“Matter and force,” I should say, “are one, and that one cannot lose or gain.”
If they made no answer, I should add, and then walk away—
“The materials of the sun cannot be diminished, as they can reach no other centre of gravity. But I admit that the sun is open to collision; not, however, within any calculable period of time.”
We should then both speak to some one else.
I now conclude.
In these my reminiscences I have made very free with my reader, and now I heartily wish him “Good day.”
POSTSCRIPT.
My respected publishers, now that my “Memoirs” are in print, have asked me if I wish to precede them by any prefatory remarks; this I have no need of doing, since the first paragraph in the work is a sufficient explanation of why the book was written. But an event having happened which has put half the nation in mourning, and perhaps most of all our august sovereign herself, I feel impelled to utter a few words of sympathy on that sad occasion to her, the loss of a deserving Poet Laureate.