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4 weaker nature on a stronger was not the bond that united brother and sister in a lifelong devotion to science and to each other. There was something more noble. They were the two members of the family in whom genius and perseverance united to overcome difficulties. None of the others possessed equal genius; none of them were gifted with the same perseverance. What these two undertook they did with intense affection for each other, and with a determination not to be baffled, where others could not be blamed had they submitted to defeat. The other members of the family that enter into the story of the lives of these two were, the elder brother, Jacob, and the younger, Alexander; the one nearly four years older than William, and the other seven years younger. Flighty, vain, selfish, and uncertain, Jacob was a specimen of what the eldest brother in a family should not be, but is frequently allowed to become by indulgent and foolish parents. Of such inferior capacity to William that the latter mastered their French lessons in half the time taken by Jacob, he had the power of creating unhappiness by starting difficulties at everything that was done for him; by selfishly insisting on travelling comfortably by post, while his father, with an impaired constitution, and his brother William, a fast-growing and delicate lad, were content, for economy's sake, to trudge the weary miles homeward on foot; by whipping his little sister, sixteen years younger than himself, because, in her awkwardness, she did not come up to his lordly ideas of what a tablemaid should be to a man of his standing; by his bad humour when his beefsteak was hard, or because Caroline could not use brick-dust in cleaning the little