f, laughed
knowingly and said, "They don't know him as well as I do!" Voltaire's
father posted his son as irresponsible, tied up a legacy so "the
scapegrace could not waste it," invested good money in daily prayers to
be said for the scapegrace's salvation, and then died of a broken heart,
just as play-actors do on the stage, only this man died sure enough.
Alfred Tennyson at thirteen wrote a poem addressed to his grandfather;
the old gentleman gave him a guinea for it, and then wrote these words:
"This is the first and last penny you will ever receive for writing
poetry." The father of Shelley misquoted Job, and said, "Oh, to be
brought down to the grave in grief through the follies of an ungrateful
child!" And Labouchere says that one of the four brothers of Shakespeare
used to explain that he wasn't the play-actor who wrote "Hamlet" and
"Othello," lest, mayhap, his name should be smirched.

Galileo's mother had that beautiful dream which I believe all good
mothers have: that her son might be the savior of the world. As he grew
to manhood, her faith in him did not relax.

In childhood Galileo showed great skill in invention. He made curious
toys with cogs and wheels and eccentrics; whittled out violins, and
transformed simple reeds into lutes, upon which he played music of his
own composition. In fact, so great was his skill in music that at twenty
they wished to make him official organist and choirmaster of the
Cathedral. His personal taste, however, ran more to painting; for some
months he worked at his canvases with an ardor too great to last long.
If ever a man was touched by the Spirit of the Renaissance, it was
surely young Galileo. The Archbishop of Pisa said, "Upon him has fallen
the mantle of Michelangelo."

He gave lectures on Art, and taught Painting by actual example. One of
his pupils, and a great artist, Lodovico Cigoli, always maintained that
it was to the inspiration and counsel of Galileo that he owed his
success.

There are really only two things to see at Pisa: one is the Leaning
Tower, from which Galileo with his line and plummet made some of his
most interesting experiments; and the other is the Cathedral where the
visitor beholds the great bronze lamp that is suspended from the vaulted
ceiling. When he was about twenty-one, sitting in the silence of this
church (which the passing years have only made more beautiful), he
noticed that there was a slight swinging motion to this lamp--it was
nev