A ' PRACTICAL ' BEGINNING. 1 7 



* I've been a-draining this forty year and more 

 I ought to know summut about it ! ' 



Here was a staggerer. Amongst all my calcula- 

 tions to think that I should never have calculated on 

 this ! I had seen the commander of a noble steamer 

 with one parenthetical point of his forefinger (caught 

 in an instant by the helmsman) put about a ship of a 

 couple of thousand tons burden; I had seen the 

 practical astronomer, with an infinitesimal touch of 

 the directing screw of the telescope, bend his search- 

 ing gaze millions of millions of miles away from its 

 first position ; I had seen the mill-owner, with half a 

 nod to his foreman, stop in an instant the hurly-burly 

 of a thousand wheels while he explained to me, in 

 comparative quiet, some little matter of new inven- 

 tion in the carding of the rough wool, or the round- 

 ing and hardening of the finished Twist. I had seen 

 enough of the empire of Mind over Matter in many 

 forms and shapes, by sea and land, to make me the 

 devoutest of believers in modern miracle. Under 

 the quiet seductive brightness of the midnight lamp, 

 I had revelled in the mysteries of Number and of 

 Form ; and in the working realities of daylight I 

 had seen and stood witness to the application of those 

 apparent mysteries to the most beautifully simple 

 c 



