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assuredly not a Christian , result . We see nothing in our age which induces nf ^ hefieve tb at : a generous , unworldly nature engaging in its public bus * ZZSriUI have unv unusual luck on it * side But what is the " moral , ' ; afte , all ? The exhibition of a fine character is moral enough ; and we should ltke tc know what man would-not take the Colonel ' s nature , and run the Colonel i chance V The artist is bound to make goodness beautiful ; lie is hot bound to make it fortunate . The moral , then , is , that it is good to be generous and true , and noble—a very old story on which nobody can improve . The Colonel ' s character is marked with that light and shade which Thackeray employs in making his figures real Thus , when he is first intro duced to J . J-, " speaks to a butler ' s son as to a private soldier , kindly but not familiarly . " He believes in the men of genius , but he is ready to quiirrel when one of them quizzes the court dress . Thoroughly kindly , he is revengeful against Barnes when he discovers him to be a scoundrel—and yet the revengefulneas { itself a bad passion ) is mixed up with all the good in the man . His politics , agiin , are capital . His character , attue saint time , is happily bonded of what is military and what is peculiarly his own , so that you can discriminate what belongs to him as a soldier from what is simply personal . Perfectly brave to men , he gives in at once before the Campaigner—and this is admirably in keeping . A hundred different traits are marked in him—all naturally going to form the whole , like the lines m a man ' s hand . He has a family likeness to Dobbin , and to Ksmond , and yet the three are distinct impersonations just as Clive is of the same genus as Pettdennis , but keeps his own individuality . Every writer must have a * ' manner ; " no greatness can save him from it ; but only a few can produce creations which , in the likeness , preserve their own peculiarities ox differentia . Fielding observes that people are too hasty in pronouncing characters to be copies , and adds , that every amorous widow on the stage would be said to be stolen from Dido , but that the playhouse critics had not Latin enough to read Virgil . The Colonel is just as good as humanity will allow ; and ( fortunately for the utility of his example ) he does not go beyond that bound . His rage at Barnes when ha brandishes the bamboo—his prejudices—his wild political v j ew 8 _ h ; s rashness in that unhappy B . B . C . —these are to his beautiful natural character what shade and variety are to a beautiful face . He offers a notable specimen of Thackeray ' s independence t > f his own creations . Many <* ifted men create characters —and probable ones—and then allow themselves to be run off with by the work of their own hands . But no affection makes our author indifferent to the great cause of nature and truth . The Colonel must be angry ; and Ethel must be worldly—and yet both characters are good » t bottom . Ethel has a kind of likeness to the brilliant Beatrix in Esmond , and still is a separate person . She would have preferred the Duke of Hamilton to Esmond—but she is a better woman uu fond . Would she have married Farintosh , if old Lady Kew had not died ? We don ' t undertake to say that she would . Thackeray loves to leave certain matters in mystery about character—as if recognising that " mystery of a Person "* which , after all , makes the complete understanding of any human being impossible . To be sure , Lady Kew ( whose descent from the noble house of Gaunt is unquestionable ) died very apropos . Let us leave the question ( like one in Vanity Fairy connected with the detention of Rawdon in the sponging-house ) unsettled . But it was very bad of Ethel to throw over Kew for the s . ike of Clive , and yet to be willing to marry Farintosh . The position , however , was no simple one , but hig hly complex , like the positions with which it is Thackeray ' s forte to deal . The good and the bad of her character played into one another ; and her feeling for her family ' s wishes and interests was a pare of the influence by which she strove to reconcile herself to marrying the feather-headed , vicious marquis . It was quite natural that a nature so ox > od aufond as hers , should require a really god pretext to help her to do , tvhat , while hankering after splendour , she felt to be wrong . Beatrix would have based herself on the hard , strong basis of the enormous social force of worldlinesa—and taunted and defied love and generosity . Ethel could not so wring her high heart or that of any other person . She was splendid in her weakness like a queen . I his justifies thc _ Iittle stroke of fortune by which the novelist makes the old Lady Kew die at the right time ; after all , old women must die , and occasionally do die just at the right moment . There is much ingenuity in the way in which the punishment of oneworldly marriage ( that of Lady Ch . ua ) becomes an occasion of the moral discipline of Ethel , who has just escaped one herself . It is probable and convenient ; and when we remember tliat her natural goodness has been dwelt on from the first , her reformation through sisterl y and charitable offices is quite legitimate , and not like one of those stupid " conversions" which outrage and defy Nature , and ho are useless for moral purposes . —* " With regard to Barnes — the unworthy brother of this best of all Thackeray ' s women—we consider him the very bust character as a study that the author has yet produced . He is a humbug , and scoundrel , like Blilil . He is a hypocrite . But he is one of those unconscious humbugs — quite distinct from the villain of common novels —who never suspects that > Jie is a humbug , or designs to be a hypocrite . He is as naturally bud as a snake , which , no doubt , looks after the little snakes , and has no consciousness > thut it is the enemy of mankind . Now , your regular dramatic bud man knows be is Jiostis humani generis , and glories in it . The charm of Barnes and the reality of him is * his complete , self possessed selfishness , cruelty , greediness , worldliness , &c , &c . —all existing in him as naturally as berries in nightshade . He a rascal ! Why , he would not be angry if you told him so—or , at least , he would think you a fool , lie ia like anybody else—like any other gentleman . What would you have P Suoh . creations ae this are valuable studies of the century , and when a philosophical historian by-tind-by investigates our history , he will turn to Barnes as a specimen of the worldly young man , and derive much insight into ¦ onr age from him . A certain d ; um and iill'octation—at the worst , a certain flow of animal spirits—distinguished the youth of the same class in former days ; or , if not , ho showed some theatrical hypocrisy , and paid hia " homage "
, i that way . But here we have a perfectly unaffected class of godless and graceless young humb ugs , who have no idea that there is anything wrong , or - that they are anything but good enough young fellows as the times go . No > writer of our age has given us a character so suggestive , or so peculiarly ? modern . I The minor persnnce are so numerous that we must take them up in spoon-, fuls , like white-bait . Honeyman , K . B . James Binnie , are all real , very clever portraits - F . B . a little too much Like a character in a farce , peri haps . Miss Honeyman , of Brighton , whose favourite English word is . " gentle-woman , " has always seemed to us one of the most natural and ' amusing persons in the book . ' 1 he Campaigner , whose vivid , pushing , i showy character— ( full of animal spirits , and a hollow good nature—t he mere . result of them)—is amusing in her prosperous days , becomes in the dark [ times so admirably painted at the close of the book—a terrible hag . Clive [ never falls below nor rises above one set line of personal merit . Rosa is a > pretty little apparition , whose destiny connects her with a set of persons to whom she is by no means equal . She is a capital specimen of a light , i pretty , shallow nature—wanting depth in every way—floating like a sparkling ! bubble on the surface of the story . But all this variety of persons has a ; distinct bearing on the whole plan . They all serve to show the characters , and to vary and influence the fortunes of the Newcome Family . Our sympathies throughout are with the generous side , while the worldly side is allowed that prominence , and that importance , which belong to it in our social system . It may not be too minute to remark a little fact which might ' otherwise escape notice ; that the good Colonel and his son derive from the marriage which the first Newcome made for love ; while the bankers come from the second one , which he made for money . Ail that is most blameless and beautiful is associated with the Good Cause 5 and to the colonel ' s tirat love disappointment we owe the presence throughout the tale of that family of Florae which never appears but to touch or to amuse us . For the style - the flowing accompaniment of witty and pathetic wisdomthese have all the charm which belong to Thackeray ' s novels , and which ranks them as mere table-talk among the first productions of the belles-lettres of Europe . The gond , worldly sense— the manly humour—the delicate-and polite irony—the rare but apt illustrations—these are attractions of the book even independent of its characters and its narrative . Everything breathes of experience and of accomplishment ; everywhere we are in the company of the gentleman by culture and by traditions .
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ARAGO ON THUNDER AND LIGHTNING . Meteorological Essays . By Francis Arago . With an Introduction by Baron Alexander von Humboldt . Translated under the superintendence of Colonel Sabine . Longman and Co . This is the first volume of the very handsome edition of Arago ' s works which Messrs . Longman are to issue u uler the superintendence of men like -Colonel Sabine , Professor Baden Powell , Admiral J-myth , and Mr . Kobert Grant . The celebrated Frenchman , therefore , will appear in authentic shape , which in these days of slap-dash translation , at a few shillings a sheet , i s no inconsiderable advantage . The present volume , which is very entertaining as well as seriously scientific , is principally devoted to Thunder and Lightning . It also contains essays on Electro-Magnetism , \ nimal Electricity , and the Aurora Bureaus . ; although upon what principles of scientific classification the two former subjects are included under Meteorological Essays we are utterly at a loss to divine . Let us be thankful for wiiat is given us , without criticism of classification . M . Ara «» -o has taken immense pains to collect the various observations recorded in * books and journals , in order to have at least the principal facts known about Thunder ' and Lightning present to our minds , in the absence ot any satis actory laws . For familiar as the meteorological phenomena are , ? the laws which regulate them defy our detection . The immense mass of ; facts accumulated on the subject of the weather suffices to show how powerless are facts alone to constitute scientific knowledge . We are in respect of the weather in a condition analogous to that of the Chal . lean , shepherds in respect of astronomy . We want the elementary laws ; we want the elementary generalisations which may lead to the detection of laws . For example , Franklin thought himself justified in generalising the phenomena of thunder and lightning so as to assert the two requisite conditions for their production to be —1 st , that the cloud must be lar ^ e ; 2 nd , that there must be small clouds interposed between its under surface and the earth . If this generalisation were without exception , it would constitute a static law ; and all meteorologists assert it to be without exception . Unhappily , M . Arago has discovered the records of four distinct well-attested , instances in which lig htning was scon to dart from a very small clou . J , the sky beiiv * perfectly clear ; so thait Franklin ' s generalisation becomes only a generalisation . Another generalisation has not been contradicted , namely , that lightning does noL issue frour smoky clouds ,, i . c , those strata of cloud which are uniform in composition and regular in their surface . But perhaps the reader would like to know what the thundercloud m , and how he ia to recognise it ; and for this wo will borrow M . Arago ' a description : — THIS THUNJDHR-OLOUP . When in calm weuthor wo see that there begin to riao Bomowhat rapidly , at sonic point of tho horizon , very dense clouds , resembling houpod-up masses of cotton , torminated by a great number of well-donned rounded contours , almost us sharply marked as would bo the Bummits of dome-Bhaped mountains covered with anow ; when theao clouds appear as it were to expand or swell out , diminishing in nurn 00 as they increase in size ; when , notwithstanding all these changes of form . "W main constantly attached to thoir ilrot buso ; and finally , when these ° ouloi * n , wo c at first were so numerous and ho diatinct , have gradually melted into coo . " ^^ completely , that tho whole present . * tho aspect of only one siiitf lo olouu , 1 " ° ' ing to Beccaria , wo may announce with certainty tho aW ^ ac' . of W" * nu J . lt |< m To these preliminary phenomena there Buoceods , fltill on tlio non *> , ^ QluUilH of a very dark cloud which seonu . to touoh tho earth " 1 conn " ; , A , t (> tuo higher which have ji « t beon described . Tho dark tint , P ^ f ^ fS ^ e ttta l surface , clouds ; and it is worthy of remark that it is at this stago that tuuir gonora
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* Oatflyle .
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 8, 1855, page 871, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2105/page/19/
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