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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1879)
8 tillANINtt. VOti. Vttt, i ' t" vi5Bffl VW6 tasto lor good rending and a demand fol 'lows for works that show deep thought Tho progress of a nation enn bo well traced by referring to tho literature in circulation among the middle classes The write is an inventor of tho highest order. He and Ii is brother worker are both engaged to bring systematic sue. cess out of minute parts. The author has ideas which he shapes into attractive forms and so produces books. The ordi nary inventor has odds and ends of materi al substances from which he will produce machines. Euclid invented geometrical demonstrations; and Archimedes, his forms of the Mechanical Powers. Now why is tho one more of an inventor than the other? The aim and ambition of the author is greater Hum that of his hopeful but. infer ior brother, and he has to pas through many vicissitudes of fortune before he can bo at all suro of success. Of course tho ordinary inventor may not succeed at first but tho world will much more ad mire an inferior work from his hands than it will a most elegant and finished book full of ideas that should mauc man. kind happier, and further civilization Authors theorize and the lower class of laborers carry out tho plans that their for tile brains have conceived. History tells us that the improvement in tho agricultural department of Italy can bo traced to tho suggestions of the Georgics in Virgil. No one can estimate the value of books as regards our prog, ress in agriculture, enabling us to guard against the errors of former times and improve upon their state of society. Tho world lias not appreciated real talent, but has allowed authors, of now world-wide celebrity, to die in poverty, their funerals attended but by a few real friends, or worse yet by hired menials. Compare tho works of Carlylo with those of Emmcrson; one is like an orator ot fire giving no heed to tho rules laid down to guide a writer of essays. Tho other is all system, and clothes his thoughts in language that no critic can at tack. They succeed ouch in his own stylo and are read with great interest by all, though they are direcly opposite. As one author says, "Carlylo makes the better ac tors and Emmcrson the belter Hi inkers ; tho one unites too spontaneously, and tho other thinks too spontaneously.'' Give authors their duo Tor they have been tho ones to whom wo have owed our advancement since time immemorial. SlMIYNX. UHANINE. This is the most recently discovered, and perhaps the most remarkable, of ail the coal tar or aniline group of coloring substances, now so extensively used for tho adornment of the finest fabrics. Ura nine is said, by chemists, to bo tho most highly fluorescent body known to science. Its coloring power is astonishing; a single grain will impart a marked color to new ly a hundred gallons of water. A most interesting experiment, which anybody may try, consists in sprinkling a few atoms of Uranino upon tho surface of water in a glass tumbler. Each atom im mediately sends down through the water what appears to bo a bright green rootlet; and the tumbler soon looks as if it were crowded full of beautiful plants. The rootlets now begin to enlarge, spread and combine, until we have a mass of soft green-colored liquid. Viewed by transmit ted light, tho color changes to bright gold en or amber hue; while a combination of green and gold will be realized, accord ing to the position in which the glass is held. For day or evening experiment nothing can bo prettier than these trial j of Uranine, which are eseci.-vlly entertain ing for tho young folks. Selected. The best way for a man to get out of a lowly position is to bo conspicuously of fective in it: Jno. Hall.