AMONG BOOKS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, 7 June 1909, Page 1

AMONG BOOKS.

None of us are infallible, not even the youngest. — Benjamin Jowett. I have never yet met an engineer from whom I have not been able to learn something. — Sir William White. England will never be conquered by a European Power while the colonies stand part- and parcel of the Empire. — Sir James Hulett. With the passing of the years, the decay of strength, the loss of all my old, personal habits, there grows more and more upon me that belief in the kindness of the scheme of things, which is nn excellent and pacifying compensation. — Robert Louis Stevenson. Sir William Gilbert is the on c Englishman living who at all knows exactly what a comic opera libretto should really be. He alone seems able to combine a well-knit story without once venturing over th© border which separates good taste from vulgarity. — "Tatler." To speak paradoxically, the existence of insignificant people has very important consequences in the world. It can be shown to affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many evil tempers from the selfish and many heroisms from the sympathetic, and in other ways to play no small part in the tragedy of life.— George Eliot. The Japanese "way of loyalty" — "bushido" is the modern name — is i.'ie great national asset; it has made Japan a world-Power, and will carry her very fas unless countervailing evils, and such there are at least in posse, should hinder. It goes through all classes; it glorifies all occupations. As Miton ?a : d ihat "they also serve who only stand ;:nd wait," so the young Japanese fer-1 that they can be patriots anywhere. — "Spectator." As airships can only be met successfully, by airships, it 'follows that Biitain cannot be content to lag behind other.. Powers in creating an aerial' fjorce. The wise course is for us lo iei to. work at once and ourselves improve the still imperfect engines of the rir. The time may not be far distant wiien a supply of powerful airships and aeroplanes will be as invaluable an asset as strong squadrons of Dreadnoughts. "Mail." The nagging woman is an overtaxed creature with jarred nerves, whose plaint is an expression of pain a cry for help; in any interval of ease which lasts long enough to relax the tension she feels remorse, and becomes amiably anxious f 0 atone. With the male nag it is different. He is usually I seek and smiling, fond of good living whose self.satis/faction bubbles o'.er in artistic attempts to make everyone else uncomfortable, — SaTah Grand, It is not hard to understand why im. mortal aliens like Percy Bysshe Shelley and Francis Thompson are never at home, never at rest, never at ease in England. Their gods are not our gods, and their dreams are not our dreams' We worship money. Poetry does not disturb us. for we have no uncommercial imagination, I fear we aro vul_ gar in our attitude to literature. She is a poor relation and we patronise Tier. Happily literature is independent proud self-sufficing. She does not care for the things we care for, and now and then she makes our ear 3 tingle with her nnobstriisive con. tempt, — James Douglas. The English revival of religion. .19 represented by Newman and the Trae. l.'U'ians, wfis something of a compromise and tlie Victorian development in poetry followed a similar course be. twppn the almost hierarchic seriousness of Tennyson, with his sense of a mis. sion, and the wistful disbelief of Arnold and Clough. Similarly in fiction, a." between the unschooled humanity of Dickens and the sentimental reticence of Thackeray, we find a popular mien m masterpieces like "Adam Bede, " "Westward Ho!" "Lorna Doone/' and "The Cloister and the Hearth'" r-rifih working out a vein of philanthropic service, and drawing its hero from various 1 strata in that middle class which in itself is compromise in a social and organic form. — "Pall Mall Gazette." ~-:*~^'- Rough and imperfect as the Wright aeroplane is. it has not only been able to make flights of about 100 miles at the speed of an ordinary passenger train, remaining in the air over two hours at a time. Dut in addition to the -weight of driver, motor, and petrol, it has carried a load of 2501 b. Clearly, then, we may count on a larger and improved aeroplane being capable of carrying a much heavier load, "At the present rate of progress," so sars Sir Hiram Maxim, "we shall certainiy have machines inside of a few years that will travel at tho rate of 60 miles nn hour aud be able to carry a load of 15001 b." And he adds that a thousand of such machines could certainly be built for less than the cost of one Dreadnought. — "Economist,"