s been made through a large telescope, the men who have
advanced our knowledge of that science the most working with ordinary
instruments backed by most accurately trained minds and eyes.

A double convex lens three feet in diameter is worth $60,000. Its
adjustment is so delicate that the human hand is the only instrument
thus far known suitable for giving the final polish, and one sweep of
the hand more than is needed, Alvan Clark says, would impair the
correctness of the glass. During the test of the great glass which he
made for Russia, the workmen turned it a little with their hands.
"Wait, boys, let it cool before making another trial," said Clark; "the
poise is so delicate that the heat from your hands affects it."

Mr. Clark's love of accuracy has made his name a synonym of exactness
the world over.

"No, I can't do it, it is impossible," said Webster, when urged to
speak on a question soon to come up, toward the close of a
Congressional session. "I am so pressed with other duties that I
haven't time to prepare myself to speak upon that theme." "Ah, but,
Mr. Webster, you always speak well upon any subject. You never fail."
"But that's the very reason," said the orator, "because I never allow
myself to speak upon any subject without first making that subject
thoroughly my own. I haven't time to do that in this instance. Hence
I must refuse."

Rufus Choate would plead before a shoemaker justice of the peace in a
petty case with all the fervor and careful attention to detail with
which he addressed the United States Supreme Court.

"Whatever is right to do," said an eminent writer, "should be done with
our best care, strength, and faithfulness of purpose; we have no scales
by which we can weigh our faithfulness to duties, or determine their
relative importance in God's eyes. That which seems a trifle to us may
be the secret spring which shall move the issues of life and death."

"There goes a man that has been in hell," the Florentines would say
when Dante passed, so realistic seemed to them his description of the
nether world.

"There is only one real failure in life possible," said Canon Farrar;
"and that is, not to be true to the best one knows."

"It is quite astonishing," Grove said of Beethoven, "to find the length
of time during which some of the best known instrumental melodies
remained in his thoughts till they were finally used, or the crude,
vague, commonplace shape in which they were fir