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LITERATURE.
FOR THOSE WHO FAIL.
"All honor to him who shall win the prize,"
The world has cried for a thousand years,
But to him who tries and who fails and dies
I give great honor and glory and tears.
Give glory and honor and pitiful tears
To all who fail in their deeds sublime,
Their ghosts are many in the van of years,
They were born with Time in advance of Time.
Oh, great is the hero who wins a name,
But greater many and many a time
Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame
And lets God finish the thought sublime.
And great is the man with a sword undrawn,
And good is the man who refrains from wine;
But the man who fails and yet still fights on,
Lo, he is the twin-born brother of mine.
--_Joaquin Miller._
A SINGULAR PHILOSOPHER.
Hon. Henry Cavendish was born in England, Oct. 10, 1731, and died Feb.
21, 1810. Cavendish was the son of Lord Charles Cavendish, a son of the
Duke of Devonshire; and his mother was Lady Anne Grey, daughter of
Henry, Duke of Kent. It is thus seen that the subject of this sketch
belonged to two of the two most aristocratic, noble families in England,
having for grandfathers the Dukes of Kent and Devonshire. This man, who
became one of the most distinguished chemists and physicists of the age,
born in high life, of exalted position and wealth, passed through the
period of his boyhood and early manhood in utter obscurity, and a dense
cloud rests upon his early life. Indeed, the place of his birth has been
in dispute; some of his biographers asserting that he was born in
England, others that he was born in France or Italy. It is now known
that he was born at Nice, whither his mother had gone for the sake of
health.
It seems incredible that one highly distinguished, who lived and died so
recently, should have almost entirely escaped observation until he had
reached middle life. From fragments of his early history which have been
collected, we learn that he was a peculiar boy,--shy, reticent, fond of
solitary walks, without playfellows, and utterly insensible to the
attractions of home and social life. He was born with inflexible
reserve; and the love of retirement so manifest in in later life
mastered all his instincts even when a boy. If he had been of poor and
obscure parentage, it would not seem so strange that one who for nearly
fifty years was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and for a lengthened
period a member of the Institute of France, and an object of European
interest to men of science, had no one to record the incidents of his
early life. But he lost his mother when almost an infant, and this sad
event probably influenced greatly his early career, and isolated him
from the world in which he lived.
We find him at Dr. Newcome's school at Hackney in 1742, and from this
school he went directly to Cambridge, where he remained until 1753. He
did not graduate, true to his odd instincts, although he spent the full
period for a degree at Cambridge. No records of his college life have
been preserved, and, as he went to London, it is wonderful that the next
ten years of his life remain a blank. He joined the Royal Society in
1760, but contributed nothing until 1766, when he published his first
paper on "Factitious Airs." Cavendish was a great mathematician,
electrician, astronomer, meteorologist, and as a chemist he was equally
learned and original. He lived at a time when science was to a large
extent but blank empiricism; even the philosophy of combustion was based
on erroneous and absurd hypotheses, and the speculation of experimenters
were wild and fantastic. He was the first to submit these speculations
to crucial tests, to careful and accurate experiment; and the results
which were given to the world introduced a new era in scientific
knowledge. We have so much to say regarding the man, that we can only
present a brief outline of his great discoveries. Alone, in a spacious
house on Clapham Common, outside of London, did this singular man work
through many long years, until he filled it with every possible device
capable of unfolding or illustrating principles in science.
At the time of a visit to London in 1856 this famous house was standing,
and remained as it was when the owner left it, about a half century
before. The exterior of the house would not attract special attention;
but within, the whole world could not, perhaps, furnish a parallel.
Anvils and forges, files and hammers, grindstones and tempering-troughs,
furnaces and huge bellows, had converted the panelled and wall-frescoed
drawing-room into the shop of a blacksmith. In the spacious dining-room
chemical apparatus occupied the place of furniture. Electrical machines,
Leyden-jars, eudiometers, thermometric scales, philosophical
instruments, were distributed through the chambers. The third story,
save two bed-chambers,--one for the housekeeper, the other for the
footman,--had been fitted up for an observatory. The lenses and
achromatic glasses, tubes and specula, concave mirrors, and
object-prisms, and the huge, rough old telescope, peering through the
roof, were still there as their owner had left them. All appliances of
housekeeping were absent, and Cavendish House was destitute of all
comforts, for which the owner had no taste.
In this house Cavendish lived for nearly half a century, totally
isolated from the world and all human sympathies. He seldom or never
visited relatives, and they were never guests at his house. He had
several servants, all of whom were males, with one exception. He was shy
of women, and did not like to have them come in his way. If he saw his
female servant in any of the rooms, he would order her away instantly,
or fly himself to other quarters. Rarely, during all the years of his
solitary life, did a woman cross his threshold; and, when one did, he
would run from her as if she brought the plague. His servants were all
trained to silence, and in giving his orders the fewest words possible
were used. His meals were served irregularly, whenever in the intervals
of absorbing labors, he could snatch a fragment of time. He uniformly
dined upon one kind of meat,--a joint of mutton; and he seemed to have
no knowledge that there were other kinds in the market.
Upon one occasion he had invited a few scientific friends to dinner at
Cavendish House, and when his servant asked him what he should provide,
"A leg of mutton!" said Cavendish. "It will hardly be enough," said the
servant. "Well, then get two." "Anything else, sir?" "Yes, get four legs
of mutton."
His dress was peculiar,--a snuff-colored coat reaching to his knees, a
long vest of the same color, buff breeches, and a three-cornered hat.
With him the fashion never changed; he had but one suit; not an extra
coat, hat, or even two handkerchiefs. When his wardrobe gave out, and he
was forced to see his tailor, he became very nervous. He would walk the
room in agony, give orders to have the tailor sent for, and then
immediately countermand the same. His shoes for fifty years were of one
pattern; and when he took them off they were put in one place behind a
door, and woe to the servant who accidentally displaced them. He hung
his old three-cornered hat on one peg at his house, and when he attended
the meetings of the Royal Society he had a peg in the hall known as
"Cavendish's peg." If, through accident, it was taken by some member
before his arrival, he would stop, look at the occupied peg, and then
turn on his heel, and go back to his house. When he went to the
meetings, he walked in the middle of the street, never on the sidewalk;
and he invariably took the same route. Upon reaching the steps leading
to the rooms, he would stop, hesitate, put his hand on the door-handle,
and look about timidly, and sometimes return at a rapid pace.
His cane, which he carried for fifty years, he placed upright in his
left boot, which he took off at the door, covering his foot with a
slipper. Once inside the rooms of the Royal Society, and surrounded by
the most distinguished men of England and the world, he became
excessively shy, and read his wonderful papers in an awkward manner.
Applause of any kind he could not bear; and if in conversation any one
praised his researches or papers, he would turn away abruptly, as if
highly indignant. If he was appealed to as authority upon any point, he
would dart away, and perhaps quit the hall for the evening. This man of
great genius and vast acquirements was incapable of understanding or
enduring praise or flattery. He sought in every possible way to escape
recognition or notice, listened attentively to conversation, but seldom
asked questions; never spoke of himself, or of what he had accomplished
in the world of science.
Cavendish was a man possessed of vast wealth, and, when he died, he was
the richest bank-owner in all England.
"At the age of forty, a large accession came to his fortune. His income
already exceeded his expenditure. Pecuniary transactions were his
aversion. Other matters occupied his attention. The legacy was therefore
paid in to his bankers. It was safe there, and he gave it no more heed.
One of the firm sought to see him at Clapham. In answer to the
inquiries of the footman as to his Business, the banker replied to see
Mr. Cavendish personally. 'You must wait, then,' responded the servant,
'till he rings his bell.' The banker tarried for hours, when the
long-expected bell rang. His name was announced. 'What does he want?'
the master was heard to ask. 'A personal interview.' 'Send him up.' The
banker appeared.
"'I am come, sir, to ascertain your views concerning a sum of two
hundred thousand pounds placed to your account.'
"'Does it inconvenience you?' asked the philosopher. 'If so, transfer it
elsewhere.'
"'Inconvenience, sir? By no means,' replied the banker. 'But pardon me
for suggesting that it is too large a sum to remain unproductive. Would
you not like to invest it?'
"'Invest it? Eh? Yes, if you will. Do as you like, but don't interrupt
me about such things again. I have other matters to think about.'"
With all his wealth it never occurred to him that others were in need,
and that he might do good by benefactions. Solicited on one occasion to
contribute to a charitable object, he exclaimed, "Give, eh! What do you
want? How much?" "Give whatever you please, sir," said the solicitor.
"Well, then, will ten thousand pounds do?"
On another occasion he was forced, from circumstances, to attend a
christening in a church; and, when it was intimated to him that it was
customary to bestow some little present upon the attending nurse, he ran
up to her, and poured into her lap a double handful of gold coins, and
hastily departed. This was the only occasion on which he was known to
cross the threshold of a church. Cavendish died possessed of five
million dollars of property, and yet at no time had he the slightest
knowledge of how much he had, and how it was invested. He despised
money, and made as little use of it as possible.
As regards matters of religion, he never troubled himself about them. He
would never talk upon the subject, and probably never gave it a thought.
All days of the week were alike to him: he was as busy on Sunday as on
any other day. When asked by a friend what his views were of God, he
replied, "Don't ask me such questions: I never think of them."
The circumstances of Cavendish's death are as remarkable as his career
in life.
"Without premitory disease or sickness, or withdrawal from daily duties,
or decadence of mental powers, or physical disability, he made up his
mind that he was about to die. Closing his telescopes, putting his
achromatic glasses in their several grooves, locking the doors of his
laboratories, destroying the papers he deemed useless, and arranging
those corrected for publication, he ascended to his sleeping-apartment
and rang his bell. A servant appeared.
"'Edgar,' said Cavendish, addressing him by name, 'listen! Have I ever
commanded you to do an unreasonable thing?'
"The man heard the question without astonishment, for he knew his
master's eccentricities, and replied in the negative.
"'And that being the case,' continued the old man, 'I believe I have a
right to be obeyed.'
"The domestic bowed his assent.
"'I shall now give you my last command,' Cavendish went on to say, 'I am
going to die. I shall, upon your departure, lock my room. Here let me be
alone for eight hours. Tell no one. Let no person come near. When the
time has passed, come and see if I am dead. If so, let Lord George
Cavendish know. This is my last command. Now, go.'
"The servant knew from long experience that to dispute his master's will
would be useless. He bowed, therefore, and turned to go away.
"'Stay--one word!' added Cavendish. 'Repeat exactly the order I have
given.'
"Edgar repeated the order, promised obedience once more, and retired
from the chamber."
The servant did not keep his promise, but called to his master's bedside
Sir Everard Home, a distinguished physician.
"Sir Everard inquired if he felt ill.
"'I am not ill,' replied Cavendish; 'but I am about to die. Don't you
think a man of eighty has lived long enough? Why am I disturbed? I had
matters to arrange. Give me a glass of water.'
"The glass of water was handed to him; he drank it, turned on his back,
closed his eyes, and died.
"This end of a great man, improbable as are some of the incidents
narrated, is no fiction of imagination. Sir Everard Home's statement,
read before the Royal Institution, corroborates every particular. The
mental constitution of the philosopher, puzzling enough during his
life, was shrouded certainly in even greater mystery in his death."
It is as a chemist that Cavendish stands preeminent. Without
instructors, without companionship, in the solitary rooms of his
dwelling, he meditated and experimented. The result of his researches he
communicated in papers read to the Royal Society, and these are quite
numerous. He was the first to demonstrate the nature of atmospheric air
and also of water. He was the discoverer of nitrogen and several gaseous
bodies. He did much to overthrow the phlogiston theory, which was
universally accepted in his time; and his researches upon arsenic were
of the highest importance. There is scarcely any department of chemistry
which he did not enrich by his discoveries. He was a close student of
electrical phenomena, and made many discoveries in this department of
research. He was also an astronomer and observed the heavens with his
telescopes with the deepest interest. Some of his most important
discoveries were unknown until after his death, as they were hidden in
papers, which, for some reason, he would not publish.
The life of this singular man was morally a blank, and can only be
described by negations. He did not love; he did not hate; he did not
hope; he did not worship. He separated himself from his fellow-men and
from his God. There was nothing earnest, enthusiastic, heroic, in his
nature, and as little that was mean, groveling, or ignoble. He was
passionless, wholly destitute of emotion. Everything that required the
exercise of fancy, imagination, faith, or affection, was distasteful to
Cavendish. He had a clear head for thinking, a pair of eyes for
observing, hands for experimenting and recording, and these were all.
His brain was a calculating engine; his eyes, inlets of vision, not
fountains of tears; his heart, an anatomical organ necessary for the
circulation of the blood. If such a man can not be loved, he can not be
abhorred or despised. He was as the Almighty made him, and he served an
important end in the world.
Such a man manifestly would never sit for his portrait. And he never
did. It was taken by Borrow the painter, unobserved by Cavendish, while
at a dinner-party given for the express purpose of securing the
likeness. It is now in the British Museum. Cuts of this painting are
rare.--_Popular Science News._
* * * * *
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HUMOROUS
THE DONKEY'S DREAM.
A donkey laid him down to sleep,
And as he slept and snored full deep,
He was observed (strange sight) to weep,
As if in anguished mood.
A gentle mule that lay near by,
The donkey roused, and, with a sigh,
In kindly voice inquired why
Those tears he did exude.
The donkey, while he trembled o'er
And dropped cold sweat from every pore,
Made answer in a fearful roar:
"_I dreamed I was a dude!_"
TOM TYPO.
Tom Typo was a printer good,
A merry, cheerful elf;
And whatsoever care he had,
He still "composed" himself.
Where duty called him he was found
Still working in his place;
But nothing tempted from his post--
Which really was the "case."
He courted pretty Emma Grey,
One of earth's living gems--
The sweetest Em, he used to say,
Among a thousand "ems."
So "chased" was Emma's love for Tom,
It met admiring eyes;
She "proved" a "copy" to her sex.
And wanted no "revise."
And Tom, he kept his "pages" clear
And grew to be a "type"
Of all that manhood holds most dear,
When he with age was ripe.
He made his last "impression" here
While yet his heart was warm,
Just in the "nick" closed his career,
And death "locked up his form."
He sank into his final rest
Without one sigh or moan;
His latest words--"Above my breast
Place no 'imposing stone.'"
COURTSHIP OF A VASSAR GIRL.
The parents and the old relatives are chatting over their darling's
future. Meanwhile the fiances have escaped into the back parlor.
Virginia--Where are you leading me to, John?
John--I wish to tell you, while others forget us, how happy I am to
marry you--you, so winning, so witty, the gem of Vassar College.
Virginia--Oh! how many compliments to a poor graduate who only won the
premium of rhetoric, and was second best in geometry.
John--I love you, and worship you just as you are.
V.--Oh, my friend, how anaphorical, and especially how epanaletical.
J.--I don't understand.
V.--I mean that you repeat yourself. It is the custom of lovers to abuse
of the gorgiaques figures from the very protasis and exordium.
J.--I love you because you are accomplished and perfect.
V.--Did I not know you, I should think that you favored asteisin and
ethossoia.
J. (Somewhat abashed.)--Ah! do you see * * *
V.--Why this aposiopesis?
J.--Aposiopesis!
V.--This reticence?
J.--That is clearer. I acknowledge that the expressions you use annoy
and trouble me.
V.--You, on your side, speak a language stamped with schematism, while
to be correct, even in making love, your language should be discursive.
Allow me to tell you so frankly.
J.--Anyhow, you do not doubt my love?
V.--I pardon this epitrope, but pray use less metaphor and more litotes
in the prosopography you dedicate to my modest entity--
J.--What will you? Men love women; I am a man; therefore, I love you.
V.--Your syllogism is perfect in its premises, but the conclusion is
false.
J.--Oh! you are a cruel angel!
V.--I like that catachresis, but once again I repeat, I am practical,
and prefer synedoche.
J. [Very much perplexed.]--Will you continue the conversation in the
garden?
V.--Yes. (They go into the garden.) Look, here is a very lovely
parallelogram of green surrounded by petasites. Let us sit under those
maritamboues will you?
J.--Willingly! Ah! here I am happy! My heart fills with joy; it seems to
me it contains the universe.
V.--You are speaking pure Spinozism.
J.--When I think that you will be my wife, and I your husband! What will
be our destiny!
V.--The equation being given you are looking for the unknown quantity.
Like you, I shall await the co-efficient.
J. (Who is determined to follow out his own thoughts)--With the world of
constellations above us, and nature surrounding us, admire with me those
orbs sending us their pure light. Look up there at that star.
V.--It is Allioth, neighbor to the polar star. They are nearing the
cosmical moment, and if we remain here a few moments longer the
occultation will take place.
J. (Resignedly.)--And there those thousands of stars.
V.--It is the galaxy. Admire also the syzygy of those orbs.