Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 422», страница 7

THE TURN OF LIFE

From forty to sixty, a man who has properly regulated himself, may be considered as in the prime of life. His matured strength of constitution renders him almost impervious to the attacks of disease, and experience has given his judgment the soundness of almost infallibility. His mind is resolute, firm, and equal; all his functions are in the highest order; he assumes the mastery over business; builds up a competence on the foundation he has formed in early manhood, and passes through a period of life attended by many gratifications. Having gone a year or two past sixty, he arrives at a critical period in the road of existence; the river of death flows before him, and he remains at a stand-still. But athwart this river is a viaduct, called 'The turn of Life,' which, if crossed in safety, leads to the valley, 'Old Age.' The bridge is constructed of fragile materials, and it depends upon how it is trodden whether it bend or break. Gout, apoplexy, and other bad characters are also in the vicinity to waylay the traveller, and thrust him from the pass; but let him gird up his loins, and provide himself with a fitting staff, and he may trudge on in safety with perfect composure. To quit a metaphor, the 'Turn of Life' is a turn either into a prolonged walk or into the grave. The system and power having reached their utmost expansion, now begin either to close like flowers at sunset, or break down at once. One injudicious stimulant—a single fatal excitement, may force it beyond its strength—whilst a careful supply of props, and the withdrawal of all that tends to force a plant, will sustain it in beauty and in vigour until night has entirely set.—The Science of Life, by a Physician.

NERVE

An Indian sword-player declared at a great public festival, that he could cleave, vertically, a small lime laid on a man's palm without injury to the member; and the general (Sir Charles Napier) extended his right hand for the trial. The sword-player, awed by his rank, was reluctant, and cut the fruit horizontally. Being urged to fulfil his boast, he examined the palm, said it was not one to be experimented on with safety, and refused to proceed. The general then extended his left hand, which was admitted to be suitable in form; yet the Indian still declined the trial; and when pressed, twice waved his thin, keen-edged blade, as if to strike, and twice withheld the blow, declaring he was uncertain of success. Finally, he was forced to make trial, and the lime fell open, cleanly divided: the edge of the sword had just marked its passage over the skin without drawing a drop of blood!—Sir Charles Napier's Administration in Scinde.

WIRE USED IN EMBROIDERY

In the manufacture of embroidery fine threads of silver gilt are used. To produce these, a bar of silver, weighing 180 ounces, is gilt with an ounce of gold; this bar is then wire-drawn until it is reduced to a thread so fine that 3400 feet of it weigh less than an ounce. It is then flattened by being submitted to a severe pressure between rollers, in which process its length is increased to 4000 feet. Each foot of the flattened wire weighs, therefore, the 4000th part of an ounce. But as in the processes of wire-drawing and rolling the proportion of the two metals is maintained, the gold which covers the surface of the fine thread thus produced consists only of the 180th part of its whole weight. Therefore the gold which covers one foot is only the 720,000th part of an ounce, and consequently the gold which covers an inch will be the 8,640,000th part of an ounce. If this inch be again divided into 100 equal parts, each part will be distinctly visible without the aid of a microscope, and yet the gold which covers such visible part will be only the 864,000,000th part of an ounce. But we need not stop even here. This portion of the wire may be viewed through a microscope which magnifies 500 times; and by these means, therefore, its 500th part will become visible.—Lardner's Handbook.

CHEAP LIVING

In the interior of Bulgaria and Upper Moesia, the low price of provision and cattle of every description is almost fabulous compared with the prices of Western Europe. A fat sheep or lamb usually costs from 1s. 6d. to 2s.; an ox, 40s.; cows, 30s.; and a horse, in the best possible travelling condition, from L.4 to L.5 sterling; wool, hides, tallow, wax, and honey, are equally low. In the towns and hans by the road-side everything is sold by weight: you can get a pound of meat for a halfpenny, a pound of bread for the same, and wine, which is also sold by weight, costs about the same money. In Servia, pigs everywhere form the staple commodity of the country. I have seen some that, would weigh from 150 lbs. to 200 lbs. or more offered for sale at 300 Turkish piastres the dozen; in the neighbourhood of the Danube they fetch a little more. The expense of keeping these animals in a country abounding with forests being so trifling, and the prospect of gain to the proprietor so certain, we cannot wonder that no landowner is without them, and that they constitute the richest class in the principality. In fact, pig-jobbers are here men of the highest rank: the prince, his ministers, civil and military governors, are all engaged in this lucrative traffic.—Spencer's Travels.

MOUNTAINS IN SNOW

 
Cold—oh, deathly cold—and silent, lie the white hills 'neath
the sky,
Like a soul whom fate has covered with thy snows, Adversity!
Not a sough of wind comes moaning; the same outline, high and
bare,
As in pleasant days of summer, rises in the murky air.
 
 
Very quiet—very silent—whether shines the mocking sun
Through the wintry blue, or lowering drift the feathery
snow-clouds dun:
Always quiet, always silent, be it night or be it day,
With that pale shroud coldly lying where the heather-blossoms lay.
 
 
Can they be the very mountains that we looked at, you and I?
One long wavy line of purple painted on the sunset sky;
With the new moon's edge just touching that dark rim, like
dancer's foot,
Or young Dian's, on the hill-side for Endymion waiting mute.
 
 
O how golden was that even!—O how balm the summer air!
How the bridegroom sky bent loving o'er its earth so virgin fair!
How the earth looked up to heaven like a bride with joy oppressed,
In her thankfulness half-weeping that she was thus overblest!
 
 
Ghostly mountains! 'Silence—silence!' now is aye your soundless
voice,
Lifted in an awful patience o'er the world's uproarious noise;
O'er its jarrings and its greetings—o'er its loving and its
hate—
Silence! Bare thy brows all dumbly to the snows of heaven,
and—wait!'