James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (the read aloud family TXT) 📖
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unmeasured, and his taste anything rather than fastidious, he both was master of every variety of knowledge, and was tolerant of discussion on subjects of very subordinate importance compared with those on which he most excelled. Not only all the sciences from the mathematics and astronomy, down to botany, received his diligent attention, but he was tolerably read in the lighter kinds of literature, delighting in poetry and other works of fiction, full of the stores of ancient literature, and readily giving himself up to the critical disquisitions of commentators, and to discussion on the fancies of etymology. His manners were most attractive from their perfect nature and simplicity. His conversation was rich in the measure which such stores and such easy taste might lead us to expect, and it astonished all listeners with its admirable precision, with the extraordinary memory it displayed, with the distinctness it seemed to have, as if his mind had separate niches for keeping each particular, and with its complete rejection of all worthless and superfluous matter, as if the same mind had some fine machine for acting like a fan, casting off the chaff and the husk. But it had besides a peculiar charm from the pleasure he took in conveying information where he was peculiarly able to give it, and in joining with entire candor whatever discussion happened to arise. Even upon matters on which he was entitled to pronounce with absolute authority, he never laid down the law, but spoke like any other partaker of the conversation. I had the happiness of knowing Mr. Watt for many years, in the intercourse of private life; and I will take upon me to bear a testimony, in which all who had that gratification I am sure will join, that they who only knew his public merit, prodigious as that was, knew but half his worth. Those who were admitted to his society will readily allow that anything more pure, more candid, more simple, more scrupulously loving of justice, than the whole habits of his life and conversation proved him to be, was never known in society.
The descriptions given by Lords Brougham, Jeffrey, the genial Sir Walter, and others, of Watt's universality of knowledge and his charm in discourse recall Canterbury's exordium:
Hear him but reason in divinity
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish consumed,
You would desire the king were made a prelate;
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say—it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish consumed,
You would desire the king were made a prelate;
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say—it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.
If Watt fell somewhat short of this, so no doubt did the king so greatly extolled, and much more so, probably, than the versatile Watt.
Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, upon his death-bed, hears that the Watt patent has been sustained, and is for the time restored again to interest in life. He whispers that he "could not help rejoicing at anything that benefited Jamie Watt."
The Earl of Liverpool, prime minister, stated that Watt was remarkable for
the simplicity of his character, the modesty of his nature, the absence of anything like presumption and ostentation, the unwillingness to obtrude himself, not only upon the great and powerful, but even on those of the scientific world to which he belonged. A more excellent and amiable man in all the relations of life I believe never existed.
There can be no question that we have for our example, in the man Watt, a nature cast in the finest mold, seemingly composed of every creature's best. Transcendent as were his abilities as inventor and discoverer, we are persuaded that our readers will feel that his qualities as a man in all the relations of life were not less so, nor less worthy of record. His supreme abilities we can neither acquire nor emulate. These are individual and ended with him. But his virtues and charms as our fellow-man still shine steadily upon our paths and will shine upon those of our successors for ages to come, we trust not without leading us and them to tread some part of the way toward the acquisition of such qualities as enabled the friend of James Watt to declare his belief that "a more excellent and amiable man in all the relations of life never existed." A nobler tribute was never paid by man to man, yet was it not undeserved.
So passes Jamie Watt, the man, from view—a man who attracted, delighted, impressed, instructed and made lifelong friends of his fellows, to a degree unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled.
"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"
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So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of James Watt, by Andrew Carnegie
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES WATT ***
***** This file should be named 26131-h.htm or 26131-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/1/3/26131/
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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
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