Entries from July 2004 ↓

The Daredevil, by Maria Thompson Daviess. The adventures of a plucky Franco-Americaine in the State of Harpeth. This is my first complete project, from Copyright Clearance to Scanning to DP Project to Submission. Wow. Heady stuff.

Nat was accustomed, at this period of his life, to carry some book with him for use every spare moment he found. He had a literary pocket into which volume after volume found its way, to remain until its contents were digested. The grammar had its turn in this convenient pocket, and every day was compelled to disclose some of its hidden knowledge. Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a hard-working shoemaker in Stoughton, Mass. Into it he stuffed geography, history, biography, logic, mathematics, and theology, in turn, so that he actually carried more science than change. Napoleon had one, in which he carried the Iliad when he wrote to his mother, “With my sword by my side, and Homer in my pocket, I hope to carve my way through the world.” Hugh Miller had one from which he often drew a profitable work as he was sitting on a stone for a few moments’ rest from his hard toils. Elihu Burritt had one from the time he began to read in the old blacksmith shop until he acquired a literary fame, and on “a grand scale set to working out his destiny at the flaming forge of life.” In writing to a friend, he said, “Those who have been acquainted with my character from my youth up, will give me credit for sincerity when I say, that it never entered into my head to blazon forth any acquisition of my own. All that I have accomplished, or expect, or hope to accomplish, has been, and will be, by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap,–particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if ever I was actuated by ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached no further than the hope to set before the young men of my country an example in employing those invaluable fragments of time, called ‘odd moments.’” He was once an agent for a manufacturing company in Connecticut, and his pocket served him a noble purpose, for it furnished him with a valuable work often, in unfrequented spots, where he would let his horse rest, and spend a few moments in studying by the road-side. The horse soon learned to appreciate the wants of his driver, and would voluntarily stop in certain lonely retreats for him to pursue his studies. Thus pockets that have carried the leanest purses, have often proved the greatest blessing to mankind.

Actor Ludwig, of Berlin, played in a Cologne theater the part of a prosecuting attorney who, in a state of aberration of mind, carries out a burglary. This was a play by Lindau, entitled “The Other.” The actor, after the curtain had fallen, went home, and on the way broke into a jewelry store and carried off a mess of jewelry in exactly the same manner in which the burglary is presented in the play. The courts pronounced the actor not guilty, holding that he had acted under an imperative conception which temporarily had deranged his mind. The prosecutor appealed, but the higher courts sustained the decision of the lower court.

The Chicago Tribune re-states its theory on this subject as follows:

1. The presence of sun spots this year causes an average reduction of about two degrees of Fahrenheit in the amount of heat supplied to the earth by the sun.

2. The necessary effect of this will be a diminished evaporation from the ocean and this will be evident in a lessened rain-fall on the land.

3. About two-fifths of all the heat received by the earth from the sun is carried off by evaporation, 972 degrees of heat being rendered latent in the conversion of water into vapor. With a small rain-fall, very little calorie is carried off in this way, and a much larger proportion of the solar heat than usual is retained in the ground, and remains in the lower strata of the atmosphere. Hence there will be a much greater degree of sensible heat on many parts of the land surface of the earth, as a consequence of a lessened supply to the whole globe.

The deductions, above given as well as those not here stated, have all been accurately verified by the facts–so for it is probable that the writer, who is not a mere dreamer, but has made the physical sciences the subjects of a life study, has made a discovery in this direction, which will be recognized as such by the scientific world. It is probable that he will ere long put the results of his researches in a more permanent form than that of a newspaper column.

If every public-spirited citizen who has grieved over the almost total loss of song birds through the pugnacity of the sparrow would follow the example set by Jack Durney, a downtown youth, it would not be very long before the feathered songsters would return again in full force, says the Philadelphia Record. On the roof of a building in the back yard of the Durney homestead a sparrow trap is erected and is in full swing night and day. Not only are the feathered pests captured by the dozen, but all the friends of the Durney family for squares around will testify to the fact that nothing on earth compares with fat sparrows when cooked in a potpie. The trap is one into which the birds hop to get the grain and bread crumbs plainly in sight. Once inside the birds did not know enough to come out. The sparrows feed more on a cloudy and windy day than on a still, bright day, but no matter what the weather is, it is a poor day when the trap will not yield fifty sparrows. Mr. Durney says he is going to get his trap patented and then induce the legislature to pay so much apiece for dead sparrows. Then he’ll make his trap earn him a fortune.

Essays Æsthetical, by George H. Calvert. Literary criticism, comparative poetry, and mistakes made in English.

A physician in charge of a well-known asylum for the care of the insane recently said: There is one infallible test either for the approach or the presence of lunacy. If the person whose case is being examined is seen to make no use of his thumb, if he lets it stand out a right angles from the hand, and employs it neither in salutation, writing, nor any manual exercise, you may set it down as a fact that that person’s mental balance is gone. He or she may converse intelligibly, may in every respect be guarding the secret of a mind diseased with the utmost care and cunning, but the tell-tale thumb will infallibly betray the lurking madness which is concealed behind a plausible demeanor.

A fiddle improves by age and use; a piano does not, neither does a bell. There is, perhaps a slight improvement for the first few years, but afterwards the quality deteriorates. Metal, we know, is altered, by repeated and long continued hammering. Thump a piece of iron, and you change the quality of its magnetism; the shock of the waves modifies the magnetism of an iron ship; and some of the music is knocked out of a bell by long continued use of the clapper. A peculiar effect is noticed in the bell of Cripplegate Church when it strikes twelve. The first two or three strokes are distinct and clear, then a discord begins, which accumulates with every stroke, until with the eleventh and twelfth a complete double sound is produced.–Chambers’ Journal.