Part 7

We see it illustrated in the lives of our greatest thinkers. Did a genius like Lord Bacon compose his immortal works with ease, and, as it were, without effort? Far from it. On the contrary, he took great pains. They were written and re-written. They were the fruit of much patient thought, of repeated revision and persistent effort. Thus, we are told that he transcribed his “Novum Organum” twelve times with his own hand, each time revising it carefully. He was employed on this great work at intervals for a period of thirty years. When he transcribed it he did not merely recopy what he had written, with a few verbal alterations only, but changed it in substance, so as to bring it nearer the model in his own mind. This was his constant practice, as we know from his own words. Writing to a friend, he says—“My great work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter even when I add; so that nothing is finished till all be finished.”

Who is there among us who would have the patience to write any literary production in which he might be engaged twelve times over with his own hand! Think, too, of the patient thought that must have been bestowed on the work each time it was transcribed! If Bacon’s genius is immensely greater than what any of us can boast of, do not his patient thought, his persevering study, his habit of taking pains, exceed ours in the same proportion!

Bacon’s precept corresponded to his practice. How does the great author of the inductive method direct us to make discoveries? Not by volatile flights of fancy, but by patient labor. We are patiently to observe and make experiments. We are to collect all sorts of facts which have any bearing on the subject, not even neglecting what may appear trifles. We are to arrange them under proper heads. We are to examine them under every aspect, and reflect upon them with deepest thought. Thus only, he tells us, will discoveries be made worthy of the name.

Let us turn to another great philosopher of our own country. How did Newton succeed in making his name immortal? The poet says of him—

“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said—Let Newton be, and there was light.”

Yet it was not without effort and painstaking care that he made his discoveries. The laws of light and gravitation did not reveal themselves to him at a glance. The process of discovery was much slower. Let us go to the man himself and learn the secret of his success. He tells us that he made his discoveries by _always thinking_ about them. This patient thought, this persevering study, this painstaking care, enabled him at last to succeed where others failed. This it was, and not mere genius alone, that shed a luster on his name, which shall last so long as the sun and the moon endure.

To come nearer our own times and to men of less dazzling fame. George Stephenson, the inventor, we may say, of railways, will be allowed to have been a great mechanical genius. The lesson we learn from his life is to take pains and persevere. His inventions were, in no small degree, the result of careful study. We see the pains he took to acquaint himself with every detail as to the habits of “the engine” while still a brakesman. He thus laid the foundation of his future success in applying the steam-engine to the railway. We read, also, that when he retired for the night, it was not always to sink into slumber. He worked out many a difficult problem in bed, and for hours he would lie awake and turn over in his mind, with painstaking care and patient thought, how to overcome some mechanical obstacle that stood in his way.

In the later years of his life, when railways had spread over the kingdom, he was fond of pointing out to others the difficulties he had to surmount, and what pains and perseverance had brought him to. It was not talent, it was not genius, in the ordinary sense of the word, to which he attributed his success; it was to perseverance. In addressing young men his grand text was “persevere,” and on this theme the old man grew eloquent, glowing with the recollections of his own personal experience.

Hugh Miller was another man of undoubted genius. When we contemplate such a man rising to distinction both in science and literature, in spite of the most adverse circumstances, we are apt to think that he must have been indebted to the native vigor of his mind alone, without the aid of any extraneous advantages. But what do we find to be the case? No one can peruse his works without perceiving that he was a great reader, and that the thoughts of others supplied the food on which his mind grew. Like Dr. Johnson, he was a robust genius, capable of grappling with whole libraries. He seems, while yet unknown to fame, to have ransacked our whole literature, quarrying his way into many hidden recesses not generally explored. Even classical works, translated into English, he read with avidity. He says himself—“I have read Cowper’s ‘Homer’ and Dryden’s ‘Virgil’ again and again, and drunk in all their beauties.”

This appetite for reading commenced at an early age. When a lad about twelve he got access to a small library belonging to one of his neighbors, and was allowed freely to peruse its contents. He says, casting a glance back to these times:—“I read incessantly; and, as the appetite for reading becomes stronger the more it is indulged, I felt, when I had consumed the whole, a still keener craving than before.”

By these steps he rose to eminence. He thus became a distinguished man. His mind was enriched by much reading. It received a training which qualified him in future years to become a geologist of the first rank, to write on scientific subjects in a style of rare beauty, so picturesque and expressive that men of distinguished parts have said they would give their “left hand” if they could only imitate it, and, in a word, to handle skilfully any subject to which he turned his attention, not excepting just and delicate criticism on some of our less known poets.

Among men of science there are few, if any, whose writings have made a greater impression on the present generation than those of Charles Darwin. How were his works produced? Not by fits and starts. Not by flights of fancy. He is penetrated by the true scientific spirit, and steadily pursues his object for years, patiently accumulating facts, and by their light drawing conclusions in which, though men may differ on some points, there will always be found large portions of solid truth. Let us see, for example, how his remarkable book on the “Origin of Species” was produced. It was not struck out at a blow, but was the labor of years and of much patient thought. He himself says of it:—“On my return home it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing upon it.” He steadily pursued his object from that time, for more than twenty years, and then his work was published to the world.

This is the way in which great works on science are produced. The author takes great pains. He steadily pursues his object for years, with patient thought and unremitting attention, leaving no stone unturned. It is this that accomplishes great things, and not mere flight of untutored genius.

It is needless to say that his latest work, on the modest subject of earth-worms, exhibits the same painstaking care, the same laborious study, and the same patient accumulation of facts.

Hitherto the examples adduced have been more of a scientific than literary character. If, leaving science, we take a glance at general literature, it will be found that those also who come to the front as writers in this branch of learning are, without exception, distinguished by their habit of taking pains with the subject in hand.

Were the writings of the brilliant Macaulay the outpourings of pure genius, unaided by painstaking labor and diligent study? Far from it. When he wrote on any subject he was unwearied in his researches. No amount of labor appalled him. Even when husbanding his resources, and engaged in no particular literary task, he read continually, laying in a store for future use. To read was his passion and delight. It was his solace under all circumstances. It cheered him in his Indian exile. In turning over the pages of his life we are absolutely struck with awe at his insatiable appetite for books. It would be difficult to find an example of anyone in these modern times whose reading, especially in the Greek and Roman classics, took so wide a range. He read, not only in his study, but in his long walks he had always a book with him, which he read incessantly.

Nothing is said in his life of his habits of composition, but there can be little doubt that his clear and vigorous style was not formed without much study and practice. In addition to his admirable prose style, he had great facility in writing verses. How did he acquire it? By long continued practice. He says, in a letter to one of his sisters:—“As you like my verses, I will some day or other write you a whole rhyming letter. I wonder whether any other man ever wrote doggerel so easily. I run it off just as fast as my pen can move. This comes of a schoolboy habit of writing verses all day long.”

Of our modern prose writers, there are few whose writings are more easy to read than those of Charles Dickens. They look like the spontaneous outpourings of genius, flowing freely from his pen without effort. And yet, in point of fact, he took great pains with what he wrote. When engaged on “Little Dorrit” he jots down these words in his journal:—“Now to work again. The story lies before me strong and clear. Not to be easily told; for nothing of that kind is to be easily done that I know of.”

Then, in another direction, look at the pains he took in preparing his “Readings” for the public. He learned them all by heart, so as to have no mechanical drawback in looking after the words. He was also at great pains to correct his pronunciation, and cultivate the habit of self-possession. As the reputation of these “Readings” widened, he was ambitious that they should grow better and better. When engaged in giving a series of readings, he used to repeat them to himself, often twice a day, and with exactly the same pains as at night when before his audience. He felt that nothing could be done well, that no great perfection could be reached, without taking pains. We are here reminded of Mrs. Siddons, who played the character of Lady Macbeth for thirty years. Such was her solicitude to act the part well, that she invariably read over the play, once more, on the morning of the performance, and with such care as always to discover something new in the character which she had not observed before.

* * * * *

Whoso acts a hundred times with high moral principle before he speaks once of it, that is a man whom one could bless and clasp to one’s heart. I am far from saying that he is on that account free from faults, but the _plus et minus_, the degree of striving after perfection and virtue, determines the value of the man.—_George Forster._

A CHAPLET OF PEARLS.

By WILLIAM JONES, F.S.A.

There is a magic charm in the pearl that seems to have fascinated the world in various countries. The modest splendor and purity of the jewel made it the favorite of all others among the Orientals.[J] Chares, of Mitylene, alludes to the Margaritæ necklaces as far more highly valued by the Asiatics than those made of gold. The Romans went wild over them, and of all the articles of luxury and ostentation known to them, pearls appear to have been most esteemed. Pompey, as the richest spoils of his victories in Asia, displayed in his procession into Rome, after his triumph over the third continent, among his treasures, thirty-three crowns made of pearls, a temple of the Muses with a dial on the top, and a figure of himself, formed of the same materials. This roused the ire of the stoic Pliny, but contributed to the popular passion for obtaining these jewels. He remarks of Lollia Paulina (wife of the Emperor Caligula) that she was covered with emeralds and pearls, strung alternately, glittering all over her head, hair, bandeau, necklaces, and fingers, valued at forty millions of sesterces (£400,000).

Servilia, the mother of the famous Brutus, received from Julius Cæsar a pearl as a present which cost the donor £50,000. The celebrated pearls of Cleopatra, worn as earrings, were valued at £161,457.

Some consider bdellium, which is mentioned in the Scriptures (Genesis and Numbers), as a precious stone, and the Jewish rabbins, together with some modern commentators, translate it by _pearl_, but it is more than probable that the pearl was unknown in the time of Moses. Most probably, the Hebrew _bedolach_ is the aromatic gum bdellium, which issues from a tree growing in Arabia, Media, and the Indies.

According to the poetic Orientals, every year, on the sixteenth day of the month of Nisan, the pearl-oysters rise to the sea and open their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and the drops thus caught become pearls. On this belief the poet Sadi, in his “Bostau,” has the following fable: “A drop of water fell one day from a cloud into the sea. Ashamed and confused at finding itself in such an immensity of water, it exclaimed, ‘What am I in comparison of this vast ocean? My existence is less than nothing in this boundless abyss!’ While it thus discoursed of itself, a pearl-shell received it in its bosom, and fortune so favored it that it became a magnificent and precious pearl, worthy of adorning the diadem of kings. Thus was its humility the cause of its elevation, and by annihilating itself, it merited exaltation.”

Moore alludes to this pretty fiction in one of his sweetest melodies:

“And precious the tear as that rain from the sky Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.”

Sir Walter Scott, in the “Bridal of Triermain,” says:

“See these pearls that long have slept; These were tears by Naiads wept.”

Lilly, in “Gallathea:”

“Is any cozen’d of a teare Which (as a pearle) disdaine does weare?”

Shakspere (“Richard III.”):

“The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl, Advantaging their loan with interest Of ten-times-double gain of happiness.”

In Lee’s “Mithridates” we have:

“’Twould raise your pity, but to see the tears Force through her snowy lids their melting course, To lodge themselves on her red murmuring lips That talk such mournful things; when straight a gale Of startling sighs carry those pearls away, As dews by winds are wafted from the flowers.”

Elena Piscopia (1684), of the Corraro family of Venice, had a medal struck in her honor, on the reverse of which is an open shell, receiving the drops of dew from heaven, which form into pearls: the motto was _Rore divino_—by the divine dew.

Pearls have for ages been significant for tears. It is related that Queen Margaret Tudor, consort of James IV. of Scotland, previous to the battle of Flodden Field, had strong presentiments of the disastrous issue of that conflict. One night she had fearful dreams, in which she thought she saw her husband hurled down a great precipice and crushed and mangled at the bottom. In another vision she thought, as she was looking at her jewels, chains, and sparkling coronets of diamonds, they suddenly turned into pearls, “which are the emblems of widowhood and tears.”

A few nights before the assassination of Henry IV. of France, his queen dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and she was told that they were significant of tears.

Milton, in his “Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester,” says:

“And those pearls of dew she wears Prove to be presaging tears.”

Similes of pearls and tears are frequent in our old writers. Thus Shakspere in “Midsummer Night’s Dream:”

“And that same dew which sometimes on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty floweret’s eyes, Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.”

In “King John:”

“Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee; Ay, with those crystal beads heaven shall be bribed To do him justice and revenge on you.”

The metaphor is a favorite one with Lovelace:

“Lucasta wept, and still the bright Enamor’d god of day, With his soft handkerchief of light, Kiss’d the wet pearls away.”

And—

“If tears could wash the ill away, A pearl for each wet bead I’d pay.”

In Chalkhill’s “Thealma and Clearchus,” we find of the former:

“Anon she drops a tear, That stole along her cheeks, and falling down, Into a pearl it freezeth with her frown.”

Robert Southwell, in “St. Mary Magdalen’s Tears,” says: “The angels must bathe themselves in the pure stream of thine eyes, and thy face shall be set with this pearly liquid, that, as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord’s love, so thy tears may be the oil to feed his flames.”

THE WORTH OF FRESH AIR.

Your neighbor, John Stedman, is set fast with aches and pains, and is very ill. You have just been to see him, you say, and you can not think why it is that people are every now and then attacked in this way with sickness. You have been told that God sends disease; but for your own part you can not understand why it is that some of your neighbors, who, like John Stedman, seem to be the most honest and deserving, get the largest share of it. I think, my industrious friend, I can perhaps help you to the explanation of the riddle. At any rate, there are many things touching upon this very subject, which as an old acquaintance, and one who has learned through long intimacy to take great interest in all that concerns you, I have for some time desired to say. I shall now seize this opportunity to make a beginning, and shall seat myself comfortably that I may chat with you more at my ease. Pray do not trouble yourself to move anything. This empty chair near the door will do excellently well for me. I know you will listen to me with attention and patience, first for old friendship’s sake, and then because you will very soon feel that what I do say is intended frankly and solely for your good.

You have a fine, smart-looking clock, I see, ticking away there opposite. But the old fellow can hardly be so correct as he seems; his hands point to eight, although the day wants but a couple of hours of noon. I fear there must be something wrong about him, notwithstanding his looking so vastly well in the face.

You say you can not make the clock keep time. You wind it up carefully every Saturday, and set it correctly, and yet before the next Saturday comes round, it has either lagged hours behind, or it has galloped on hours too fast. It goes as if it were moved by the uncertain wind, instead of being driven by regular machinery, and it was a shame for the man to sell you such a bad-going thing. If the clock never did behave itself any better, you are right in this: but perhaps you are too hasty in finding fault with the maker; he may not altogether deserve the blame. Let us just open the door of the case, and peep at the inner workmanship, and see whether we can not discover some cause for the irregular performance.

What is this? As soon as I open this little door I stumble upon something that looks rather suspicious; it is a quantity of light flue, and hair, and dust, mingled together. The clockmaker never put that into the case. Then, observe how every wheel and pinion is soiled with dirt, and every crevice and corner is choked up with filth. It really would be a very wonderful thing if the wheels did move regularly. The secret of the bad working of your clock is, simply, that you have not known how to take care of it, and use it fairly. I dare say it went very well when it was turned out of its maker’s hands, but he never meant it to be in the state in which it now is. You must send it back to him, and get him to clean the works and oil the wheels, and then you must try whether you can not prevent it from getting into such sad disorder again.

Now, your neighbor yonder with his aches and pains and his sickness, are you sure that he is not in very much the same predicament as this clock? If we could look into the works of his body, are you confident that we should not find them choked up and uncared for, instead of being in the condition in which they were intended to be? His aches and pains, are they not the grating and complaining of deranged and clogged machinery? I am quite aware that sick people generally are not sensible of having allowed anything to come near to their bodies which they ought to have kept away. But neither did you know that dirt was getting to the works of your clock, although we discovered it there in such plenty. The dust and dirt which collected there, first flew about in the air, scattered so thinly and lightly that you could not see them. So, too, other things which you can not see may have been floating in great abundance around you, some of them being to the living frame what dirt and dust are to clockwork. That there are such invisible things floating around living creatures, and that some of these clog and derange the working of their frames, I think I shall have no difficulty in showing you. I hope I shall also be able to point out to you, that many of them may be discovered, although they can not be seen, and may be driven away or avoided.

That wonderful object which you call your _body_, is actually a machine like the clock, contrived and put together for a certain service. It has for its works, muscles and bones, and blood vessels and nerves. These works have been most beautifully fitted and adjusted: indeed, they are the workmanship of a skill which can not fail. The maker of your body is the great and unerring Power, who has also made all the rest of creation. It is God.