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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
SOME CHEERING ASPECTS OF MORTALITY.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
ELECTRICITY FOR NOTHING!
TERRIBLY FULFILLED.
LIFEBOAT COMPETITION.
IN QUEER COMPANY.
SOME INSTANCES OF EASTERN TRADING.
‘JERRY-BUILDING’ IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
JULY.
No. 29.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1884.
SOME CHEERING ASPECTS OFMORTALITY.
When eminent men die, we are accustomed tosay that the world has lost something; that theircountry or party is poorer; that none are left tofill their place, and other such expressions. Butvery seldom do we hear it said that the worldgains when great men die; yet we have nohesitation in saying that the world often gainsmore by the death of leading men than it woulddo by their living indefinitely, or even muchbeyond ‘the allotted span.’ Again, it is not ourcustom to look forward to the day of our owndeath as a gain either to ourselves or the world.We somehow think that no one could exactly fillour shoes or act the part we have done; but asa matter of fact, our shoes may be better filledand our part better acted by the generation whichfollows. This fact ought to humble us a bit;and perhaps we need humbling, for there isjust the trace of a tendency among moderns tounderrate the men who have immediately precededthem, or who may be going off the farend of the stage as we take our places at thenear.
Noble lives have often been spent to littlepurpose so far as their contemporaries were concerned.The fact is, ‘No man is a hero to hisvalet,’ nor is any man ‘a prophet in his owncountry;’ and as ‘distance lends enchantment tothe view,’ it is only when the world’s best menhave been hid from sight in the greedy grave,that their influence has been felt in all its power.We are apt to hold even the oldest and bestof our contemporaries in light esteem; but wereverence the ancients. Nay, many of earth’snoblest sons have been bitterly blamed, and heldup to scorn and derision in their lifetime; andnot till death stepped in and took them away,did the world discover its mistake.
A poor shoemaker rises while others sleep, andsearches among the wayside weeds of his nativelanes, his only inspiration being his thirst forknowledge, and the joy of adding a few plants tothe known flora of his native land. His nei