in the road.
They found it rather hard work to climb the hill, which was very steep, but when they got to the top, they were well paid for all their trouble. They could see many pretty towns, with the beautiful river gliding along through them, and many high hills, like the one they were on, far away in the distance. Mr. ”

“ How grateful do we feel to Nature for bestowing such charms upon the wild desert! cheering our spirits with a sense of the beautiful, that else would droop and despond as we journeyed through the lone and dreary waste. ”

“ The sun had disappeared, and darkness, closing around us, drew nigher and more nigh every moment, swallowing up object after object in its stealthy advance, and seeming about to overwhelm us in its mysterious obscurity. ”

“ In his few moments of relaxation, when those whom he loves—for whom he is toiling unto death—hang around him with gentle fondness; in those sweet moments, when love unutterable beams through the glistening eye, and tender solicitude watches the care-worn face, seeking to win one happy smile—even then, he dare not give himself up to joy. ”

“ Every object was lighted up by the cheerful blaze—the cart with its packages in or about it, the sleepers in their blue or red woollen shirts, under the sloping roof, their guns leaning against the uprights, their shot-belts and pouches hanging in front—the kangaroo-dogs lying round the fire, and as near to it as possible—the surrounding trees and shrubs glittering with a silvery light, their evergreen foliage rustling at the breath of the soft land-breeze—altogether formed a striking and peculiar scene. ”

“ A magnificent comet extended itself over an entire fifth of the firmament. Its tail reached to the belt of Orion, whilst its nucleus, a ball of fire resembling a star of the fourth magnitude, was scarcely a degree above the horizon. It looked like a fiery messenger rushing headlong down from the very presence of GOD, bound with dread tidings for some distant world. Beautiful, yet terrible messenger, it seemed to leave its long, fiery trace behind it in its passage through the heavens. The soul of the spectator was filled with the sense of its beauty, whilst admiration was sublimed into awe. ”

“ The heavens became black with angry clouds; the wind first sighed and moaned like a reluctant Spirit driven forth to fulfil its task of evil, feeling something of remorse at crimes foreshadowed and inevitable; and then working itself into fury, as though it would stifle thought, and crush out the germ of pity, the Wind in its might and rage rushed roaring over the waters, making the foam fly before it, and tearing up the face of the estuary into rugged lines of wild tumultuous waves. ”

“ Amidst his severest adversities he frequently sent remittances to his mother, in Scotland, his father having died and left her poor. To the day of her death he manifested an earnest and commendable solicitude for her comfort, and used every means within his power to alleviate her wants and smooth her downward path to the tomb.
With the commencement of British oppression the political career of Mr. Wilson began. He freely spoke and ably wrote in favour of equal rights and liberal principles. He was an early, zealous, and able advocate of the American cause. ”

“ Wilson’s parents were religious people, and held a prominent position in the church. His mother died at an early age from the excessive hardships she had to endure in the vicinity of Montreal, as a pioneer settler. His father, as a youth, received no training as an artisan, yet having a natural talent for using tools, he adopted the trade of carpenter, and in a very few years thereafter became an expert mechanic. He designed and made the first railway snow-plough used in Canada, and from his model the plough now used is still made. ”

“ A livelier party never surrounded a breakfast table, from the mother to the youngest of Mrs. Wilson’s children, the light-hearted Charles, a sprightly, intelligent boy of thirteen. Her eldest, a son, a member of the University, had returned to his home to spend the winter vacation. Herbert Wilson was a noble specimen of the youth of New England, active and enterprising, uniting to a fine constitution, habits of industry and order, and already ranking high among the talented sons of his native State. Elizabeth, the daughter, was the counterpart, in disposition, of her cousin Mary ”

“ Although wholly absorbed in his public duties while in Washington, when he is at his home in Charlestown, West Virginia, he is a merry, rollicking boy among his four sons, provided they are at home with him. He is the happy father also of two daughters, and the family is an ideal one. Both he and his accomplished wife are Baptists, and when the new of his nomination to Congress reached him, they were at a prayer meeting. It was a case of the office seeking the man, and Professor Wilson has never in any sense of the word been a wire-puller. ”

“ The thing to get at is what the man Edgar Wilson felt.
He felt, I fancy, that in the field of poetry he had something to express that could never be expressed until he had found a woman who could, in a peculiar and absolute way, give herself in the world of the flesh—and that then there was to be a marriage out of which beauty would come for all people. He had to find the woman who had that power, and the power had to be untainted by self-interest, I fancy. A profound egotist, you see—and he thought he had found what he needed in the wife of the Kansas druggist. ”

“ The guidwife of Cairnkibbie herself was violently laid hold of round the neck and saluted with a loud smack, which, sounding in the ears of the guidman, produced a hearty laugh at the boldness, which was excused by the reckless jollity of the extraordinary gaberlunzie. Nor did he yet allow them to flag.
"Keep at it, Will!" he cried to the young man. "Ye'll hae aneuch o' Lilly for ae nicht, or my name's no Wat Wilson. Aneuch o' 'King William's Note,' Tam. Come awa wi' anither—'In Simmer I mawed my meadow,' wi' double quick time. ”

“ Such an outlook, but from a lower altitude, delighted daily the eyes of Nature-loving Wilson, whose very prose was poetry, of a calibre not less than Kingsley's in his celebrated 'Devonshire Idylls,' or than Ruskin's rhapsodies on Switzerland. His ardent temperament and unusual virility compelled him to throw himself heartily into almost every possible form of physical and intellectual enjoyment. There never was such a man as he for undertaking everything and anything, and for doing nothing badly, including the art of 'loafing,' when he was in the cue for it. ”

“ George Wilson made his living by freighting—that is, carrying goods from place to place by waggons, as there was no rail by which to send things. Sometimes, when he took extra long journeys, he would have to leave his wife and boy for some weeks to keep each other company.
'Take care of your mother, Jack, my boy,' he would say, before starting. 'She has no man to look after her or do things for her but ye till I get home.' And right well did the little fellow obey orders. He was a most helpful boy for his age, and was devoted to his mother, who was far from strong. ”

“ We have left ourselves no space to speak of Dr. Wilson as an author, as an academic and popular lecturer, as a member of learned societies, as a man of exquisite literary powers and fancy, and as a citizen of remarkable public acceptation. This must come from some more careful, and fuller, and more leisurely record of his genius and worth. What he was as a friend it is not for us to say; we only know that when we leave this world we would desire no better memorial than to be remembered by many as George Wilson now is, and always will be. ”

“ At the age of sixteen Wilson was apprenticed to a hat manufacturer at Hawick, but he still pursued far into the night the practice of reading and study. After a short time his father purchased the business for him and an elder brother named William. The two young men prospered in their undertaking, and their native town proved too small for their energies. In 1824 they removed to London, and commenced business with a partner, the firm being known as Wilson, Irwin, & Wilson. ”

“ Then, too, the personality of a man who has the courage and originality to set forth into an untrodden field is generally picturesque and inspiring. All these claims to attention are possessed by the pioneer American ornithologist.
Alexander Wilson was born on the 6th of July, 1766, at Paisley, in Renfrewshire, which lies just south of the river Clyde. His father, Alexander Wilson, was a weaver, and reached the age of eighty-eight years, dying in 1816. ”

“ You don’t go off your head easily. I’ll rag him proper, now I’m here. Always knew the ass would make a silly marriage if he could. Yes, yes, I’ll break it up quick enough. I say I’ll break it up proper. Dancers and that sort. Dangerous. But I know their tricks.”
A summons to tea below interrupted him.
“Hungry, my word! Hardly dared eat in that dining-coach. Tinned stuff all about one. Appendicitis! American journal—some Colonel chap found it out. Hunting sort. Looked a fool beside his silly horse, but seemed to know. Took no chances. Said the tin-opener slays its thousands. ”

“ I looked round and saw Wilson himself, the colour of a sheet, trying to attract the boat's attention, and looking piteously at me, 'Here! Hi! give me a megaphone—some one!' I sung out. A dozen people fell over one another to get one, and I shouted through it, 'Lay on your oars,' and when my Sub's brother had made them stop, I sang out, 'Is that Gerald Wilson aboard?'
"IS THAT GERALD WILSON ABOARD?" ”

“ The leg would be blistered if I had him."
"I wouldn't give him corral room," said Cousin Egbert. "He's a bad actor. Look at his eye! Whoa! there—you would, would you!" Here he made a pretence that the beast had seized him by the shoulder. "He's a man-eater! What did I tell you? Keep him away!"
"I'll take that out of him," said the Tuttle person. "I'll show him who's his master."
"You ain't never going to try to ride him, Jeff? Think of the wife and little ones!"
"You know me, Sour-dough. No horse never stepped out from under me yet. ”

“ There is a modesty in his character that keeps him back. He is about 36 years old.
Mr. Wilson ranks among the foremost in legal and political knowledge. He has joined to a fine genius all that can set him off and show him to advantage. He is well acquainted with Man, and understands all the passions that influence him. Government seems to have been his peculiar Study, all the political institutions of the World he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Greecian commonwealth down to the present time. ”

“ Bauld, slee, an' sweet, his lines mair glorious grew,
Glow'd round the heart, an' glanc'd the soul out through."
Alexander Wilson.
I had seen both the Indies and traversed the wide Pacific, ere I again set foot on the Eastern coast of Scotland. My uncle, the shipmaster, was dead, and I was still a common sailor; but I was light-hearted and skilful in my profession, and as much inclined to hope as ever. Besides, I had begun to doubt, and there cannot be a more consoling doubt when one is unfortunate, whether a man may not enjoy as much happiness in the lower walks of life as in the upper. ”

“ He graduated B.A. in 1583 from St. John's College, but migrated to Trinity Hall, whence he graduated M.A. in 1587. For fifteen years, according to his own account, he studied civil law at Cambridge. In 1594 he procured a letter from Burghley recommending his election as fellow of Trinity Hall. The recommendation was ineffectual, and Wilson betook himself to foreign travel.
In 1596, while sojourning in Italy and Germany, Wilson translated from the Spanish Gorge de Montemayor's ‘Diana,’ a romance, from which the story of ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ was partly drawn (Lee, Shakespeare, p. 53) ”