approach of light, and not seldom at a distance which made it seem to
flame up self-revived. In Sir Alexander Ball, the same excellence
was more an affair of system; and he would listen, even to weak men,
with a patience, which, in so careful an economist of time, always
demanded my admiration, and not seldom excited my wonder. It was one
of his maxims, that a man may suggest what he cannot give; adding,
that a wild or silly plan had more than once, from the vivid sense or
distinct perception of its folly, occasioned him to see what ought to
be done in a new light, or with a clearer insight. There is, indeed,
a hopeless sterility, a mere negation of sense and thought, which,
suggesting neither difference nor contrast, cannot even furnish hints
for recollection. But on the other hand, there are minds so
whimsically constituted, that they may sometimes be profitably
interpreted by contraries, a process of which the great Tycho Brahe
is said to have availed himself in the case of the little Lackwit,
who used to sit and mutter at his feet while he was studying. A mind
of this sort we may compare to a magnetic needle, the poles of which
have been suddenly reversed by a flash of lightning, or other more
obscure accident of nature. It may be safely concluded, that to
those whose judgment or information he respected, Sir Alexander Ball
did not content himself with giving access and attention. No! he
seldom failed of consulting them whenever the subject permitted any
disclosure; and where secrecy was necessary, he well knew how to
acquire their opinion without exciting even a conjecture concerning
his immediate object.

Yet, with all this readiness of attention, and with all this zeal in
collecting the sentiments of the well informed, never was a man more
completely uninfluenced by authority than Sir Alexander Ball, never
one who sought less to tranquillise his own doubts by the mere