Accordingly, I called myself and received the medal from the Chevalier, with whom afterwards I had half-an-hour's talk, chiefly about German history, in which by good fortune I was fairly posted, perhaps with a prescience that the ambassador might allude to it.
An author, if he be a good man and a clever, worthy of his high vocation, already walks self-ennobled, circled by an aureola of spiritual glory such as no king can give, nor even all-devouring time, "edax rerum," can take away. He really gains nothing by a title—no, not even Tennyson; as in the next world, so in this, "his works do follow him," and the "Well done, good and faithful" from this lower world which he has served is but the prelude of his welcome to that higher world wherein he hears the same "good and faithful" from the mouth of his Redeemer.
Inventions.
It may be worth a page if I record here sundry inventions of mine, surely bits of authorship, which I found out for myself but did not patent, though others did. As thus:—
1. A simple and cheap safety horse-shoe,—secured by steel studs inserted into the ordinary soft iron shoes.
2. Glass screw-tops to bottles.
3. Steam-vessels with the wheels inside; in fact, a double boat or catamaran, with the machinery amid-ships.
4. The introduction of coca-leaf to allay hunger, and to be as useful here as in Chili.
5. A pen to carry its own ink.