, Burke,
Goldsmith, Sheridan, Arthur Wellesley and all the other Irish poets,
orators and thinkers who have made us vibrate with our kind?

Transplanted weeds produce our finest flowers.

The parents of Tyndall were intent on giving their boy an education. And
to them, the act of committing things to memory was education. William
Tyndale gave the Bible to the people; John Tyndall would force it upon
them. The "Book of Martyrs," the sermons of Jeremy Taylor, and the
Bible, little John came to know by heart. And he grew to have a fine
distaste for all. Once, when nearly a man grown, he had the temerity to
argue with his father that the Bible might be better appreciated, if a
penalty were not placed upon disbelief in its divine origin. A cuff on
the ear was the answer, and John was given until sundown to apologize.
He did not apologize.

And young Tyndale then vowed he would change his name to Tyndall and
forever separate himself from a person whose religion was so largely
mixed with brutality. But yet John Tyndale was not a bad man. He had
intellect far above the average of his neighbors. He had the courage of
his convictions. His son had the courage of his lack of convictions.

And the early drilling in the Bible was a good thing for young Tyndall.
Bible legend and allusion color the English language, and any man who
does not know his Bible well, can never hope to speak or write English
with grace and fluency. Tyndall always knew and acknowledged his
indebtedness to his parents, and he also knew that his salvation
depended upon getting away from and beyond the narrow confines of their
beliefs and habits. Because a thing helps you in a certain period of
your education is no reason why you should feed upon it forevermore.

This way lies arrested development.

Life, like heat, is a mode of motion, and progress consists in
discarding a good thing as soon as you have found a better.

* * * * *

Occasionally Herbert Spencer used to spend a Sunday afternoon with the
Carlyles at their modest home in Chelsea. At such times Jeannie Welsh
would usually manage to pilot the conversational craft along smooth
waters; but if she were not present, hot arguments would follow, and
finally a point would be reached where Carlyle and Spencer would simply
sit and glare at each other.

"After such scenes I always thought less of two persons, Carlyle and
myself," said Spencer; "and so for many years I ver