Times of Linnaeus (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1891. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... the girls to weed the carrot-beds, and quieted the children with some good-sized slices of bread and butter. "Come, Paul, sit down beside me, and help me buckle the portmanteaus, and we will talk like old friends." CHAPTER XXIV. THE LESSON AND FAREWELL. ERICA LJUNG, nt e Lindelia, was, according to the assertion of her husband, a born finance minister, but she was also one of those who might be called the heart's chief of police. Her eyes, at once clear and warm, had the wonderful gift of penetrating fog, and feeling, far more than searching out the appearance of a human heart. She had not talked half an hour with Paul, while together they packed and buckled the portmanteaus, before she saw straight through him, and among other matters, discovered his connection with the mysterious gold-maker. That gave her occasion for a lesson in her style. "And if you could without difficulty make you a mountain of gold," said she, "what better would you be for that? In the gain of the gambler there is no blessing. Once, all the treasures of Peru were pouring into Spain, but they ran out again more rapidly than they had come, and the land became poorer, and the people more depraved than ever. Not gold, but work, prayer, and honest trade, make people rich. If I water my plants with warm water, I can in a short time force carnations and stocks to blossom, but afterwards they will quickly wither away. You wished to pay Eric's debt, but your good intention chose a bad means. You would cut down the mountain-ash to get at the flowers. But Eric would never have agreed to that. Making gold is probably not utterly impossible, for some day chemistry will arrive at the point where it will take all metals apart, and consequently put them together again also. But that discovery, whi...