Encyclopaedia of Men and Women of the Time (ePub)

''some men are born to greatness some men achieve greatness, and some men have greatness thrust upon them it is not the first of these three classes nor is it the last with whish this work has to do; it is the one which is the middle accord-ing to the poet's classification but which is pre-eminently and for all time the first and foremost in every true estimate of their relative grand-eur. To be born to greatness or to have greatness thrust upon one may be gratifying to the individual; but it is on comparatively little public interest; and this work has not been compiled to gratify the vanity of individuals, but to record the achievements' of those whose lives are a power on the earth The work tells us of one whose spectroscopic researches discovered the physical constitutions of stars planets cements and nebulae and of another whose telescopic mind pierced the far-off regions of the stellar universe and saw what had never been beheld by mortal eye the planet which was causing the stellar universe and saw what had never been beheld by mortal eye the planet which was causing the pertur-bations in the orbit of Uranus, Though that unknown perturbing planet was had been considered the boundary of the solar system truly the poet was justified in speaking of the music of the spheres so measured is the march and so marvellously rhythmi-cal are the movements of the heavenly bodies but not only has the far distant been made actually visible and poetically audible by men whose lives are here recorded but the immediately near also has been vivified starting life, for we read of one by whose discoveries sound is made visible in curves of exquisite beauty; of another whose invention enables us to hear even the foot fall of a fly; and of another who multitudinous undulations of sound ''here shall thy proud waves be of the human voice are stored up to uttered them have long been silent in the grave.