Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/263

Charles Dickens] physico-terrestrial researches recommended by the Académie.

A curious incident, not without precedent, has occurred with relation to the new discovery. It will be remembered that when M. Le Verrier, by mathematical calculation, indicated the place of the still unseen planet Neptune, Mr. Adams, almost simultaneously, by the same means arrived at the same result. In the present case, at the very time when M. Janssen's letter reached France, Mr. Norman Lockyer, while exploring the outskirts of the sun, observed the bright lines which betray a protuberance, and which he found upon the black lines of the ordinary spectrum. Mr. Lockyer was acquainted with the position of the lines of the protuberances indicated by MM. Rayet, Tennant, and Herschell; and he was able, by comparison, to recognise, like M. Janssen, the lines characteristic of the protuberances.

The discovery was made on the 20th of October, communicated to Mr. Balfour Stewart on the 21st, and transmitted on the 23rd to Mr. Warren De la Rue, then in Paris. On the 25th, the Moniteur published M. Janssen's letter. On the 26th, that letter, and also the English letter to Mr. Warren De la Rue, were simultaneously communicated to the Académie des Sciences. The coincidence is singular. The French astronomer, however, while fully admitting the independence of his rival's proceeding, claims, nevertheless, a month's priority in the discovery.

Be it so. Two philosophers working separately, have supplied us with the means of sounding space. We are enabled by the spectroscope to test the nature of objects not only at prodigious distances, but in regions which are absolutely invisible and impenetrable by human eye. And to connect all this with what exists at home, the magic tell-tale has whispered to us that a comet which flitted past us in June, although at an enormous distance, carried about with it volatilised, in its eccentric wanderings through the heavens, the same elements which here lie entombed and imprisoned, though not for ever, in the shape of coal. If it would only crystallise properly and come back to us, it would be the finest diamond that ever was seen. Fancy the discovery of such an islet fallen into the sea, even if not bigger nor taller than the Calf of Man!

is never well for the public interest that the originator of any social reform should be soon forgotten. Further, it is neither wholesome nor right (being neither generous nor just) that the merit of his work should be gradually transferred elsewhere.

Some few weeks ago, our contemporary,, in certain strictures on our Theatres which we are very far indeed from challenging, remarked on the first effectual discouragement of an outrage upon decency which the lobbies and upper-boxes of even our best Theatres habitually paraded within the last twenty or thirty years. From those remarks it might appear as though no such Manager of Covent Garden or Drury Lane as Mr. had ever existed.

It is a fact beyond all possibility of question, that Mr., on assuming the management of Covent Garden Theatre in 1837, did instantly set himself, regardless of precedent and custom down to that hour obtaining, rigidly to suppress this shameful thing, and did rigidly suppress and crush it during his whole management of that theatre, and during his whole subsequent management of Drury Lane. That he did so, as certainly without favour as without fear; that he did so, against his own immediate interests; that he did so, against vexations and oppositions which might have cooled the ardour of a less earnest man, or a less devoted artist; can be better known to no one than the writer of the present words, whose name stands at the head of these pages.

a firmer and more rapid step, Magda recrossed the bridge, and passed under the portcullis once more. She would not return to the parlour. By her desire, Bettine conducted her straight to the tapestried room, which was now flooded with moonlight. She threw the window wide, and then, dismissing Bettine, she knelt down beside the great old-fashioned bed, and prayed—prayed for forgiveness of her many sins, poor little soul!—for courage to meet present trial, whatsoever it might be—for faith that should resist any devil's machination, and strength to overcome temptation. And to this was joined a fervent prayer that "unser Vater" would shield her Albrecht from all evil, and remove that dark and nameless cloud under which he suffered.

She rose and blew out the candles, which flared in the night breeze, and sent flickering shadows upon the tapestry. She did not need them to undress by, for the room was as light as day. She could see the faces of Ahasuerus and Esther in their royal robes on the wall opposite, with the black-bearded Mordecai, and the evil-eyed Haman hanging on the gallows, which last