Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/88

 izing for myself and Estelle an early return from my mental labors in their development and embodiment, lent new strength, suppleness and deftness to my touch, and seemed to make my insight keener, my inventive powers more fertile, more promptly responsive to the demands upon them. Festina lente became my motto. I doubted as I hoped; I criticised relentlessly as I solved method after method, and produced result after result. At each new step I felt the ground firmly before trusting to it; I looked at each production as though it were that of some hated rival whom I had in my power to thrust down, keep down, by savage search for faults and merciless exposure of each weakness in design, construction or operation.

The news of the dramatic death of Brathwaite and some inkling of the facet that he had for so many years been engaged in scientific research, every vestige of result from which was believed to have perished with "the old Professor"—as the journals of the day styled him—had startled the city; and gave three-column stories, spread headed, sub-headed and padded ad nauseam; no two agreeing, save that in all "the fire-fiend" was rampant; "holocaust" and "pyre," "ere-