Many qualities which would be regarded as censurable if possessed by
ordinary men and women are often regarded with a respect that is tinctured
with admiration when they are possessed by persons of genius.
There is scarcely an author or musician of note who has not been
distinguished by some foible that has excited the amusement of his
friends. In many instances these foibles afford an index to the character
of their victim. Some are natural, while others would seem to be the
result of some inexplicable affectation. Viewed in any light, however, all
are interesting.
=Keats= liked red pepper on his toast.
=Sardou= imagines he has a perpetual cold.
=Dickens= was fond of wearing flashy jewelry.
=Ernest Renan= wore his finger-nails abnormally long.
=Walter Savage Landor= threw the dishes around to relieve
his mind.
=Edgar Allan Poe= slept with his cat. He was inordinately
proud of his feet.
=Alphonse Daudet= wore his eye-glasses when asleep. He did
his best work when hungry.
=Thackeray= used to lift his hat whenever he passed the
house in which he wrote "Vanity Fair."
=Thomas Wentworth Higginson= possesses a singular power over
wild birds, and can easily tame them.
=Alexandre Dumas=, the younger, bought a new painting every
time he had a new book published.
=Robert Louis Stevenson's= favorite recreation was playing
the flute, in order, as he said, to tune up his ideas.
=Robert Browning= could not sit still. With the constant
shuffling of his feet holes were worn in the carpet.
=Longfellow= enjoyed walking only at sunrise or sunset, and
he said his sublimest moods came upon him at these times.
=Washington Irving= never mentioned the name of his fiancee
after her death, and if anybody else did so, he immediately
left the room.
=Nathaniel Hawthorne= always washed his hands before reading
a letter from his wife. He delighted in poring over old
advertisements in the newspaper files.
=Macaulay= kept his closets crammed with elaborately
embroidered waistcoats, and the more gaudy they were the
better he liked them.
=Disraeli= wore corsets. The older he grew, the greater
became his desire to dress like a young man. He had a pen
stuck behind each ear when writing.
=F. Marion Crawford= carries his own stationery, pen, and
ink, and never writes with any other. He has written every
word of every novel with the same penholder.
=Bjornson= kept his pockets full of the seeds of trees,
scattering handfuls broadcast in his daily walks. He even
tried to persuade his associates to do the same.
=Darwin= had no respect for books as books, and would cut a
big volume in two, for convenience in handling, or he would
tear out the leaves he required for reference.
=Zola= would pass whole weeks in the belief that he was an
idiot. While in this state he wrote more than at any other
time. He would never accept an invitation to dinner.
=Oliver Wendell Holmes= used to carry a horse-chestnut in
one pocket and a potato in another to ward off rheumatism.
He had a great fondness for trees, and always sat under one
when he could.
=Voltaire=, as a preliminary to his day's work, would
sharpen an even dozen lead pencils. He would untie and retie
his stock whenever an idea concerning his work particularly
pleased him.
=Count Tolstoy= used to go barefoot and hatless the year
round. He is fond of French perfumes, and keeps his linens
scented with sachet powder. There is always a flower on his
desk as he writes. Although rich, he wears the cheapest
clothes he can buy.
=Sir A. Conan Doyle=, even in the coldest weather, never
wears an overcoat. When he gives an afternoon lecture he
removes his vest and buttons his Prince Albert coat close to
his body. He is a golf enthusiast, and spends all the time
possible on the links.
=Bret Harte=, when the inspiration was on him, would hire a
cab for the night, and drive, without stopping, through the
darkness until the struggle for ideas was over, and he grew
calm enough to write. Nothing pleased him more than to be
taken for an Englishman.
The World's Fastest Trains.
Great Britain Leads in Speed, with France a Good Second, and the United
States Only a Slow Third.--Some Passenger Statistics.
Speed is the magician that makes the world smaller. Compare the hourly
runs of the old stage-coaches with the hourly runs of the modern railroad
train, and we can figure without difficulty just how much the world has
shrunk in seventy-five years--though, as always happens in magic, the
shrinkage is apparent, not real. Motor cars now are made so powerful that
the fastest can go more than two miles in a minute--a speed which is not
yet considered practicable for ordinary travel. Railroad trains have made
phenomenal time over short distances, and there is one train which
regularly travels one hundred and eighteen and one-half miles at about
sixty miles an hour.
It is something of a surprise to learn that American trains are not the
fastest. England is first, with France second. The following article from
the New York _Sun_ gives the speed figures of the fastest trains of all
countries where good speed is made:
The fastest regular long-distance run without stop in the
world is on the Great Western, from London to Bristol, 1181/2
miles in 120 minutes, or practically sixty miles an hour. In
order to leave passengers at Bath a car is dropped from the
train without stop, a time-saving device in operation on a
number of European roads, though still unknown here.
The longest run without stop made in any country is from
London to Liverpool on the London and Northwestern, 201
miles, made at the rate of fifty-four miles an hour. The
next longest is on the Midland, from London to Leeds, 196
miles, at the rate of fifty-two miles an hour.
The Empire State Express.
The train in this country coming nearest to these long runs
without stop is the Empire State Express on the New York
Central, from New York to Albany, 143 miles, at the rate of
53 64-100 miles an hour; and the time of the same train to
Buffalo, 440 miles in 500 minutes, is just a trifle faster
than that of the Midland express from London to Glasgow,
447 miles in 510 minutes. Each makes four regular stops. The
Northwestern runs a train from London to Glasgow, 4011/2
miles, in eight hours, making two stops.
The Great Northern runs a train from London to Doncaster,
156 miles, without stop, in 169 minutes, at the rate of 551/2
miles an hour, and the Great Central train runs over
England's new road, from London to Sheffield, 165 miles, in
170 minutes, better than 58 miles an hour, slipping a car at
Leicester without stop.
Such runs as that between London and Birmingham on the Great
Western, a distance of 1291/4 miles, made without stop in
140 minutes, or at the rate of more than 55 miles an hour,
are less remarkable; for this seems to be about the regular
gait of many trains in England.
These fast and long runs are common to all the trunk lines
in England, while in the United States the fast runs are all
confined to two roads, the New York Central and the
Pennsylvania. Compared with many English fast runs, the time
between New York and Washington and Boston is slow. The
distance to the two cities from New York is about the same,
and in both cases the fastest trains make it in five hours
(or a little over, now, to Boston), or at 46 miles an hour.
For runs of nearly 1,000 miles no country can show trains to
compare with the New York and Chicago trains on the New York
Central, the best trains making the 980 miles in 1,080
minutes, or at 54 miles an hour. While this is not quite so
fast as the time made by the fast trains from Paris to Lyons
and Marseilles, the distance is twice as great as across
France.
Fast Time to Atlantic City.
Coming to short runs and special summer trains, undoubtedly
the fastest are from Camden to Atlantic City. Here some very
fast time has been made over an ideal country for fast time
by both the Reading and the Pennsylvania. The best Reading
time is 561/2 miles in 50 minutes, or 66 miles an hour, while
the best Pennsylvania time is 59 miles at the rate of 64
miles an hour.
These constitute all the very fast regular trains in the
United States. The fastest run in New England outside the
Boston-New York run is from Boston to Portland at the rate
of 44 miles an hour, and the showing is still poorer in the
West and South. Chicago, in many respects the greatest
railroad center in the world, has no fast trains outside the
New York Central and Pennsylvania trains referred to.
Throughout the West, though the best trains are very
luxurious, the runs are all short, averaging about 30 miles
between stations and the speed nowhere averages 40 miles an
hour.
Next to speed may be considered the frequency of trains,
their appointments, etc. In this respect a still more
pronounced difference appears in different countries with
almost equal population.
More trains leave the great South Terminal in Boston in one
day than are moved in one direction on all the roads of
Spain and Portugal in two weeks. From one terminal in London
more trains leave daily than move in ten days to supply the
whole population of Russia.
The World's Largest Station.
The South Terminal in Boston not only is the largest station
in the world, but sends out daily more than 400 trains,
nearly twice the number despatched from the Grand Central
Station by the three roads starting from there. The next
largest number sent from any station in this country is
about 350 from the Boston and Maine terminal in Boston, and
the next about 325 from the Broad Street Station,
Philadelphia. Then come the Grand Central Station, New York,
and the Reading Terminal, Philadelphia.
But these figures do not equal those of the great London
terminals. There one station sends out 700 trains daily, the
greatest number from any one station in the world, and all
of the twelve great terminals send out large numbers of
trains.
Including all suburban trains, and figuring on a mean
average of winter and summer, the regular scheduled trains
leave the four great centers in the following numbers daily,
the figures being for all roads and approximately correct:
New York city, 1,400; Boston, 1,000; Philadelphia, 850;
Chicago, 850. No other American city has 400.
Good Road-Beds Abroad.
The road-bed and the operating equipment are better in
England and some parts of France and Germany than in
America, and, owing to the ever-prevailing precautions,
accidents are only about one-fifth as frequent as in
America. All the principal roads in England have two tracks
and many main lines have four.
In this respect Americans are making great improvements now,
as the Pennsylvania is four-tracked from New York to
Pittsburgh, and the New Haven from New York to New Haven,
while the New York Central is three-tracked part of the way
to Albany, and four-tracked from there to Buffalo.
Turning to continental Europe it is found that France alone
indulges in really fast trains, and possibly she is ahead
even of England in the number of trains running regularly
above fifty miles an hour. The greatest travel route on the
Continent is from Paris south to Lyons, Marseilles, and the
Mediterranean, and here are found fine and fast trains.
The run from Paris to Marseilles, 585 miles, is made in 750
minutes, with only six stops. Many of the shorter runs, such
as from Paris to Calais, to the Belgian frontier, etc., are
at the rate of from fifty-eight to sixty-two miles an hour
for the regular schedule.
Europe's Fast Averages.
According to a German authority, the average speed of the
fastest trains in Europe is as follows: French, fifty-eight
miles an hour; English, fifty-five miles an hour, and
German, fifty-one. As a matter of experience, fast trains
are hard to find in Germany, and the service in this respect
does not compare with France.
It takes the fastest train 227 minutes to go from Berlin to
Hamburg, 178 miles, which is 471/2 miles an hour, and the
"luxe" train, the one fast goer between Muenich and Vienna,
runs at only 45.60 miles an hour; but there are as a rule
frequent trains throughout Germany and the service is good.
For all the rest of Europe the speed drops to about 30 miles
an hour for express trains. Italy is surprisingly slow. It
takes the express 965 minutes to go from Turin to Rome, 413
miles, or only 26 miles an hour, though the Milan-Rome
express makes nearly 40 miles an hour.
Between Rome and Naples, 155 miles, there are only four or
five trains daily, the fastest at 34 miles an hour, while it
takes 920 minutes to go 439 miles on the best train from
Rome to Brindisi, a rate of less than 30 miles an hour.
The express between Stockholm and Gothenburg, the two large
cities of Sweden, barely makes 30 miles an hour. In the
remaining continental countries the trains are even slower.