Evening at Home 48

Evening at Home 48

TRUE HEROISM.

 

 

You have read, my Edmund, the stories of Achilles, and Alexander, and

Charles of Sweden, and have, I doubt not, admired the high courage which

seemed to set them above all sensations of fear, and rendered them

capable of the most extraordinary actions. The world called these men

_heroes_; but before we give them that noble appellation, let us

consider what were the motives which animated them to act and suffer as

they did.

 

The first was a ferocious savage, governed by the passions of anger and

revenge, in gratifying which he disregarded all impulses of duty and

humanity. The second was intoxicated with the love of glory—swollen with

absurd pride—and enslaved by dissolute pleasures; and in pursuit of

these objects he reckoned the blood of millions as of no account. The

third was unfeeling, obstinate, and tyrannical, and preferred ruining

his country, and sacrificing all his faithful followers, to the

humiliation of giving up any of his mad projects. _Self_, you see, was

the spring of all their conduct; and a selfish man can never be a hero.

I will give you two examples of genuine heroism, one shown in acting,

the other in suffering; and these shall be _true stories_, which is

perhaps more than can be said of half that is recorded of Achilles and

Alexander.

 

You have probably heard something of Mr. Howard, the reformer of

prisons, to whom a monument is erected in St. Paul’s church. His whole

life almost was heroism; for he confronted all sorts of dangers with the

sole view of relieving the miseries of his fellow-creatures. When he

began to examine the state of prisons, scarcely any in the country were

free from a very fatal and infectious distemper called the jail fever.

Wherever he heard of it, he made a point of seeing the poor sufferers,

and often went down into their dungeons, when the keepers themselves

would not accompany him. He travelled several times over almost the

whole of Europe, and even into Asia, in order to gain knowledge of the

state of prisons and hospitals, and point out means for lessening the

calamities that prevail in them. He even went into countries where the

plague was, that he might learn the best methods of treating that

terrible contagious disease; and he voluntarily exposed himself to

perform a strict quarantine, as one suspected of having the infection of

the plague, only that he might be thoroughly acquainted with the methods

used for prevention. He at length died of a fever caught in attending on

the sick on the borders of Crim Tartary, honoured and admired by all

Europe, after having greatly contributed to enlighten his own and many

other countries with respect to some of the most important objects of

humanity. Such was _Howard the good_; as great a hero in preserving

mankind, as some of the false heroes above mentioned were in destroying

them.

 

My second hero is a much humbler, but not less genuine one.

 

There was a journeyman bricklayer in this town—an able workman, but a

very drunken idle fellow, who spent at the alehouse almost all he

earned, and left his wife and children to shift for themselves as they

could. This is, unfortunately, a common case; and of all the tyranny and

cruelty exercised in the world, I believe that of bad husbands and

fathers is by much the most frequent and the worst.

 

The family might have starved, but for his eldest son, whom from a child

the father brought up to help him in his work; and who was so

industrious and attentive, that being now at the age of thirteen or

fourteen, he was able to earn pretty good wages, every farthing of

which, that he could keep out of his father’s hands, he brought to his

mother. And when his brute of a father came home drunk, cursing and

swearing, and in such an ill humour, that his mother and the rest of the

children durst not come near him for fear of a beating, this good lad

(Tom was his name) kept near him, to pacify him, and get him quietly to

bed. His mother, therefore, justly looked upon Tom as the support of the

family, and loved him dearly.

 

It chanced that one day Tom, in climbing up a high ladder with a load of

mortar on his head, missed his hold, and fell down to the bottom on a

heap of bricks and rubbish. The bystanders ran up to him, and found him

all bloody, and with his thigh broken and bent quite under him. They

raised him up, and sprinkled water on his face to recover him from a

swoon into which he had fallen. As soon as he could speak, looking

round, with a lamentable tone he cried, “O, what will become of my poor

mother!”

 

He was carried home, I was present while the surgeon set his thigh. His

mother was hanging over him half distracted: “Don’t cry, mother!” said

he, “I shall get well again in time.” Not a word more or a groan escaped

him while the operation lasted.

 

Tom was a ragged boy that could not read or write—yet Tom has always

stood on my list of heroes.

 

[Illustration:

 

The Female Choice, p. 232.

 

EVENING XIX.

]

 

 

 

 

ON METALS.

PART 1.

 

 

George and Harry, with their tutor, one day in their walk, were driven

by the rain to take shelter in a blacksmith’s shop; and the shower

lasting some time, the boys, in order to amuse themselves, began to

examine the things around them. The great bellows first attracted their

notice, and they admired the roaring it made, and the expedition with

which it raised the fire to a heat too intense for them to look at. They

were surprised at the dexterity with which the smith fashioned a bar of

iron into a horseshoe; first heating it, then hammering it well on the

anvil, cutting off a proper length, bending it round, turning up the

ends, and lastly, punching the nail-holes. They watched the whole

process of fitting it to the horse’s foot, and fastening it on; and it

had become fair some minutes before they showed a desire to leave the

shop and proceed on their walk.

 

“I should never have thought,” says George, beginning the conversation,

“that such a hard thing as iron could have been so easily managed.”

 

“Nor I neither,” said Harry.

 

_Tut._ It was managed, you saw, by the help of fire. The fire made it

soft and flexible, so that the smith could easily hammer it, and cut it,

and bend it to the shape he wanted; and then dipping it in the water

made it hard again.

 

_Geo._ Are all other metals managed in the same manner?

 

_Tut._ They are all worked by the help of fire in some way or other,

either in melting them, or making them soft.

 

_Geo._ There are a good many sorts of metals, are there not?

 

_Tut._ Yes, several; and if you have a mind I will tell you about them,

and their uses.

 

_Geo._ Pray do, sir.

 

_Har._ Yes; I should like to hear it of all things.

 

_Tut._ Well, then. First, let us consider what a metal is. Do you think

you should know one from a stone?

 

_Geo._ A stone!—Yes, I could not mistake a piece of lead or iron for a

stone.

 

_Tut._ How would you distinguish it?

 

_Geo._ A metal is bright and shining.

 

_Tut._ True—brilliance is one of their qualities. But glass and crystal

are very bright, too.

 

_Har._ But one may see through glass, and not through a piece of metal.

 

_Tut._ Right. Metals are brilliant, but opaque, or not transparent. The

thinnest plate of metal that can be made will keep out the light as

effectually as a stone-wall.

 

_Geo._ Metals are very heavy, too.

 

_Tut._ True. They are the heaviest bodies in nature; for the lightest

metal is nearly twice as heavy as the heaviest stone. Well, what else?

 

_Geo._ Why, they will bear beating with a hammer, which a stone would

not, without flying in pieces.

 

_Tut._ Yes: that property of extending or spreading under the hammer, is

called _malleability_; and another, like it, is that of bearing to be

drawn out into a wire, which is called _ductility_. Metals have both

these, and much of their use depends upon them.

 

_Geo._ Metals will melt, too.

 

_Har._ What! will iron melt?

 

_Tut._ Yes; all metals will melt, though some require greater heat than

others. The property of melting is called _fusibility_. Do you know

anything more about them?

 

_Geo._ No; except that they come out of the ground, I believe.

 

_Tut._ That is properly added, for it is this circumstance which makes

them rank among _fossils_, or minerals. To sum up their character, then,

a metal is a brilliant, opaque, heavy, malleable, ductile, and fusible

mineral.

 

_Geo._ I think I can hardly remember all that.

 

_Tut._ The _names_ may slip your memory, but you cannot see metals at

all used, without being sensible of the _things_.

 

_Geo._ But what are _ores_? I remember seeing a heap of iron ore which

men were breaking with hammers, and it looked only like stones.