No one doubts that 'the modest blush which
crimsons the cheek of beauty,' to use the author's words, is caused by a
rush of blood to the skin; but how this produces 'a corresponding change
in its angle of reflection,' and what such a change has to do with the
result, are problems too transcendental for the _exact_ sciences."
[On all questions relating to the Poles we reserve our opinion till the
return of Dr. Hayes's expedition. But we think they have little to hope
from any future attempt at revolution, especially with such insufficient
weapons as their axes, which, though they keep up a constant stir about
them, have been long superseded by the improvements of modern military
science. We think our correspondent hasty in admitting that "each object
has a particular reflecting surface of its own." A little inquiry among
his neighbors would have satisfied him that the human brain seldom
possesses anything of the kind.]
"But these specimens must suffice as indications of the general
character of this attempt at _popularizing science_. To do this without
misleading and confounding the general reader is a task which claims
the largest and most exact knowledge, and the greatest perspicuity of
statement, no less than a flowing style and felicitous illustration.
It is a task in which true success, though apparently frequent, is in
reality extremely rare."
"P.S. I had written thus far, when the fire suddenly penetrating, I
suppose, to the nervous system of the poodle, he ran off, leaving me
in total darkness and with no hope that his tail (like too many in the
'Atlantic') would be continued.
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