or has given in so attractive a form to the world, I then
heard from his own lips. He was rather a stern-featured man, with a dark
and deeply marked countenance: his speech was strongly inflected with his
native Northumbrian accent, but the fascination of that story told by
himself, while his tame dragon flew panting along his iron pathway with
us, passed the first reading of the Arabian Nights, the incidents of
which it almost seemed to recall. He was wonderfully condescending and
kind, in answering all the questions of my eager ignorance, and I
listened to him with eyes brimful of warm tears of sympathy and
enthusiasm, as he told me of all his alternations of hope and fear, of
his many trials and disappointments, related with fine scorn, how the
"Parliament men" had badgered and baffled him with their book-knowledge,
and how, when at last they had smothered the irrepressible prophecy of
his genius in the quaking depths of Chat Moss, he had exclaimed, 'Did ye
ever see a boat float on water? I will make my road float upon Chat
Moss!' The well-read Parliament men (some of whom, perhaps, wished for
no railways near their parks and pleasure-grounds) could not believe the
miracle, but the shrewd Liverpool merchants, helped to their faith by a
great vision of immense gain, did; and so the railroad was made, and I
took this memorable ride by the side of its maker, and would not have
exchanged the honour and pleasure of it for one of the shares in the
speculation."

"LIVERPOOL, August 26th, 1830.

"MY DEAR H--: A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a foolscap
extra can only contain a railroad and my ecstasies. There was once a man
born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who was a common coal-digger; this man had
an immense constructiveness, which displayed itself in pulling his watch
to pieces and putting it together again; in making a pair of shoes when
he happened to be some days without occupation; finally--here there is a
great gap in my story--it brought him in the capacity of an engineer
before a Committee of the House of Commons, with his head full of plans
for constructing a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester. It so happened
that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and conceptions, to
the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate
knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours,
this man joined an utter want