452 THE PARTY AT DRAYTON MANOR. CHAP. XX. 



asked Sir Robert, laughing. " Why," said he, " I will 

 only say this, that of all the powers above and under 

 the earth, there seems to me to be no power so great as 

 the gift of the gab." 



One day, at dinner, during the same visit, a scientific 

 lady asked him the question : " Mr. Stephenson, what 

 do you consider the most powerful force in nature ? " 

 " Oh ! " said he, in a gallant spirit, " I will soon answer 

 that question : it is the eye of a woman for the man 

 who loves her ; for if a woman look with affection on a 

 young man, and he should go to the uttermost ends of 

 the earth, the recollection of that look will bring him 

 back : there is no other force in nature could do that." 



One Sunday, when the party had just returned from 

 church, they were standing together on the terrace near 

 the Hall, and observed in the distance a railway-train 

 flashing along, tossing behind its long white plume 

 of steam. " Now, Buckland," said Stephenson, " I 

 have a poser for you. Can you tell me what is the 

 power that is driving that train ? " " Well," said the 

 other, " I suppose it is one of your big engines." " But 

 what drives the engine ? " "Oh, very likely a canny 

 Newcastle driver." " What do you say to the light of 

 the sun ? " " How can that be ? " asked the doctor. 

 " It is nothing else," said the engineer : " it is light 

 bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years,- 

 light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, being necessary 

 for the condensation of carbon during the process of 

 their growth, if it be not carbon in another form, and 

 now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in 

 fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth 

 and liberated, made to work as in that locomotive, for 

 great human purposes." 



During the same visit, Mr. Stephenson one evening 

 repeated his experiment with blood drawn from the 

 finger, submitting it to the microscope in order to show 

 the curious circulation of the globules. He set the ex- 



