Part 4

The evidence would seem to indicate that Reason, in the presence of Love, is obliged to descend from her throne, and pay tribute to what has become the dominating motive. When Love takes possession, it subsidises and controls the judgment, tastes, faculties, and inclinations of the individual, and is not to be argued down, even by the subject himself, much less by others. In the words of Addison:

Love is not to be reasoned down, or lost In high ambition, or a thirst of greatness; ’Tis second life—it grows into the soul, Warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

From whatever point of view we approach this theme, we soon encounter what is, perhaps, after all, the most prominent and least dubitable characteristic of love—namely, its far-reaching, all-pervading potency. Bacon, with all his philosophical acumen, is obviously wrong when he describes love as a ‘weak passion;’ indeed, the phrase itself is a contradiction in terms. Voltaire is much more just in his estimate when he says: ‘Love is the strongest of all the passions, because it attacks at once the head, the heart, and the body.’

What Bacon evidently intended to refer to was the weakness, not of the passion, but of the will which could not repel or subdue it. This view is borne out by the context, which is, that ‘great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion.’ This contention, however, is no more tenable than his characterisation. All the evidence goes to prove that love is not to be conquered by great spirits, or smothered by great business, any more than it is to be reasoned down. As the French proverb says: ‘Close the door in Love’s face, and he will leap in at the window;’ and the aphorism is equally applicable to mental and material obstructions. In the same way Shakspeare teaches that ‘stony limits cannot hold love out;’ that ‘the more thou dam’st it up, the more it burns;’ and that ‘Love is your master, for he masters you.’

There is, indeed, no aspect of this passion regarding which so great unanimity prevails as that expressed in those last quotations. It is Scott who declares that

He who stems a stream with sand, And fetters flame with flaxen band, Has yet a harder task to prove, By firm resolve to conquer Love.

Southey, who is convinced that ‘love is indestructible,’ goes so far as to assert that

They sin who tell us Love can die.

If further evidence of the vitality and power of this passion were required, an appeal might be made to the language of Hebrew Scripture, which teaches that ‘Love is strong as death.... Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.’

In view of testimony like this, one might be pardoned for supposing the point in question satisfactorily established. We shall not, however, have proceeded far in the consideration of other phases of the subject, before we shall come upon views which it is by no means easy to reconcile with the above conclusions. Take, for example, the theory that a man or a woman can truly love but once. This would seem to be the natural corollary of the belief that love is indestructible. The argument, of course, is that the love which departs is not love at all. As the old lines run:

Pray, how comes Love? It comes unsought, unsent. Pray, how goes Love? That was not love that went.

Carlyle homologates this view. In _Sartor Resartus_, he says: ‘As your Congreve needs a new case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit but one love, if even one; the “first love which is infinite” can be followed by no second like unto it.’

This is certainly a strong case for the first-and-only-love theory. But let it not be supposed that we shall here miss the inevitable differences of opinion. Among others who raise a strong protest against this view is George Eliot, who believes there is a second love which is greater, because more mature, than the first. ‘How is it,’ she asks, ‘that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, and so few about our later love? Are their first poems the best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deep-rooted affections? The boy’s flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.’ Many other quotations to a similar purport might be given; but the whole argument is a futile one. It is simply reasoning in a circle, because, whatever may be advanced on this side of the question, it is of course perfectly open to those who maintain the opposite to fall back upon the contention that the love which was vanquished was not love at all, and that its subjugation sufficiently proves that it was spurious.

It may be said that this is a somewhat rough-and-ready method of disposing of a profound and delicate psychological problem, and the point may be further raised in connection with the kindred proposition, that love is not incurable. Those who hold that love is indestructible must also, in consistency, maintain that it is likewise incurable, and inconsolable when scorned and rejected. Then, of course, they are met with declarations like that of Shakspeare when he says: ‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love;’ or like that of Thackeray, when he remarks that ‘Young ladies have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with this passion; and, I believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed.’

At the same time, there are not many who agree that

’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.

Guarini, in his _Faithful Shepherd_, expresses a directly opposite opinion, holding that it is far harder to lose his lady-love than never to have seen her or called her his own. Hamlet speaks heavily enough of ‘the pangs of despised love;’ and it would be idle to deny that a large proportion of the tragedies of real life, as well as of fiction, have turned upon love rejected, abused, or betrayed. When Dryden says that

Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are,

he must not be supposed to refer to the love that has been blighted by cold neglect or open disdain. Burns describes the pains of love when parted from its object in very different language—as ‘A woe that no mortal can cure.’ Dryden’s reflection is rather in the same strain as that of the love-sick Hibernian who said it was ‘a moighty recreation to be dying of love. It sets the heart aching so delicately there’s no taking a wink of sleep for the pleasure of the pain.’ Moore gives a less paradoxical and more serious exposition of the case than his love-sick compatriot:

Yes—loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still; But surely ’tis the worst of pain To love and not be loved again.

Various specifics have been prescribed for the cure of love, and among these, matrimony has been suggested as an infallible cure. A grim joke, my masters! but one in which there is only a certain modicum of truth. Whether, because the love is spurious, or because its fire is less unquenchable than the poets would have us believe, it is yet too true, and one of the saddest facts of human experience, that the love which glows so bright and radiant on the wedding morn, may, before many years have flown, be cold and dead as the ashes of a fire that has long gone out.

When the idol is shattered, and love neither dies nor breaks the heart, it sometimes—and here is another enigma—changes its nature; becomes, in fact, the opposite of itself. The operation is not without analogy. The arch-fiend himself was once an angel of light, and so we may find adoring love become venomous hate.

It is a profitless task to apply the why and the wherefore to love-affairs. Byron, who himself knew so much about love, says:

Why did she love him? Curious fool, be still; Is human love the growth of human will?

To assume that it is, would only remove the problem still further from the point of solution, and would seem, in many instances, to bring the lover and the madman into still closer relationships. It is the infatuation of love, and not the prompting of reason, that causes men and women—but how much more frequently the latter!—to give up, often for a worthless object, friends, happiness, reputation, wealth, and all that life holds dear—even, in some cases, life itself. ‘The hind,’ says Shakspeare, ‘that would be mated with the lion, must die for love;’ yet such unions and such sacrifices are by no means uncommon—not in the lower animal kingdom, but in the more exalted and more tangled scheme of human affairs. Still, despot as he is, with all his huge blunders and strange tyrannies, Love is perhaps the most welcome and beneficent guest that knocks at the door of the human heart. Reason has her own place and her own functions; but it is to Love, after all, that we must look for the most generous impulses, the noblest inspirations. It is Love that redeems our life from cold prosaic dullness, that sweetens and enriches all its springs. There is no more refining and ennobling influence in the life of man than that of a pure unselfish love. From such flows every kind of mutual sympathy, mutual comfort, mutual helpfulness. It is the highest realisation of human bliss.

A NEW PROCESS OF WHITE-LEAD MANUFACTURE.

In two former articles (June 16 and November 10, 1883) we noticed the dangers to life and health which accompany the manufacture of white-lead as at present carried on, and we reviewed the several attempts made to find a substitute. We are still of opinion that such substitutes will prove effectual in their measure; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the enormous production and consumption of ordinary white-lead must nevertheless continue, chiefly on account of its cheapness, for its enduring qualities, and for its capability for purposes in jointing, calking, machinery and hydraulic use, which other substances fail to fulfil. In these circumstances it is interesting to know that almost coincident with the Report of Mr Redgrave, C.B., Her Majesty’s chief Inspector of Factories—to which we alluded in a former article (June 16), and which so forcibly shows the evils under the old ‘stack’ process of white-lead manufacture, as usually carried on—there has been discovered, and brought into full operation, a process by which white-lead of the purest and best quality is produced in one-sixth the time, and at considerably less cost than under the old process. The necessity for the work of women is also avoided, and the operatives completely secured from contact with the dangerous white-lead dust.

It may help our readers to an understanding of the subject if we quote first a brief description of the ‘stack’ process, from a _previous_ Report by Mr Redgrave: ‘The lead is received in “pigs.” These are melted in a furnace, and then cast in water or in moulds of various forms best suited for the action of the acetic acid. The acid is placed in pots of earthenware, on which the moulded lead is placed; and the pots are then arranged in large chambers, called “stacks,” and covered with tan. Row after row of pots and tan are placed one above the other, until the stack is full, in which condition the stack remains for about three months. Carbonic acid gas is evolved during this time, escaping through the ventilators, and causes the deposit of white-lead on the moulds of lead. If the above were the only process, it would be comparatively innocuous; but it is the work that succeeds from which the evil of lead-poisoning arises. The tan is carefully removed from layer after layer; white-lead is found caked upon the moulds of lead; but a very little motion causes it to break up into powder. The lead, loaded with this deposit, is then carried in trays, and emptied into cisterns of water, through which, by agitation, the white-lead passes to the grinding-mills, and the blue lead is raked out of the cisterns for further use. After being ground in the wet state, the material is placed in pans and carried into the ovens to be dried; it is then carried from the ovens to the warehouse, to be packed in barrels. Such are the principal processes in which females are employed, and which are most prolific of disease and death. The injuries to health arise from the external contact with the skin of the white-lead, whether in the dry or moist condition, and the inhalation of the dust or powder into the lungs, or its being imbibed into the stomach through the mouth. As for the prevention, external or internal, no means have yet been discovered by which this could be attained. The mitigation of the evil lies in excessive and enforced cleanliness, with the use of special clothing and appliances when at work.’

When, however, the testimony given in Mr Redgrave’s _later_ Report is considered, it will be seen that the ‘excessive and enforced cleanliness, with the use of special clothing and appliances,’ fail to accomplish their object, the chief reason being, as testified by one sufferer: ‘The air of the factory was always full of white-lead dust.’ Another, speaking of her clothes, said: ‘Dust came from them like a miller, and used nearly to choke me.’ And managers of factories state to Mr Redgrave: ‘Respirators are provided, but work-people as a rule will not wear them. The respirators are troublesome.’ The fact is, there is this dilemma: without the respirators, lungs and stomach get filled with the dangerous white-lead dust; with the respirators, the perspiring, half-choked women cannot work. The problem really is how to produce white-lead without raising this poisonous dust, as it is well known that the grinding in oil is with any ordinary care perfectly innocuous. The very stringent legislation lately authorised does not touch this point.

Attempts have been made to produce white-lead by precipitation, and thus to avoid some of the dangers; but the product is an inferior one, being composed of minute crystals which will not blend with the oil, and are deficient in the most important qualities necessary for paint, and for the other purposes for which true white-lead is largely used. The precipitated lead has also to be washed and stored, as the white-lead from the stack process.

Happily, just at this juncture a simple but wonderful process has been discovered, perfected and patented by Professor E. V. Gardner, of 44 Berners Street, London, W., for many years Director of the Scientific Department, and Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Polytechnic Institution, and who marches with the age in the application of the wonderful power of electricity to this branch of manufacture. He avails himself to the full of that great representative of all energy in forming what is called a galvano-electric combination in the process of manufacture of white-lead, as follows:

The metallic lead, cast into the form of gratings, and bent into narrow arches, is closely ranged in order upon wooden trays covered with pure sheet-tin—the most practically useful electro-negative to be had. Dipped by mechanical contrivance into a certain acid mixture, to give a chemically clean surface, and to promote the after-process of corrosion, they are placed in chambers built of brick, from twelve feet square and upwards, having a glass roof and windows for observation, and having a floor of the electro-negative and highly electro-conductive tin heated from beneath by steam to the necessary temperature of about one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. These chambers may each contain as small a quantity as from eight to ten tons of lead, and range up to eight hundred or a thousand tons. Gases, composed of a mixture of acetic acid vapour and atmospheric air at a similar temperature, are introduced by stoneware pipes from an ingenious apparatus where they are generated; and passing through holes in the pipes a few inches from the tin-covered floor of the chamber, they pass upward, and permeating the whole chamber, electric action commences. At the end of the second day, there is a beautifully white surface. On the third day, carbonic acid vapour is introduced by the same means, hastening still more the formation of white-lead. This goes on for two weeks, at the close of which time, so active has been the action of the substances engaged, by reason of the electrical energy, that there is more white-lead formed than under three months’ working of the same amount of lead by the old process. The gases are then shut off, the chamber cooled, ventilated, opened, and the contents withdrawn, the trays being emptied through a special hopper into the ‘agitator,’ a horizontal cage of round iron bars revolving in a closed case. After being rotated a few minutes, the whole of the white-lead is disengaged, and falls into a pit underneath, leaving the cores that have not been converted in the cage, from which they are collected and remelted for further use. From the pit, the white-lead is conveyed to the mill by an endless band, on which are fixed a number of small buckets, which, filling themselves with the white-lead as they pass through the pit at the bottom, discharge it into the mill as they turn over at the top, whence, after passing through the crushing-rollers, the white-lead falls into the mixer, and issues forth, when combined with oil, in the shape of white-lead of one unfailing quality, being of perfect character as to body and testing powers, and of the purest colour.

The work is continuous from first to last. As all the apparatus is carefully closed in, there is no dust, nor do the hands of the operatives once touch the material. _The Sanitary Record_ (October 1883) says: ‘Professor Gardner has completely revolutionised the manufacture of white-lead. Not only has he rendered it a comparatively innocuous industry, but he has made it a much simpler process, and reduced the time hitherto required for its production in an extraordinary manner, and so facilitated its rapid make, and at a much lessened cost of production. But these great advantages of the process sink into insignificance when compared with its hygienic working in rescuing hundreds of poor creatures from lingering illness, not taking into account the attendant expense of their treatment and support, which falls on various local authorities.’

Mr Redgrave, having carefully inspected the working of the process, has written to Professor Gardner as follows: ‘I think it right to state that having carefully inspected your works at the bottom of Rolt Street, Deptford, it appears to me that the process of the manufacture of white-lead there is free from nearly all the objections on the score of exposure of the persons employed to the injurious effects, hitherto deemed to be inseparable from the occupation. The material and the product are alike isolated, there is an absence of dust, and handling or manipulating is unnecessary.’

As the white-lead manufacturers of our country are not only an influential and wealthy body, alive to their own interest, but also most anxious for the welfare of their operatives, they must hail this new process with much interest, and adopt it gladly. The general public will rejoice to be assured that the valuable and useful white-lead is no longer prepared at the cost of life and health to many, especially women, as has hitherto been the case.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

The singular phenomenon exhibited by this well-known exotic has long been the admiration of the curious, a puzzle to the botanist, and a standing marvel in the vegetable kingdom. The plant has the property of contracting certain parts of its structure when touched, and is not only sensible to the application of force, but appears to be influenced by the surrounding elements. Sudden degrees of heat or cold, steam from boiling water, sulphur-fumes, the odour of volatile liquids, in fact anything that affects the nerves of animals, appears also to affect the sensitive plant. It is in the highest degree a nervous subject, and, like that species of the genus _homo_, is in this country a thorough hothouse habitant. The subject of our present consideration was originally introduced from Brazil, and, along with other varieties possessing the same faculty in different degrees, is common to other parts of South America. The stem of the plant is cylindrical, and of a green or purplish colour, with two spines at the base of each leaf, besides a few others scattered about the branches. The leaves are pinnatifid, or divided into pairs, supported on long footstalks, and each pinnule is furnished with fifteen or twenty pairs of oblong, narrow, and shining leaflets. From the base of the leaf-stalks proceed the peduncles or flower-stalks, each of which supports a bunch of very small white or flesh-coloured flowers. The seed-vessels are united in packets of twelve or fifteen each, and are edged with minute spines, each husk containing three little seeds.

Dr Hook, Dufay, Duhamel, and other naturalists, have studied this plant with equal attention, and from their observations we learn that it is difficult to touch a leaf of a healthy mimosa—under which name the sensitive plant is also known—even in the most delicate manner without causing it to close. The great nerve which passes along the centre of the leaf serves as a hinge for the sides to close upon, and this they do with great exactness, the two sides exactly opposing each other. If the pressure is made with considerable force, the opposite leaf of the same pair will be affected at the same time and moved in the same manner. Upon squeezing the leaf still harder, all the leaflets on the same side close immediately, as if resenting the affront. The effect may be even carried so far that the leaf-stalk will bend to the branch from which it issues, and the whole plant collect itself as it were into a bundle.

As soon as evening approaches, the sensitive plant begins to lower its leaves, till at length they rest upon the stem. With the morning light, they gradually re-open. When the leaves have even faded and turned yellow, the plant still continues this action, and retains its sensibility when agitated by external influences. A fine rain will not disturb the mimosa at all; but should the rain fall heavily, and be accompanied by wind, the plant becomes immediately affected. When irritated and made to close by force, the time necessary for the leaves to recover their usual position varies from ten to twenty minutes, according to the season and the hour of the day.

Though heat and cold contribute greatly towards its alternate motion, yet the plant is more sluggish in its movements and less sensitive in winter than in summer. After a branch has been separated from the shrub, the leaves still retain their sensibility, and will shut on being touched. If the end of the detached branch is kept in water, the leaves will continue to act for some time.