enclosure of self, but are put out as new vesicles of light to
brighten the general illumination of the world.

The department in which Jonas Webb attained to his position and
capacity of usefulness was peculiarly marked by this characteristic.
In a certain sense, it occupied a higher range of interest than that
section of agriculture which is connected solely with the growing of
grain, grass, and other crops. His great and distinguishing
husbandry was the cultivation of animal life. To make two spires of
grass grow where only one grew before has been pronounced as a great
benefaction; and greater still are the merit and the gain of making
one grow where nothing grew before. To go into the midst of
Dartmoor, and turn an acre of its cold, stony, water-soaked waste
into a fruitful field of golden grain, is going into co-partnership
with Providence in the work of creation to a very large and honored
degree. But to put the skilful hand of science upon creatures of
flesh and blood, to re-form their physical structures and shapes, to
add new inches to their stature, straighten their backs, expand
their reins, amplify their chests, reduce all the lines and curves
of their forms to an unborn symmetry, and then to give silky
softness and texture to their aboriginal clothing--this seems to be
mounting one step higher in the attainment and dignity of creative
faculties. And this pre-eminently was the department in which Jonas
Webb acquired a distinction perhaps unparalleled to the present
time. This has made his name familiar all over Christendom, and
honored among the world's benefactors. Never, before him, did a
farm-stead become such a centre and have such a wide-sweeping radius
as his. None ever possessed such centripetal attractions, or
exerted such centrifugal influences for the material well-being of
different and distant countries. Indeed, those most remote are most