William Thomson

“ The fresh treatment of a simple theme, the warm poetical colouring of commonplace incidents, the freedom and irregularity of the plan, the boldness of the descriptions, the manly and sincere sentiment, the rough vigour of the verse, took by surprise a generation accustomed to witty satire and burlesque, refined diction, translations from the classics, themes valued in proportion to their remoteness from vulgar life. Thomson at once became famous, and, his naturally easy temper roused to full exertion, vigorously followed up his success with Summer and an Ode to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton. ”

“ Bounded and conditioned by cooperant Reason, imagination becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. Newton’s passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the imagination. When William Thomson tries to place the ultimate particles of matter between his compass points, and to apply to them a scale of millimetres, he is powerfully aided by this faculty. And in much that has been recently said about protoplasm and life, we have the outgoings of the imagination guided and controlled by the known analogies of science. ”

“ The circumstances of Sir William Thomson's election to the presidential chair of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the remarkably able address which he delivered in opening the late Edinburgh meeting, are of such recent occurrence that they need not be recapitulated.
Sir William Thomson married, in 1852, a daughter of the late Walter Crum, Esq., F.R.S., who has predeceased him. He is a Liberal in politics, and no one has taken a more active part than he in forwarding the interests of the Liberal candidates for the representation of the Universities. ”

“ At the Cambridge Senate House examinations speed is everything; and when two men are pretty evenly balanced the muscular power of the wrist settles the day. Thomson was Second Wrangler, and a little more time for writing would have made him Senior Wrangler. For the Smith's Prize he of course distanced the Senior Wrangler and all other competitors. The worthy Johnian, who supplanted him for the blue ribbon of the University, was, irrationally enough, very unpopular, and has subsequently been lost sight of in scientific history. Before Sir William Thomson there was a great career. ”

“ Here, too, we question whether Sir William Thomson will be content with this definition of the process by which he has been guided to his most recent advance in molecular physics. In the splendid series of inductions verified step after step by rigorous experiment [Pg 3] and observation, and kept in exactest continuity by the chain of mathematical evolution, is imagination the faculty to which are to be given the chief honours of this conquest of a new realm of physics? This would surely be to force upon us a new and arbitrary classification or analysis of the powers of the intellect. ”

“ Even a man as great as Huxley was obviously pleased at being made a privy councilor and being granted an audience with the Queen. Sir William Thomson was willing to give up the name of his father, himself a professor of mathematics, to become Lord Kelvin, even though he has no heir. ”

“ The points of contact and sides of likeness between William Blake and Walt Whitman are so many and so grave as to afford some ground of reason to those who preach the transition of souls or transfusion of spirits. The great American is not a more passionate preacher of sexual or political freedom than the English artist. To each the imperishable form of a possible and universal Republic is equally requisite and adorable as the temporal and spiritual queen of ages as of men. To each all sides and shapes of life are alike acceptable or endurable. ”

“ Since that article was written Sir William Thomson has introduced the term thermodynamic motivity to signify "the possession the waste of which is called dissipation." ”

“ It is also used on the French Atlantic Cable, and on the direct United States line. Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Varley, and Prof. Jenkin, combining their inventions together, have given the only system by which submarine telegraphy on long lines has been carried on up to the present time.
"Sir William Thomson is an enthusiastic yachtsman and a skillful navigator. His recently-published popular lecture on 'Navigation' proves this; and, with that bright genius which enriches all with which it comes in contact, his improvements in navigation are of very high importance. ”

“ I understand, sir, you knew Thomson long?
I became acquainted with him in the year 1726, when he published his poem of Winter. He lived opposite to me, in Lancaster-court, in the Strand. I went to the East Indies soon after, which caused a chasm in our acquaintance; but, on my return, our intimacy was strengthened, and continued to the hour of his death. I do not know any man, living or dead, I ever esteemed more highly, and he was attached to me. I had once a complaint of a consumptive nature, which confined me much at home, and he was so good as to come often from Kew-lane to sit with me. ”

“ Among her fittings and equipment there are three steam lifeboats and eight other boats, five of Sir William Thomson's patent compasses, and a complete electric light installation, the latter including two powerful search lights, which are placed on the bridge. All parts of the vessel are in communication by means of speaking tubes. In order to enable the vessel to turn speedily, she is fitted with the sternway rudder of Messrs. Thomson & Biles. This contrivance is a combination of a partially balanced rudder with a rudder formed as a continuation of the after lines of a ship. ”

“ As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe, touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt lonely, masterless, mean.
"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.
"Tort Dieu!" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame to desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm going to help Mr. Tom." ”

“ If, for instance, materialism cannot consistently escape the conclusion of a finite state, which William Thomson has traced out for it, then materialism is thereby refuted. ”

“ Aside from the great value of the quadruplex, saving millions of dollars, for a share in which Edison received $30,000, the automatic itself is described as of considerable utility by Sir William Thomson in his juror report at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, recommending it for award. This leading physicist of his age, afterward Lord Kelvin, was an adept in telegraphy, having made the ocean cable talk, and he saw in Edison's "American Automatic," as exhibited by the Atlantic & Pacific company, a most meritorious and useful system. ”

“ The conclusion of this paragraph is instructively characteristic of the philosophy of Sir William Thomson and his admirers. He says that “the hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments of another world may seem wild and visionary ”

“ His private tutor was William Hopkins, "best of all private tutors," one of the most eminent of his pupils called him, a man of great attainment and of distinction as an original investigator in a subject which had always deeply interested Thomson—the internal rigidity of the earth. But the curriculum for the tripos did not exhaust Thomson's energy, nor was it possible to keep him entirely to the groove of mastering and writing out book-work, and to the solution of problems of the kind dear to the heart of the mathematical examiner. ”

“ Had he followed those practices of healthy activity so finely described in his poem, how much longer and more useful might his life have been! Yet it must be a fact unquestionable, that Thomson, as a boy, rose early, saw both sunrises and all the glories of nature, plunged into the summer flood, and braved the severity of winter. No man could so vividly or so accurately describe what he had not experienced, and they who know best the country know how exact is his knowledge of it. ”

“ He had not spoken, and now they perceived that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.
"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed his head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little André and Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "Le bon Dieu has forgotten us! For all my winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed. Rewbell paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has been seized."
Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart! ”

“ LITTLE BAPTISTE. A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.
Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection twenty minutes earlier.
"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste stays very long at the shanty this year."
"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. ”

“ The red-headed stranger went toward the wood out of which the mysterious track of the morning had come. When he had reached the little brush-camp in which he had slept the previous night, he made a small fire, put a small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a venison steak, ate his supper, had several good laughs, took a long smoke, rolled himself round and round in his blanket, and went to sleep.
Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl forward and peer into the brush camp. The red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the custom of many woodsmen. ”

“ He also took a lively interest in the classics, in music, and in general literature; but the real love, the central passion of his intellectual life, was the pursuit of science. The study of mathematics, physics, and in particular, of electricity, had captivated his imagination, and soon engrossed all the teeming faculties of his mind. At the age of seventeen, when ordinary lads are fond of games, and the cleverer sort are content to learn without attempting to originate, young Thomson had begun to make investigations. ”

“ To follow him in his flights is real mental exhilaration.”
In 1852 Thomson married Margaret, daughter of Walter Crum of Thornliebank, who died in 1870; and in 1874 he married Frances Anna, daughter of Charles R. Blandy of Madeira. In 1866, perhaps chiefly in acknowledgment of his services to trans-Atlantic telegraphy, Thomson received the honour of knighthood, and in 1892 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Kelvin of Largs. The Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order was conferred on him in 1896, the year of the jubilee of his professoriate. ”

“ It would be a pity if old friends like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one another to a trifling loan of provisions without making a fuss over it." And old John, taking up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that were a matter of course.
Peter did not speak; he could not.
"I was going round to your place to-morrow," resumed John, cheerfully, "to see if I couldn't hire you again. There's a job of hewing for you in the Conlonge shanty,—a man gone off sick. But I can't give more 'n twenty-two, or say twenty-three, seeing you're an old neighbor. What do you say?" ”

“ There is nothing; not a scrap; not any flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still she searched frantically about the rooms.
"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms. "I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."
The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes, rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.
"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I know,—hard, hard to bear ”

“ But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I should have to pay all the other hewers thirty; and that's not all. Scorers and teamsters and road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion to hewers. Why, it would cost me a thousand dollars a month to give you thirty! Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell your wife that you've hired with me."
But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to have my rights, so I am," he said sulkily to Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The old boss is getting too hard like, and set on money. Twenty-two dollars! ”

“ In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.
"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."
"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.
"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"
He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:
"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. ”

“ He seems afraid of elevating nature, lest she should be ashamed of him. Bloomfield very beautifully describes the lambs in springtime as racing round the hillocks of green turf: Thomson, in describing the same image, makes the mound of earth the remains of an old Roman encampment. Bloomfield never gets beyond his own experience; and that is somewhat confined. He gives the simple appearance of nature, but he gives it naked, shivering, and unclothed with the drapery of a moral imagination. ”