Love and Poetry.—“You know,” says Burns, “our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our sweetest blessing here below. How she caught the contagion I cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Æolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities she sang sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sang a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird’s son, on one of his father’s maids with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living on the moorlands, he had no more scholarcraft than myself. Thus with me began Love and Poetry.”—Burns in a Letter to Dr Moore, 1787.
Phenomena of Sound.—In the Arctic regions persons can converse at more than a mile distant when the thermometer is below zero. In air, sound travels from 1130 to 1142 feet per second. In water, sound passes at the rate of 4708 feet per second. Sound travels in air, about 900 feet for every pulsation of a healthy person at 75 in a minute. A bell sounded under water may be heard under water at 1200 feet distant. Sounds are distinct at twice the distance on water that they are on land. In a balloon, the barking of dogs on the ground may be heard at an elevation of three or four miles. On Table Mountain, a mile above Cape Town, every noise in it, and even words, may be heard distinctly. The fire of the English on landing in Egypt was distinctly heard 130 miles on the sea. Dr Jameson says, in calm weather he heard every word of a sermon at the distance of two miles! Water is a better conductor of sound than air. Wood is also a powerful conductor of sound, and so is flannel or riband. Sound affects particles of dust in a sunbeam, cobwebs, and water in musical glasses; it shakes small pieces of paper off a string in concord. Deaf persons may converse through deal rods held between the teeth, or held to the throat or breast. Echoes are formed by elliptical surfaces combined with surrounding surfaces, or by such of them as fall into the respective distances of the surface of an ellipse, and are, therefore, directed to the other focus of the ellipse; for all the distances from both foci to such surface are equal, and hence there is a concentration of sounds at those points direct from one focus, and reflected back again from the other focus. An echo returns a monosyllable at 70 feet distance, and another syllable at every 40 feet additional. The echo of artillery is encreased or created by a cloud or clouds. Miners distinguish the substance bored by the sound; and Physicians distinguish the action of the heart or lungs by a listening tube. Gamblers can distinguish, in tossing money, which side is undermost, though covered by the hand.
General Run of Faculties.—Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is, that it is common-place; and many of those who are singular had better be common-place. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing, which we think most of, because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else, which they set equal and exclusive store by. This is fortunate for all parties. I never felt myself superior to any one who did not go out of his way to affect qualities which he had not. In his own individual character and line of pursuit every one has knowledge, experience, and skill; and who shall say which pursuit requires most, thereby proving his own narrowness and incompetence to decide? Particular talent or genius does not imply general capacity. Those who are more versatile are seldom great in any one department; and the stupidest people can generally do something. The highest pre-eminence in any one study commonly arises from the concentration of the attention and faculties on that one study. He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and the unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing it attends to another through choice or necessity: and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.—Hazlitt’s Characteristics.
Truth.—The confusion and undesigned inaccuracy so often to be observed in conversation, especially in that of uneducated persons, proves that truth needs to be cultivated as a talent, as well as recommended as a virtue.—Mrs Fry.
Knowledge is an excellent drug, but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.—Montaigne’s Essays.
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