Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had given a protecting buckler for its head.

Newton found out gravitation, by reasoning on the fall of an apple from the tree.

Almost every invention has been the suggestion of an accident.

Even so, to descend from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic.

It was while wandering about the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago, that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a very pretty book, with a very pretty title.