ANNOYANCES. 395 
assert that neither their conception, direction, nor execu- 
tion required a man called James Watt. 
If I were to forget my duties as the mouthpiece of iis 
Academy, and endeavour more to make you smile than 
try to relate useful truths, I should find matter here for 
a striking contrast. I might cite this or that author 
who, at our weekly meetings, labours loudly to commu- 
nicate some little remarks, some trifling reminiscence, 
some little note, conceived and got up the previous even- 
ing; I might represent him cursing his destiny, because 
some clause in the rules, or the order of insertion of 
some author, an earlier riser than himself, occasions his 
lecture to be deferred for a week, allowing him the 
guarantee, during the whole of that cruel week, of his 
sealed paquet being deposited in our archives. On the 
other hand, we should see the inventor of a machine 
destined to form an epoch in the annals of the world, 
undergo without a murmur the stupid contempt of 
capitalists, and during eight years bend his superior 
genius down to surveys, plans, and minute levellings; to 
troublesome items of clearing or filling in, and to toises 
of masonry. Let us confine ourselves to supposing that 
Watt’s philosophy led to serenity of character, modera- 
tion in desires, to true modesty. But so much indiffer- 
ence, however noble the cause may have been, should 
have its just limit. It is not without ample motive that 
society severely reprobates those of its members who 
withdraw from circulation the heaps of gold contained in 
their iron chests. Are we less culpable if we deprive 
our country, our fellow-citizens, our century, of the 
treasures, a thousand times more precious, resulting 
from the exercise of mind; if we keep to ourselves 
immortal inventions, sources of the most noble, of the 
