Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

IS THE PLANET JUPITER INHABITED?

She used to give him her opinion as jugglers do a card, by changing it imperceptibly, and making him believe he held the same with that he first pitched upon. But that which made these tête-à-têtes seem heaviest was that he neither liked reading nor being read to-unless it was to sleep: she was forced, like a spider, to spin out of her own bowels all the conversation with which the fly was taken. However, to all this she submitted, for the sake of power, and for the reputation of having it; for the vanity of being thought to possess what she desired was equal to the pleasure of the possession itself. But, either for the appearance or the reality, she knew it was absolutely necessary to have interest in her husband, as she was sensible that interest was the measure by which people would always judge of her power. Her every thought, word, and act therefore tended and was calculated to preserve her influence there; to him she sacrificed her time, for him she mortified her inclination; she looked, spake, and breathed but for him, like a weathercock to every capricious blast of his uncertain temper, and governed him -if such influence so gained can bear the name of government-by being as great a slave to him thus ruled as any other wife could be to a man who ruled her. For all the tedious hours she spent, then, in watch ing him whilst he slept, or the heavier task of entertaining him whilst he was awake, her single consolation was in reflecting she had power, and that people in coffee-houses and ruelles were saying she governed this country, without knowing how dear the government of it cost her.

LORD HERVEY.

25

In studying this subject, persons who have only a superficial knowledge of astronomy, though firmly believing in a plurality of worlds, have felt the force of certain objections, or rather difficulties, which naturally present themselves to the inquirer. The distance of Jupiter from the sun is so great, that the light and heat which he receives from that luminary are supposed to be incapable of sustaining the same animal and vegetable life which exists on the earth. If we consider the heat upon any planet as arising solely from the direct rays of the sun, the cold upon Jupiter must be very intense, and water could not exist upon its surface in a fluid state. Its rivers and its seas must be tracks and fields of ice. But the temperature of a planet depends upon other causes-upon the condition of its atmosphere, and upon the internal heat of its mass. The temperature of our own globe decreases as we rise in the atmosphere and approach the sun, and it increases as we descend into the bowels of the earth and go further from the sun. In the first of these cases, the increase of heat as we approach the surface of the earth from a great height in a balloon, or from the summit of a lofty mountain is produced by its atmo sphere; and in Jupiter the atmosphere may be so formed as to compensate to a certain extent the diminution in the direct heat of the sun arising from the great distance of the planet. In the second case, the internal heat of Jupiter may be such as to keep its rivers and seas in a fluid state, and maintain a temperature sufficiently genial to sustain the same animal and vegetable life which exists upon our own globe. These arrangements, however, if they are required, and have been adopted, cannot contribute to increase the feeble light which

IS THE PLANET JUPITER INHABI. Jupiter receives from the sun; but in so far

TED?

as the purposes of vision are concerned, an enlargement of the pupil of the eye, and an increased sensibility of the retina, would [Sir David Brewster, an eminent natural philoso-be amply sufficient to make the sun's light as brilliant as it is to us. The feeble light reflected from the moons of Jupiter would then be equal to that which we derive from our own, even if we do not adopt the hypothesis, which we shall afterwards have occasion to mention, that a brilliant phosphorescent light may be excited in the satellites by the action of the solar rays. Another difficulty has presented itself, though very unnecessarily, in reference to the shortness of the day in Jupiter. A day of ten hours

pher, writer and inventor. Born in Jedburgh, Scot land, December 11, 1781. He invented the Kaleido scope in 1816, and in 1819 received the Rumford gold and silver medals for his optical discoveries. Among his works are Discoveries in Optics;" "More Worlds than One;" and "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir Isaac Newton." In 1808 he became editor of the “Edinburgh Encyclopædia," and in 1819 he was one of the founders of the " Edinburgh Philosophical Journal." He was knighted in 1832, and in 1849 was chosen one of the eight foreign members of the French Institute. He died February 10, 1868.]

26

DR. ABERFORD AND HIS PRESCRIPTION.

has been supposed insufficient to afford that period of rest which is requisite for the renewal of our physical functions when exhausted with the labours of the day. This objection, however, has no force. Five hours of rest are surely sufficient for five hours of labour; and when the inhabitants of the temperate zone of our own globe reside, as many of them have done, for years in the arctic regions, where the length of the days and nights is so unequal, they have been able to perform their usual functions as well as in their native climates. A difficulty, however, of a more serious kind is presented by the great force of gravity upon so gigantic a planet as Jupiter. The stems of plants, the materials of buildings, the human body itself, would, it is imagined, be crushed by their own enormous weight. This apparently formidable objection will be removed by an accurate calculation of the force of gravity upon Jupiter, or of the relative weight of bodies on its surface. The mass of Jupiter is 1230 times greater than that of the earth, so that if both planets consisted of the same kind of matter, a man weighing 150 pounds on the surface of the earth would weigh 150x1200, or 180,000 pounds, at a distance from Jupiter's centre equal to the earth's radius. But as Jupiter's radius is eleven times greater than that of the earth, the weight of bodies on his surface will be diminished in the ratio of the square of his radius-that is, in the ratio of 11x11, or 121 to 1. Consequently, if we divide 180,000 pounds by 121, we shall have 1487 pounds as the weight of a man of 150 pounds on the surface of Jupiter-that is, less than ten times his weight on the earth. But the matter of Jupiter is much lighter than the matter of our earth, in the ratio of 24 to 100, the numbers which represent the densities of the two planets, so that if we diminish 1487 pounds in the ratio of 24 to 100, or divide it by 4.17, we shall have 312 pounds as the weight of a man on Jupiter, who weighs on the earth only 150 pounds -that is, only double his weight-a difference which actually exists between many individuals on our own planet. A man, therefore, constituted like ourselves, could exist without inconvenience upon Jupiter; and plants, and trees, and buildings, such as occur on our own earth, could grow and stand secure in so far as the force of gravity is concerned.

SIR DAVID BREWSTER.

HYMN OF THE ALAMO.

[When the Mexicans, in 1836, captured the fort of Alamo at San Antonio, the last hope of the Texan defenders was destroyed; but the names of Travis, Crockett and Bowie, who were among the slain, are embalmed in the everlasting admiration of Americans.]

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

DR. ABERFORD AND HIS PRESCRIPTION.

Wofington," a lively, sparkling story of town-life and the theatres a century ago, when Garrick, Quin, and Colley Cibber were their great names. The heroine,

Peg Woffington, was an actress, remarkable for beauty and for her personation of certain characters in comedy. Walpole thought her an "impudent Irish-faced girl,"

but he admitted that "all the town was in love with her." Mr. Reade's second heroine was of a very different stamp. His "Christie Johnstone," 1853, is a tale of fisher-life in Scotland, the scene being laid at Newhaven on the Forth. A young lord, Viscount Ipsden, is advis

ed by his physician, as a cure for ennui and dyspepsia, to make acquaintance with people of low estate, and to learn their ways, their minds, and their troubles. He sails in his yacht to the Forth, accompanied by his valet. He died in 1884.]

[blocks in formation]

The contrast between him and our poor rich friend is almost beyond human language.

Here lay, on the sofa, Ipsden, one of the most distinguished young gentlemen in Europe; a creature incapable, by nature, of a rugged tone or a coarse gesture; a being without the slightest apparent pretension, but refined beyond the wildest dream of dandies. To him, enter Aberford, perspiring and loud. He was one of those globules of human quicksilver one sees now and then, for two seconds; they are in fact, two globules; their head is one, invariably bald, round and glittering; the body is another in activity and shape, totus teres atque rotundus; and in fifty years they live five centuries; Horum Rex Aberford,- of these our Doctor was the chief. He had hardly torn off one glove, and rolled as far as the Chird flower from the door on his Lordship's carpet, before he shouted,

"This is my patient, lolloping in pursuit of health. Your hand," added he. For he was at the sofa long before his Lordship could glide off it.

"Tongue.-Pulse is good.-Breathe in my

face."

"Breathe in your face, Sir! how can I do that?" (with an air of mild doubt.)

27

"By first inhaling, and then exhaling in the direction required, or how can I make acquaintance with your bowels ?" "My bowels!"

"The abdomen, and the greater and lesser intestines. Well never mind, I can get at them another way. Give your heart a slap, $0.- That's your liver. And that's your diaphragm."

His Lordship having found the required spot (some people that I know could not) and slapped it, the Aberford made a circular spring and listened eagerly at his shoulThe result of this scientific der blade. pantomime seemed to be satisfactory, for he exclaimed, not to say bawled :—

66

"Hallo! here is a Viscount as sound as a roach! Now, young gentleman," added he, your organs are superb, yet you are really out of sorts; it follows you have the maladies of idle minds, love perhaps, among the rest; you blush, a diagnostic of that disorder. Make your mind easy; cutaneous disorders, such as love, &c., shall never kill a patient of mine with a stomach like yours. So, now to cure you !" And away went the spherical Doctor, with his hands behind him, not up and down the room, but slanting and tacking, like a knight on a chessboard. He had not made many steps, before, turning his upper globule, without affecting his lower, he hurled back, in a cold, business-like tone, the following interrogatory:

"What are your vices?"

"Saunders," inquired the patient, "which are my vices ?"

"M'Lord, Lordship has n't any vices," replied Saunders, with dull matter-of-fact solemnity.

"Lady Barbara makes the same com. plaint," thought Lord Ipsden.

"It seems I have not any vices, Dr. Aberford," said he, demurely.

"That is bad; nothing to get hold of. What interests you then?" "I don't remember." "What amuses you?" "I forget."

"What! no winning horse, to gallop away your rents ?"

[ocr errors]

No, Sir!

"No Opera Girl, to run her foot and ankle through your purse ?"

"No, Sir! and I think their ankles are not what they were."

"Stuff! just the same, from their ankles up to their ears, and down again to their

28

NEW HAVEN FISHERWOMAN.

morals; it is your eyes that are sunk deeper
into your head. Hum! no horses, no vices,
no dancers, no yacht; you confound one's
notions of nobility, and I ought to know
them, for I have to patch them all up a bit
just before they go to the deuce."
"But I have, Dr. Aberford."
"What!"

“A yacht! and a clipper she is too."
"Ah!-(Now I've got him)."

"In the Bay of Biscay she lay half a point nearer the wind than Lord Heavyjib."

"Oh! bother Lord Heavyjib, and his Bay of Biscay."

"With all my heart, they have often bothered me."

"Send her round to Granton pier, in the Firth of Forth."

"I will, Sir."

"And write down this prescription." And away he walked again, thinking the prescription.

"Saunders," appealed his master. "Saunders be hanged."

"Sir!" said Saunders, with dignity, "I thank you."

"Don't thank me, thank your own deserts," replied the modern Chesterfield. "Oblige me by writing it yourself, my Lord, it is all the bodily exercise you will have had to-day, no doubt."

The young Viscount bowed, seated himself at a desk, and wrote from dictation:

"DR. ABERFORD'S PRESCRIPTION."

"Make acquaintance with all the people of low estate, who have time to be bothered with you; learn their ways, their minds, and above all, their troubles."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

66

"Saunders ! do you know what Dr. Aberford means by the lower classes ?" "Perfectly, my lord." 'Are there any about here ?" "I am sorry to say that they are everywhere, my lord." "Get me some "(cigarette). Out went Saunders, with his usual graceful empressement, but an internal shrug of his shoulders. He was absent an hour and a half; he then returned with a double expression on his face-pride at his success in diving to the bottom of society, and contempt of what he had fished up thence. He approached his lord mysteriously, and said, sotto voce, but impressively; "This is low enough, my lord," Then glided back, and ushered in, with polite disdain, two lovelier women than he had ever opened a door to in the whole course of his perfum. ed existence.

On their heads they wore caps of Dutch or Flemish origin, with a broad lace border, stiffened and arched over the forehead about three inches high, leaving the brow and cheeks unencumbered. They had cotton jackets, bright red and yellow, mixed "You will see. Relieve one fellow-crea--in patterns, confined at the waist by the ture every day, and let Mr. Saunders book the circumstances."

"Won't all this bore me ?" suggested the writer.

"I shall like this part," said the patient, laying down his pen. "How clever of you to think of such things; may not I do two sometimes ?"

[ocr errors][merged small]

apron-strings, but bobtailed below the waist; short woollen petticoats, with broad vertical stripes, red and white most vivid in colour; white worsted stockings, and neat though high-quartered shoes. Under their jackets they wore a thick spotted cotton handkerchief, about one inch of which was visible round the lower part of the throat. Of their petticoats, the outer one was kilted, or gathered up towards the front; and the second, of the same colour, hung in the usual way.

Of these young women, one had an olive complexion, with the red blood mantling under it, and black hair, and glorious black eyebrows. The other was fair, with a mas

THE SHOWMAN'S COURTSHIP.

sive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold; and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that rare beauty.

Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle and a leg with a noble swell; for nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs, and their smoke-like verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. They are, my lads. Continuez! These women

had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset! so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads-actually! Their supple persons moved as nature intended; every gesture was ease, grace, and freedom. What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment.

66

THE SHOWMAN'S COURTSHIP.

["ARTEMUS WARD."]

[blocks in formation]

[CHARLES FARRAR BROWN, who wrote and lectured

under the pseudonym of "Artemus Ward," was born at Waterford, Mo., 1832, died in London, 1867.]

Thare was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her father's farm jined our'n; their cows and our'n squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forreds; the measels broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy's and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin-house, and the nabers used to obsarve, "How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!" It was a surblime site, in the spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy's and mine) with their gowns pin'd up so thay couldn't sile 'em, affecshunitly Bilin sope together & aboozin the nabers.

Altho I hankered intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsunt tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzum. I'd try to do it, but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast African or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old fashioned wheat Flale agin a barn door. 'T was a carm still nite in Joon.

All na

Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said, "How do you do?" and smiled a welcome. Fine, hoow's yoursel?" answered the dark lass, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face. "What'n lord are ye?" continued she. "Are ye a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke." Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, sotto voce, "His lordship is a vis-ter was husht and nary zeffer disturbed the count." "I dinna ken't," was Jean's re- sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on mark; "but it has a bonny soond." "What the fense of her farther's pastur. We'd been mair would ye hae ?" said the fair beauty, romping threw the woods, killin flours & driwhose name was Christie Johnstone. Then vin the woodchuck from his Nativ Lair (so appealing to his lordship as the likeliest to to speak) with long sticks. Wall we sot thar know, she added: "Nobeelity is just a on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, Boond itsel, I'm tauld." The Viscount find- blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool ing himself expected to say something on house when it was fust painted, and lookin a topic he had not attended much to, ans- very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm wered drily: "We must ask the republicans; was ockepied in balinnsin myself on the they are the people that give their minds to fense, while my rite woundid luvinly round such subjects." And yon man," asked her waste. Jean Carnie, "is he a lord, too?" "I am his I cleared my throat and tremblinly sed, lordship's servant," replied Saunders gravely," Betsy, you're a Gazelle." not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just. "Na!" replied she, not to be imposed upon. "Ye are statelier and prooder than this ane." "I will explain," said his master. "Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount."

CHARLES READE.

I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid to see what effeck it would have upon her. It evidently didn't fetch her, for she up and

sed

"You' re a sheep !"

Sez I, "Betsy, I think very muchly of

you."

"I don't b'leeve a word you say-so there

« ForrigeFortsæt »