Before proceeding, it is necessary to digress for a moment. When a boy I was fond of reading books of elementary science. I occasionally met with statements which puzzled me—which appeared to me to be wrong—but assuming, as children do, the infallibility of the author—or perhaps I should say of a printed book—I naturally came to the conclusion that my own understanding was in fault, and became greatly disheartened. After awhile—I forget on what occasion—I applied for solution of the puzzle to my father, who, possessing a large amount of general information, was well qualified to advise. To my great delight, he assured me that I was right and the author wrong. My unqualified faith in printed statements was now, of course, at an end; and a habit was gradually formed of mentally criticising almost everything I read—a habit which, however useful in early life, is, as I have found in old age, a cause of much waste of thinking power when the amount is so reduced as to render economy of essential importance.
Still, through the greater part of my life this habit of reading critically, combined as it was with the power of rapid calculation, has been of great use to me, especially in my contests with the Post Office, and, after I had joined the Department, in the revision of the thousands of Reports, Returns, and Minutes prepared by other officers.
In general literature, if the author attempt to deal with science, the chance of a blunder appears to be great. Even Lord Macaulay could not always do so with safety, as appears from the following passage:—“In America the Spanish territories [in 1698] spread from the equator northward and southward through all the signs of the Zodiac far into the temperate zone.”[367] What can be the meaning of the words which I have marked for Italics?
Mrs. Oliphant, too, whose admirable stories I never miss reading, says, in one of her latest, “there was a new moon making her way upwards in the pale sky.”[368]
There is no writer to whom I feel more grateful than to Miss Edgeworth. When a boy I read her delightful stories with the greatest possible interest, and I feel sure that they had considerable influence in the formation of my character. Unfortunately, however, they are frequently disfigured by scientific errors. Thus, in her admirable story of “The Good Aunt,” the following passage occurs: “My dearest Aunt,” cried he [Charles], stopping her hand, as she was giving her diamond ear-rings to Mr. Carat—“stay, my dearest aunt, one instant, till I have seen whether this is a good day for selling diamonds.”
“O, my dear young gentleman, no day in the Jewish calendar more proper for de purchase,” said the Jew.
“For the purchase! yes,” said Charles, “but for the sale?”
“My love,” said his aunt, “surely you are not so foolish as to think there are lucky and unlucky days.”
“No, I don’t mean anything about lucky and unlucky days,” said Charles, running up to consult the barometer; “but what I mean is not foolish indeed; in some book I’ve read that the dealers in diamonds buy them when the air is light, and sell them when it is heavy, if they can, because their scales are so nice that they vary with the change in the atmosphere.”