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Fundamentals of Heat Engines
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Fundamentals of Heat Engines
This Work is a co-publication between John Wiley & Sons Ltd and ASME Press
This edition first published 2020
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ghojel, Jamil, author.
Title: Fundamentals of heat engines: reciprocating and gas turbine internal combustion engines /
Jamil Ghojel.
Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ, USA : John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2020. | Series: Wiley-ASME press series | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019047568 (print) | LCCN 2019047569 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119548768 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119548782 (adobe pdf) | ISBN
9781119548799 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Heat-engines.
Classification: LCC TJ255 .G45 2020 (print) | LCC TJ255 (ebook) | DDC
621.402/5 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047568
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047569
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Set in 9.5/12.5pt STIXTwoText by SPi Global, Chennai, India
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
v
Contents
Series Preface ix
Preface xi
Glossary xiii
About the Companion Website xvii
Bibliography 466
Appendix D Equations for the Thermal Efficiency and Specific Work of Theoretical Gas
Turbine Cycles 497
Nomenclature 498
Index 499
ix
Series Preface
The Wiley-ASME Press Series in Mechanical Engineering brings together two established
leaders in mechanical engineering publishing to deliver high-quality, peer-reviewed books
covering topics of current interest to engineers and researchers worldwide.
The series publishes across the breadth of mechanical engineering, comprising research,
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course texts.
Prospective topics include emerging and advanced technologies in Engineering Design;
Computer-Aided Design; Energy Conversion & Resources; Heat Transfer; Manufacturing
& Processing; Systems & Devices; Renewable Energy; Robotics; and Biotechnology.
xi
Preface
The reciprocating piston engine and the gas turbine engine are two of the most vital and
widely used internal combustion heat engines ever invented. Piston engines are still dom-
inant in the areas of land and marine transportation, mining, and agricultural industries.
They also play a significant role in light aircraft and stand-by power-generation applica-
tions. Power that can be generated by piston engines ranges from a fraction of a kilowatt to
more than 80 MW, with thermal efficiencies approaching 50%. Gas turbines are dominant
in civil and military aviation and play a major role in base, midrange, and peak load electric
power generation ranging from small stand-by units up to 300 MW per engine with thermal
efficiencies approaching 40% at the upper range and 500 MW in combined cycle configura-
tions with thermal efficiencies approaching 60%. Gas turbines are also ideal as power plants
operating in conjunction with large renewable power plants to eliminate intermittency.
Demand for power and mobility in its different forms will continue to increase in the
twenty-first century as hundreds of millions of people in the developing world become
more affluent, and the cheapest and most efficient means of satisfying this demand will
continue to be the heat engine. As a consequence, the heat engine will most likely remain
an active area of research and development and engineering education for the foreseeable
future. Traditionally, the piston engine has been an ideal tool for teaching mechanical
engineering, as it features fundamental principles of the engineering sciences such as
thermodynamics, engineering mechanics, fluid mechanics, chemistry (more specifically,
thermochemistry), etc. In this book, gas turbine engine theory, which is based on the same
engineering principles, is combined with piston engine theory to form a single compre-
hensive tool for teaching mechanical, aerospace, and automotive engineering in entry- and
advanced-level undergraduate courses and entry-level energy-related postgraduate courses.
Practicing engineers in industry may also find some of the material in the book beneficial.
The book comprises 3 parts, 15 chapters, and 4 appendices. The first chapter in Part I is
a review of some principles of engineering science, and the second chapter covers a wide
range of thermochemistry topics. The contribution of engineering science to heat engine
theory is fundamental and is manifested over the entire energy-conversion chain, as this
figure shows.
xii Preface
Part II covers theoretical aspects of the reciprocating piston engine starting with simple
air-standard cycles, followed by theoretical cycles of forced induction engines and ending
with more realistic cycles that can be used to predict engine performance as a first approx-
imation. Part III on gas turbines also covers cycles with gradually increasing complexity,
ending with realistic engine design-point and off-design calculation methods.
Representative problems are given at the end of each chapter, and a detailed example
of piston-engine design-point calculations is given in Appendix C. Also, case studies of
design-point calculations of gas turbine engines are provided in Chapters 12 and 13.
The book can be adopted for mechanical, aerospace, and automotive engineering
courses at different levels using selected material from different chapters at the discretion
of instructors.
Jamil Ghojel
xiii
Glossary
Symbols
A Area, air, Helmholtz function
a Acceleration, speed of sound, correlation coefficient
B Bulk modulus, correlation coefficient, bypass ratio
C Gas velocity, molar specific heat
c Mass specific heat, speed of sound
D Diameter, degree of reaction in reaction turbines
E Total energy, utilization factor in reaction turbines, modulus of elasticity
F Force, thrust, fuel
f Specific thrust
G Gibbs free energy
g Gravitational acceleration
H Enthalpy, heating value of fuel
h Specific enthalpy, blade height
I Moment of inertia
i Number of cylinders
j Number of strokes
K Degrees Kelvin, equilibrium constant, force, mole ratio of hydrogen to carbon
monoxide
L Length
l Length, blade length
M Quantity in moles, Mach number, moment of force
m Mass
ṁ Mass flow rate
N Rotational speed in revolution per minute, force
n Polytropic index (exponent), number of moles
p Pressure, cylinder gas pressure
Q Heat transfer, force
q Specific heat transfer
Q̇ Rate of heat transfer
R Radius, gas constant, crank radius
R Universal gas constant
xiv Glossary
r Pressure ratio
S Entropy, stroke
s Specific entropy
T Absolute temperature, torque, fundamental dimension of time
t Time, temperature
U Internal energy, blade speed
u Specific internal energy
V Volume, velocity, relative velocity
v Specific volume, piston speed
W Work
Ẇ Power
w Specific work, blade row width, rate of heat release
x Distance, mass fraction, number of carbon atoms in a fuel, cumulative heat release
ẋ Linear velocity
ẍ Linear acceleration
y Number of hydrogen atoms in a fuel
z Number of oxygen atoms in a fuel, height above datum
Greek Symbols
𝛼 Angle, pressure ratio in constant-volume combustion, angular acceleration
𝛽 Angle, volume ratio in constant-pressure combustion
𝛾 Ratio of specific heats, V-angle (engine crank)
Δ Symbol for difference
𝛿 Expansion ratio in an engine cylinder
𝜀 Compression ratio (volume ratio)
𝜖 Heat-exchanger effectiveness
𝜂 Efficiency
𝜃 Angle, crank angle
𝜃̇ Angular velocity
𝜃̈ Angular acceleration
𝜅 Compressibility
𝜆 Relative air-fuel ratio
𝜇 Dynamic viscosity, coefficient of molecular change
𝜈 Kinematic viscosity
Π Non-dimensional group
𝜌 Density, volume ratio during heat rejection at constant volume (generalized
air-standard cycle)
𝜎 Stress, rounding-off coefficient in piston engine cycles
𝜏 Ratio of crank radius to connecting rod length
𝜙 Flow coefficient, crank angle (Wiebe function), equivalence ratio
𝜑 Angle (Wiebe function), heat utilization coefficient
𝜓 Loading coefficient, coefficient of molar change
𝜔 Angular velocity, degree of cooling
Glossary xv
Subscripts
a Air, actual, total volume
b Brake
C Carbon mass fraction in liquid or solid fuel
c Compressor, clearance (volume), crank
com Compressor (volume ratio)
cp Crank pin
cr Critical
ct Compressor turbine
cw Crank web
e exit
f Fuel, frictional, formation
g Gas, gravimetric
H Hydrogen mass fraction in liquid or solid fuel
h Higher
i Inlet, intake, indicated, species, inertia
l Liquid, lower
m Mean
N Nitrogen mole fraction in gaseous fuel
n Nozzle
O Mass fraction of oxygen in liquid or solid fuel
P Product of combustion
p Piston, propulsive
pc Compressor polytropic efficiency
pp Piston pin
pt Turbine polytropic efficiency, power turbine
R Reactants (air plus fuel)
r Rod (connecting rod)
S Sulfur mass fraction in liquid or solid fuel
s Isentropic, stoichiometric, swept (volume)
t Turbine, total (stagnation) condition
w Whirl (velocity)
Superscripts
g Gravimetric
0 Reference state (pressure)
v Volumetric
xvi Glossary
Abbreviations
A/F Air-fuel ratio
AFT Adiabatic flame temperature
BDC Bottom dead centre
ca Crank angle
CI Compression ignition
F/A Fuel-air ratio
bmep Brake mean effective pressure
GT Gas turbine
bsfc Brake specific fuel consumption
imep Indicated mean effective pressure
ICE Internal combustion engine
isfc Indicated specific fuel consumption
mep Mean effective pressure
NI Natural-induction (engine)
Re Reynolds number
rpm Revolutions per minute
SI Spark ignition
TDC Top dead centre
TET Turbine entry temperature
xvii
Part I
Fundamentals of Heat Engines: Reciprocating and Gas Turbine Internal Combustion Engines, First Edition. Jamil Ghojel.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This Work is a co-publication between John Wiley & Sons Ltd and ASME Press.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/JamilGhojel_Fundamentals of Heat Engines
2
For the last 200 years or so, humans have been living in the epoch of power in which the heat
engine has been the dominant device for converting heat to work and power. The develop-
ment of the heat engine was for most of that time slow and chaotic and carried out mainly
by poorly qualified practitioners who had no knowledge of basic theories of energy and
energy conversion to mechanical work. In the field of engineering mechanics, drawings
of early steam engines depict various, at times strange, inefficient mechanisms to convert
steam power to mechanical power, such as the walking beam and sun and planet gear sys-
tems. The piston-crank mechanism was first used in a steam engine in 1802 by Oliver Evans
(Sandfort 1964) despite a design being proposed as early as 1589 for converting the rotary
motion of an animal-driven machine to reciprocating motion in a pump. The first inter-
nal combustion engine (ICE) to be made available commercially was Lenoir’s gas engine in
1860. This engine was also the first to employ a piston-crank mechanism to convert recipro-
cating motion of the piston to rotary motion, which has become, despite its shortcomings,
a fixed feature and highly efficient mechanism in modern reciprocating engines. However,
engine designers were never fully satisfied with this mechanism due to the need to bal-
ance numerous parasitic forces generated during operation and were constantly looking
for alternative ways of obtaining direct rotary motion. This is said to have been one of the
stimuli to develop steam and gas turbines in which a fluid, flowing through blades, causes
the shaft to rotate, thus eliminating the need for a crankshaft. The results are smoother
operation, lower levels of vibration, and low-cost support structures. All of these develop-
ments occurred over a very long period of time with advances in the science of engineering
mechanics (more specifically, engineering dynamics), together with other engineering sci-
ence branches such as fluid mechanics and thermodynamics.
Examples of the principles of fluid mechanics of relevance to the topics of Parts I and II
in the book include the momentum equation used to calculate thrust in aircraft gas tur-
bine engines, Bernoulli’s equation to calculate flow in the induction manifold of piston
engines, and dimensional analysis to determine the characteristics of turbomachinery for
gas turbines.
The great scientific breakthroughs in the development of heat-engine theory came with
the development of the science of thermodynamics, starting with the pioneering work of
Nicolas Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) and followed by the monumental contributions of Rudolf
Clausius (1822–1888) and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin, 1824–1907). Ever since, knowl-
edge of thermodynamics has become essential to improving existing heat engine designs
Fundamentals of Heat Engines: Reciprocating and Gas Turbine Internal Combustion Engines, First Edition. Jamil Ghojel.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This Work is a co-publication between John Wiley & Sons Ltd and ASME Press.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/JamilGhojel_Fundamentals of Heat Engines
Introduction I: Role of Engineering Science 3
and developing new types of engine processes for superior economy and reduced emis-
sions. At the same time, the heat engine, particularly the reciprocating ICE, has become an
ideal tool for teaching mechanical and automotive engineering, as it features, in addition
to thermodynamics, fundamental principles of engineering mechanics and fluid mechanics
as discussed earlier.
A chapter on thermochemistry (Chapter 2) is included in Part I, dealing with fuel proper-
ties and the chemistry of combustion reactions and the effect of control of the combustion
temperature through control of air-fuel ratios in order to preserve the mechanical integrity
of engine components. Extensive numerical data on gas properties and adiabatic flame
temperature calculations are included, which can be used for preliminary design-point
calculations of practical piston and gas turbine engine cycles.
4
Mechanics deals with the response of bodies to the action of forces in general, and dynam-
ics is a branch of mechanics that studies bodies in motion. The principles of dynamics can
be used, for example, to solve practical problems in aerospace, mechanical, and automo-
tive engineering. These principles are basic to the analysis and design of land, sea, and air
transportation vehicles and machinery of all types (pumps, compressors, and reciprocating
and gas-turbine internal combustion engines). A review of some principles relevant to heat
engines is presented here.
1.1.1 Definitions
Particle. A conceptual body of matter that has mass but negligible size and shape. Any finite
physical body (car, plane, rocket, ship, etc.) can be regarded as a particle and its motion
modelled by the motion of its centre of mass, provided the body is not rotating. The motion
of a particle can be fully described by its location at any instant in time.
Rigid body. An assembly of a large number of particles that remain at a constant distance
from each other at all times irrespective of the loads applied. To fully describe the motion
of a rigid body, knowledge of both the location and orientation of the body at any instant is
required. Gas turbine shafts are rigid bodies that are rotating at high speeds. The recipro-
cating piston-crank mechanism in piston engines is a complex system comprising rotating
crank shaft and sliding piston connected through a rigid rod describing complex irregular
motion.
Kinematics. Study of motion without reference to the forces causing the motion and allow-
ing the determination of displacement, velocity, and acceleration of the body.
Kinetics. Study of the relationship between motion and the forces causing the motion,
based on Newton’s three laws of motion.
Fundamentals of Heat Engines: Reciprocating and Gas Turbine Internal Combustion Engines, First Edition. Jamil Ghojel.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This Work is a co-publication between John Wiley & Sons Ltd and ASME Press.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/JamilGhojel_Fundamentals of Heat Engines
1.1 Engineering Mechanics 5
The second law defines the force that can change the momentum of the body as a vector
quantity whose magnitude is the product of mass and acceleration:
F = ma kg.m∕s2 or Newton (N) (1.1)
Another form of this law that is particularly pertinent to gas turbine practice states that
force is equal to the rate of change of momentum or mass flow rate ṁ multiplied by velocity
change dv (the letter v will be used for velocity exclusively in the mechanics section of this
chapter):
d(mv)
F= ̇
= m(dv) N (1.2)
dt
For an aircraft engine, the air flow into the engine diffuser is equal to the forward flight
speed v1 , and engine exhaust gases accelerate to velocity v2 in the engine nozzle. For a mass
flow rate ṁ of the gases, the thrust is therefore F = m(v
̇ 2 − v1 ) N.
In heat engines, it is often necessary to use vector algebra to resolve the acting forces to
determine the forces of interest that can produce work. For example, the pressure force of
the combusting gases in the piston engine, which is the source of cycle work, does not act
directly on the crank, as a result of which parasitic forces are generated, causing undesirable
phenomena such as piston slap. Resolving the forces at the piston pin determines the force
transmitted through the connecting rod to the crank, generating a torque. In a gas turbine,
the gas force generated during flow through the blades has a component acting parallel to
the turbine axis that causes bearings overload and needs to be balanced to prevent axial
displacement of the rotor.
The third law simply states that ‘for every force there is an equal and opposite reaction
force’. In an aircraft jet engine, the change in momentum of a large flow rate of gases
between the inlet and outlet of the engine generates a backward force known as thrust,
which has an equal reaction that propels the aircraft forward.
Finally,
m( 2 )
W1−2 = v2 − v21 = KE2 − KE1 (1.3)
2
The work done by a force is equal to the change in kinetic energy. This equation is the
simplest form of the conservation of energy equation.
y
v y y
ω,ω
αt
p +r ω cosθ
θ –r ω2 cosθ
x x x
0 –r ω sinθ
–r ω2 sinθ
αr
Figure 1.1 Non-uniform circular motion in Cartesian coordinates: (a) initial position and velocity;
(b) first-order components of resultant acceleration; (c) second-order components of resultant
acceleration.
1.1 Engineering Mechanics 7
ω α
0
r
p dθ
dm
M= dM = r at dm = r 2 𝛼 dm
∫ ∫ ∫
For a constant angular acceleration,
M=𝛼 r 2 dm = I𝛼 (1.11)
∫
where I = ∫ r 2 dm is the moment of inertia of the whole mass of the rigid body rotating
about an axis passing through 0. Equation (1.11) indicates that if the body has rotational
motion and is being acted upon by moment M, its moment of inertia I is a measure of the
resistance of the body to angular acceleration 𝛼. In linear motion, the mass m is a measure
of the resistance of the body to linear acceleration a when acted upon by force F.
In planar kinetics, the axis chosen for analysis passes through the centre of mass G of the
body and is always perpendicular to the plane of motion. The moment of inertia about this
axis is I G . The moment of inertia about an axis that is parallel to the axis passing through
the centre of mass is determined using the parallel axis theorem
I = IG + md2 (1.12)
where d is the perpendicular distance between the parallel axes.
For a rigid body of complex shape, the moment of inertia can be √ defined in terms of the
mass m and radius of gyration k such that I = mk2 , from which k = I∕m. If I is in units of
kg. m2 , k will be in metres. The radius of gyration k can be regarded as the distance from the
axis to a point in the plane of motion where the total mass must be concentrated to produce
the same moment of inertia as does the actual distributed mass of the body, i.e.
√
1
k= r 2 dm (1.13)
m∫
F
θ
ω F
L ω
R
θ
O
θ
F
(a) (b)
A couple is a pair of planar forces that are equal in magnitude, opposite in direction, and
parallel to each other (Figure 1.3b). Since the resultant force is zero, the couple can only
generate rotational motion. The moment of the couple is given by
M = F cos 𝜃R (1.15)
Torque is also a moment and is given by Eq. (1.14), but is used mainly to describe a
moment tending to turn or twist a shaft of reciprocating and gas turbine engines, motors,
and other rotating machinery. In machinery such as engines, force F will be applied to the
arm L at a right angle (𝜃 = 0). In these applications, the power is often expressed in terms
of the torque (see Eqs. 1.21 and 1.22 in Section 1.1.9).
(a) (b)
10 1 Review of Basic Principles
H0 = dm 𝜔l2 = I0 𝜔 (1.18)
∫
If G is the centre of gravity of the body,
I0 = IG + mh2 (1.19)
and the angular momentum of the body can be written as
H0 = IG 𝜔 + mh2 𝜔 = IG 𝜔 + mhv (1.20)
The angular momentum of a rigid body about any axis remains constant, unless an exter-
nal torque about the same axis is applied. This is known as the law of conservation of angular
momentum.
0
1.2 Fluid Mechanics 11
Linear Rotational
s = vi t + at2 /2 𝜃 = 𝜃 i t + 𝛼t2 /2
vf = vi + at 𝜃 f = 𝜃 i + 𝛼t
s = (vi + V f )t/2 𝜃 = (𝜔i + 𝜔f )t/2
v2f = v2i 2as 𝜔2f = 𝜔2i 2𝛼𝜃
1.2.1.2 Pressure
Pressure is the force exerted by a fluid on a unit area of its surroundings:
F
p= N∕m2 or Pa
A
Pressure acts perpendicular to the walls of the container surrounding the fluid. A column
of fluid of height h m having a cross sectional area of A m2 and density 𝜌 kg/m3 will exert a
pressure of
hA𝜌g
p= = h𝜌g = 𝛾h kPa
A
1.2.1.3 Compressibility
Compressibility is the change in volume of a substance when subjected to a change in
pressure exerted on it. The usual parameter used to measure compressibility of liquids is
the bulk modulus of elasticity E:
−Δp
E= N∕m2
(ΔV)∕V
The compressibility of a gas at constant temperature is defined as
( )
1 𝜕𝜈
𝜅=−
v 𝜕p T
For a perfect gas:
1 2
𝜅= m ∕N
p
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increasing branches in becoming splendour and affluence presses
with double weight on the poor and labouring classes. The greater
part of a community ought not to be paupers or starving; and when a
government by obstinacy and madness has reduced them to that
state, it must either take wise and effectual measures to relieve them
from it, or pay the forfeit of its own wickedness and folly.
It seems, then, that a system of just and useful laws may be
constructed nearly, if not wholly, on the principle of the right of self-
defence, or the security for person, liberty, and property. There are
exceptions, such, for instance, as in the case of children, idiots, and
insane persons. These common sense dictates for a general principle
can only hold good where the general conditions are complied with.
There are also mixed cases, partaking of civil and moral justice. Is a
man bound to support his children? Not in strict political right; but
he may be compelled to forego all the benefits of civil society, if he
does not fulfil an engagement which, according to the feelings and
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marriage. It is a voluntary contract, and the violation of it is
punishable on the same plea of sympathy and custom. Government
is not necessarily founded on common consent, but on the right
which society has to defend itself against all aggression. But am I
bound to pay or support the government for defending the society
against any violence or injustice? No: but then they may withdraw
the protection of the law from me if I refuse, and it is on this ground
that the contributions of each individual to the maintenance of the
state are demanded. Laws are, or ought to be, founded on the
supposed infraction of individual rights. If these rights, and the best
means of maintaining them, are always clear, and there could be no
injustice or abuse of power on the part of the government, every
government might be its own lawgiver: but as neither of these is the
case, it is necessary to recur to the general voice for settling the
boundaries of right and wrong, and even more for preventing the
government, under pretence of the general peace and safety, from
subjecting the whole liberties, rights, and resources of the
community to its own advantage and sole will.
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE; OR, ADVICE TO
A SCHOOLBOY
It is this feeling more than any thing else which produces a marked
difference between the study of the ancient and modern languages,
and which, by the weight and importance of the consequences
attached to the former, stamps every word with a monumental
firmness. By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment
with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no
longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which
they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which
gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the
flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.’
Because, however, you have learnt Latin and Greek, and can speak
a different language, do not fancy yourself of a different order of
beings from those you ordinarily converse with. They perhaps know
and can do more things than you, though you have learnt a greater
variety of names to express the same thing by. The great object
indeed of these studies is to be ‘a cure for a narrow and selfish spirit,’
and to carry the mind out of its petty and local prejudices to the idea
of a more general humanity. Do not fancy, because you are intimate
with Homer and Virgil, that your neighbours who can never attain
the same posthumous fame are to be despised, like those impudent
valets who live in noble families and look down upon every one else.
Though you are master of Cicero’s ‘Orations,’ think it possible for a
cobbler at a stall to be more eloquent than you. ‘But you are a
scholar, and he is not.’ Well, then, you have that advantage over him,
but it does not follow that you are to have every other. Look at the
heads of the celebrated poets and philosophers of antiquity in the
collection at Wilton, and you will say they answer to their works: but
you will find others in the same collection whose names have hardly
come down to us, that are equally fine, and cast in the same classic
mould. Do you imagine that all the thoughts, genius, and capacity of
those old and mighty nations are contained in a few odd volumes, to
be thumbed by school-boys? This reflection is not meant to lessen
your admiration of the great names to which you will be accustomed
to look up, but to direct it to that solid mass of intellect and power, of
which they were the most shining ornaments. I would wish you to
excel in this sort of learning and to take a pleasure in it, because it is
the path that has been chosen for you: but do not suppose that others
do not excel equally in their line of study or exercise of skill, or that
there is but one mode of excellence in art or nature. You have got on
vastly beyond the point at which you set out; but others have been
getting on as well as you in the same or other ways, and have kept
pace with you. What then, you may ask, is the use of all the pains you
have taken, if it gives you no superiority over mankind in general? It
is this—You have reaped all the benefit of improvement and
knowledge yourself; and farther, if you had not moved forwards, you
would by this time have been left behind. Envy no one, disparage no
one, think yourself above no one. Their demerits will not piece out
your deficiences; nor is it a waste of time and labour for you to
cultivate your own talents, because you cannot bespeak a monopoly
of all advantages. You are more learned than many of your
acquaintance who may be more active, healthy, witty, successful in
business or expert in some elegant or useful art than you; but you
have no reason to complain, if you have attained the object of your
ambition. Or if you should not be able to compass this from a want of
genius or parts, yet learn, my child, to be contented with a mediocrity
of acquirements. You may still be respectable in your conduct, and
enjoy a tranquil obscurity, with more friends and fewer enemies than
you might otherwise have had.
There is one almost certain drawback on a course of scholastic
study, that it unfits men for active life. The ideal is always at variance
with the practical. The habit of fixing the attention on the imaginary
and abstracted deprives the mind equally of energy and fortitude. By
indulging our imaginations on fictions and chimeras, where we have
it all our own way and are led on only by the pleasure of the prospect,
we grow fastidious, effeminate, lapped in idle luxury, impatient of
contradiction, and unable to sustain the shock of real adversity, when
it comes; as by being taken up with abstract reasoning or remote
events in which we are merely passive spectators, we have no
resources to provide against it, no readiness, or expedients for the
occasion, or spirit to use them, even if they occur. We must think
again before we determine, and thus the opportunity for action is
lost. While we are considering the very best possible mode of gaining
an object, we find that it has slipped through our fingers, or that
others have laid rude, fearless hands upon it. The youthful tyro
reluctantly discovers that the ways of the world are not his ways, nor
their thoughts his thoughts. Perhaps the old monastic institutions
were not in this respect unwise, which carried on to the end of life
the secluded habits and romantic associations with which it began,
and which created a privileged world for the inhabitants, distinct
from the common world of men and women. You will bring with you
from your books and solitary reveries a wrong measure of men and
things, unless you correct it by careful experience and mixed
observation. You will raise your standard of character as much too
high at first as from disappointed expectation it will sink too low
afterwards. The best qualifier of this theoretical mania and of the
dreams of poets and moralists (who both treat of things as they
ought to be and not as they are) is in one sense to be found in some
of our own popular writers, such as our Novelists and periodical
Essayists. But you had, after all, better wait and see what things are
than try to anticipate the results. You know more of a road by having
travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
You will find the business of life conducted on a much more varied
and individual scale than you would expect. People will be concerned
about a thousand things that you have no idea of, and will be utterly
indifferent to what you feel the greatest interest in. You will find
good and evil, folly and discretion more mingled, and the shades of
character running more into each other than they do in the ethical
charts. No one is equally wise or guarded at all points, and it is
seldom that any one is quite a fool. Do not be surprised, when you go
out into the world, to find men talk exceedingly well on different
subjects, who do not derive their information immediately from
books. In the first place, the light of books is diffused very much
abroad in the world in conversation and at second-hand; and
besides, common sense is not a monopoly, and experience and
observation are sources of information open to the man of the world
as well as to the retired student. If you know more of the outline and
principles, he knows more of the details and ‘practique part of life.’ A
man may discuss the adventures of a campaign in which he was
engaged very agreeably without having read the Retreat of the Ten
Thousand, or give a singular account of the method of drying teas in
China without being a profound chemist. It is the vice of scholars to
suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
Do you avoid it, I conjure you; and thereby save yourself the pain and
mortification that must otherwise ensue from finding out your
mistake continually!
Gravity is one great ingredient in the conduct of life, and perhaps a
certain share of it is hardly to be dispensed with. Few people can
afford to be quite unaffected. At any rate, do not put your worst
qualities foremost. Do not seek to distinguish yourself by being
ridiculous; nor entertain that miserable ambition to be the sport and
butt of the company. By aiming at a certain standard of behaviour or
intellect, you will at least show your taste and value for what is
excellent. There are those who blurt out their good things with so
little heed of what they are about that no one thinks any thing of
them; as others by keeping their folly to themselves gain the
reputation of wisdom. Do not, however, affect to speak only in
oracles, or to deal in bon-mots: condescend to the level of the
company, and be free and accessible to all persons. Express whatever
occurs to you, that cannot offend others or hurt yourself. Keep some
opinions to yourself. Say what you please of others, but never repeat
what you hear said of them to themselves. If you have nothing to
offer yourself, laugh with the witty, assent to the wise; they will not
think the worse of you for it. Listen to information on subjects you
are unacquainted with, instead of always striving to lead the
conversation to some favourite one of your own. By the last method
you will shine, but will not improve. I am ashamed myself ever to
open my lips on any question I have ever written upon. It is much
more difficult to be able to converse on an equality with a number of
persons in turn, than to soar above their heads, and excite the stupid
gaze of all companies by bestriding some senseless topic of your own
and confounding the understandings of those who are ignorant of it.
Be not too fond of argument. Indeed, by going much into company
(which I do not, however, wish you to do) you will be weaned from
this practice, if you set out with it. Rather suggest what remarks may
have occurred to you on a subject than aim at dictating your opinions
to others or at defending yourself at all points. You will learn more by
agreeing in the main with others and entering into their trains of
thinking, than by contradicting and urging them to extremities.
Avoid singularity of opinion as well as of everything else. Sound
conclusions come with practical knowledge, rather than with
speculative refinements: in what we really understand, we reason but
little. Long-winded disputes fill up the place of common sense and
candid inquiry. Do not imagine that you will make people friends by
showing your superiority over them: it is what they will neither
admit nor forgive, unless you have a high and acknowledged
reputation beforehand, which renders this sort of petty vanity more
inexcusable. Seek to gain the good-will of others, rather than to
extort their applause; and to this end, be neither too tenacious of
your own claims, nor inclined to press too hard on their weaknesses.
Do not affect the society of your inferiors in rank, nor court that of
the great. There can be no real sympathy in either case. The first will
consider you as a restraint upon them, and the last as an intruder or
upon sufferance. It is not a desirable distinction to be admitted into
company as a man of talents. You are a mark for invidious
observation. If you say nothing or merely behave with common
propriety and simplicity, you seem to have no business there. If you
make a studied display of yourself, it is arrogating a consequence you
have no right to. If you are contented to pass as an indifferent
person, they despise you; if you distinguish yourself, and show more
knowledge, wit, or taste than they do, they hate you for it. You have
no alternative. I would rather be asked out to sing than to talk. Every
one does not pretend to a fine voice, but every one fancies he has as
much understanding as another. Indeed, the secret of this sort of
intercourse has been pretty well found out. Literary men are seldom
invited to the tables of the great; they send for players and
musicians, as they keep monkeys and parrots!
I would not, however, have you run away with a notion that the
rich are knaves or that lords are fools. They are for what I know as
honest and as wise as other people. But it is a trick of our self-love,
supposing that another has the decided advantage of us in one way,
to strike a balance by taking it for granted (as a moral antithesis) that
he must be as much beneath us in those qualities on which we plume
ourselves, and which we would appropriate almost entirely to our
own use. It is hard indeed if others are raised above us not only by
the gifts of fortune, but of understanding too. It is not to be credited.
People have an unwillingness to admit that the House of Lords can
be equal in talent to the House of Commons. So in the other sex, if a
woman is handsome, she is an idiot or no better than she should be:
in ours, if a man is worth a million of money, he is a miser, a fellow
that cannot spell his own name, or a poor creature in some way, to
bring him to our level. This is malice, and not truth. Believe all the
good you can of every one. Do not measure others by yourself. If they
have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace
with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one. If
you have but the magnanimity to allow merit wherever you see it—
understanding in a lord or wit in a cobbler—this temper of mind will
stand you instead of many accomplishments. Think no man too
happy. Raphael died young. Milton had the misfortune to be blind. If
any one is vain or proud, it is from folly or ignorance. Those who
pique themselves excessively on some one thing, have but that one
thing to pique themselves upon, as languages, mechanics, &c. I do
not say that this is not an enviable delusion where it is not liable to
be disturbed; but at present knowledge is too much diffused and
pretensions come too much into collision for this to be long the case;
and it is better not to form such a prejudice at first than to have it to
undo all the rest of one’s life. If you learn any two things, though they
may put you out of conceit one with the other, they will effectually
cure you of any conceit you might have of yourself, by shewing the
variety and scope there is in the human mind beyond the limits you
had set to it.
You were convinced the first day that you could not learn Latin,
which now you find easy. Be taught from this, not to think other
obstacles insurmountable that you may meet with in the course of
your life, though they seem so at first sight.
Attend above all things to your health; or rather, do nothing
wilfully to impair it. Use exercise, abstinence, and regular hours.
Drink water when you are alone, and wine or very little spirits in
company. It is the last that are ruinous by leading to unlimited
excess. There is not the same headlong impetus in wine. But one
glass of brandy and water makes you want another, that other makes
you want a third, and so on, in an increased proportion. Therefore no
one can stop midway who does not possess the resolution to abstain
altogether; for the inclination is sharpened with its indulgence.
Never gamble. Or if you play for any thing, never do so for what will
give you uneasiness the next day. Be not precise in these matters: but
do not pass certain limits, which it is difficult to recover. Do nothing
in the irritation of the moment, but take time to reflect. Because you
have done one foolish thing, do not do another; nor throw away your
health or reputation or comfort, to thwart impertinent advice. Avoid
a spirit of contradiction, both in words and actions. Do not aim at
what is beyond your reach, but at what is within it. Indulge in calm
and pleasing pursuits, rather than violent excitements; and learn to
conquer your own will, instead of striving to obtain the mastery of
that of others.
With respect to your friends, I would wish you to choose them
neither from caprice nor accident, and to adhere to them as long as
you can. Do not make a surfeit of friendship, through over-sanguine
enthusiasm, nor expect it to last for ever. Always speak well of those
with whom you have once been intimate, or take some part of the
censure you bestow on them to yourself. Never quarrel with tried
friends, or those whom you wish to continue such. Wounds of this
kind are sure to open again. When once the prejudice is removed
that sheathes defects, familiarity only causes jealousy and distrust.
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is
gone—but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcase of
friendship: it is not worth embalming.
As to the books you will have to read by choice or for amusement,
the best are the commonest. The names of many of them are already
familiar to you. Read them as you grow up with all the satisfaction in
your power, and make much of them. It is perhaps the greatest
pleasure you will have in life, the one you will think of longest, and
repent of least. If my life had been more full of calamity than it has
been (much more than I hope yours will be) I would live it over
again, my poor little boy, to have read the books I did in my youth.
In politics I wish you to be an honest man, but no brawler. Hate
injustice and falsehood for your own sake. Be neither a martyr, nor a
sycophant. Wish well to the world without expecting to see it much
better than it is; and do not gratify the enemies of liberty by putting
yourself at their mercy, if it can be avoided with honour.
If you ever marry, I would wish you to marry the woman you like.
Do not be guided by the recommendation of friends. Nothing will
atone for or overcome an original distaste. It will only increase from
intimacy; and if you are to live separate, it is better not to come
together. There is no use in dragging a chain through life, unless it
binds one to the object we love. Choose a mistress from among your
equals. You will be able to understand her character better, and she
will be more likely to understand yours. Those in an inferior station
to yourself will doubt your good intentions, and misapprehend your
plainest expressions. All that you swear is to them a riddle or
downright nonsense. You cannot by possibility translate your
thoughts into their dialect. They will be ignorant of the meaning of
half you say, and laugh at the rest. As mistresses, they will have no
sympathy with you; and as wives, you can have none with them. But
they will do all they can to thwart you, and to retrieve themselves in
their own opinion by trick and low cunning. No woman ever married
into a family above herself that did not try to make all the mischief
she could in it. Be not in haste to marry, nor to engage your
affections, where there is no probability of a return. Do not fancy
every woman you see the heroine of a romance, a Sophia Western, a
Clarissa, or a Julia; and yourself the potential hero of it, Tom Jones,
Lovelace, or St. Preux. Avoid this error as you would shrink back
from a precipice. All your fine sentiments and romantic notions will
(of themselves) make no more impression on one of these delicate
creatures, than on a piece of marble. Their soft bosoms are steel to
your amorous refinements, if you have no other pretensions. It is not
what you think of them that determines their choice, but what they
think of you. Endeavour, if you would escape lingering torments and
the gnawing of the worm that dies not, to find out this, and to abide
by the issue. We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are
attached to us, and follow those that fly from us. ‘We hunt the wind,
we worship a statue, cry aloud to the desert.’ Do you, my dear boy,
stop short in this career, if you find yourself setting out in it, and
make up your mind to this, that if a woman does not like you of her
own accord, that is, from involuntary impressions, nothing you can
say or do or suffer for her sake will make her, but will set her the
more against you. So the song goes—
‘Quit, quit for shame; this will not move:
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing will make her, the devil take her!’
Your pain is her triumph; the more she feels you in her power, the
worse she will treat you: the more you make it appear you deserve
her regard, the more will she resent it as an imputation on her first
judgment. Study first impressions above all things; for every thing
depends on them, in love especially. Women are armed by nature
and education with a power of resisting the importunity of men, and
they use this power according to their discretion. They enforce it to
the utmost rigour of the law against those whom they do not like, and
relax their extreme severity proportionably in favour of those that
they do like and who in general care as little about them. Hence we
see so many desponding lovers and forlorn damsels. Love in women
(at least) is either vanity, or interest, or fancy. It is a merely selfish
feeling. It has nothing to do (I am sorry to say) with friendship, or
esteem, or even pity. I once asked a girl, the pattern of her sex in
shape and mind and attractions, whether she did not think Mr.
Coleridge had done wrong in making the heroine of his beautiful
ballad story of Geneviève take compassion on her hapless lover—
‘When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay—’
And whether she believed that any woman ever fell in love through a
sense of compassion; and she made answer—‘Not if it was against
her inclination!’ I would take the lady’s word for a thousand pound,
on this point. Pain holds antipathy to pleasure; pity is not akin to
love; a dying man has more need of a nurse than of a mistress. There
is no forcing liking. It is as little to be fostered by reason and good-
nature, as it can be controlled by prudence or propriety. It is a mere
blind, headstrong impulse. Least of all flatter yourself that talents or
virtue will recommend you to the favour of the sex, in lieu of exterior
advantages. Oh! no. Women care nothing about poets, or
philosophers, or politicians. They go by a man’s looks and manner.
Richardson calls them ‘an eye-judging sex;’ and I am sure he knew
more about them than I can pretend to do. If you run away with a
pedantic notion that they care a pin’s-point about your head or your
heart, you will repent it too late. Some bluestocking may have her
vanity flattered by your reputation or be edified by the solution of a
metaphysical problem or a critical remark or a dissertation on the
state of the nation, and fancy that she has a taste for intellect and is
an epicure in sentiment. No true woman ever regarded any thing but
her lover’s person and address. Gravity will here answer all the same
purpose without understanding, gaiety without wit, folly without
good-nature, and impudence without any other pretension. The
natural and instinctive passion of love is excited by qualities not
peculiar to artists, authors, and men of letters. It is not the jest but
the laugh that follows, not the sentiment but the glance that
accompanies it, that tells—in a word, the sense of actual enjoyment
that imparts itself to others, and excites mutual understanding and
inclination. Authors, on the other hand, feel nothing spontaneously.
The common incidents and circumstances of life with which others
are taken up, make no alteration in them, nor provoke any of the
common expressions of surprise, joy, admiration, anger, or
merriment. Nothing stirs their blood or accelerates their juices or
tickles their veins. Instead of yielding to the first natural and lively
impulses of things, in which they would find sympathy, they screw
themselves up to some far-fetched view of the subject in order to be
unintelligible. Realities are not good enough for them, till they
undergo the process of imagination and reflection. If you offer them
your hand to shake, they will hardly take it; for this does not amount
to a proposition. If you enter their room suddenly, they testify
neither surprise nor satisfaction: no new idea is elicited by it. Yet if
you suppose this to be a repulse, you are mistaken. They will enter
into your affairs or combat your ideas with all the warmth and
vehemence imaginable, as soon as they have a subject started. But
their faculty for thinking must be set in motion, before you can put
any soul into them. They are intellectual dram-drinkers; and without
their necessary stimulus, are torpid, dead, insensible to every thing.
They have great life of mind, but none of body. They do not drift with
the stream of company or of passing occurrences, but are straining at
some hyperbole or striking out a bye-path of their own. Follow them
who list. Their minds are a sort of Herculaneum, full of old, petrified
images;—are set in stereotype, and little fitted to the ordinary
occasions of life.
What chance, then, can they have with women, who deal only in
the pantomime of discourse, in gesticulation and the flippant bye-
play of the senses, ‘nods and winks and wreathed smiles;’ and to
whom to offer a remark is an impertinence, or a reason an affront?
The only way in which I ever knew mental qualities or distinction tell
was in the clerical character; and women do certainly incline to this
with some sort of favourable regard. Whether it is that the sanctity of
pretension piques curiosity, or that the habitual submission of their
understandings to their spiritual guides subdues the will, a popular
preacher generally has the choice among the élite of his female flock.
According to Mrs. Inchbald (see her ‘Simple Story’) there is another
reason why religious courtship is not without its charms! But as I do
not intend you for the church, do not, in thinking to study yourself
into the good graces of the fair, study yourself out of them, millions
of miles. Do not place thought as a barrier between you and love: do
not abstract yourself into the regions of truth, far from the smile of
earthly beauty. Let not the cloud sit upon your brow: let not the
canker sink into your heart. Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the
colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person,
maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you
will pass for a fine man. But should you let your blood stagnate in
some deep metaphysical question, or refine too much in your ideas of
the sex, forgetting yourself in a dream of exalted perfection, you will
want an eye to cheer you, a hand to guide you, a bosom to lean on,
and will stagger into your grave, old before your time, unloved and
unlovely. If you feel that you have not the necessary advantages of
person, confidence, and manner, and that it is up-hill work with you
to gain the ear of beauty, quit the pursuit at once, and seek for other
satisfactions and consolations.
A spider, my dear, the meanest creature that crawls or lives, has its
mate or fellow: but a scholar has no mate or fellow. For myself, I had
courted thought, I had felt pain; and Love turned away his face from
me. I have gazed along the silent air for that smile which had lured
me to my doom. I no more heard those accents which would have
burst upon me, like a voice from heaven. I loathed the light that
shone on my disgrace. Hours, days, years, passed away; and only
turned false hope to fixed despair. And as my frail bark sails down
the stream of time, the God of Love stands on the shore, and as I
stretch out my hands to him in vain, claps his wings, and mocks me
as I pass!
There is but one other point on which I meant to speak to you, and
that is the choice of a profession. This, probably, had better be left to
time or accident or your own inclination. You have a very fine ear,
but I have somehow a prejudice against men-singers, and indeed
against the stage altogether. It is an uncertain and ungrateful soil. All
professions are bad that depend on reputation, which is ‘as often got
without merit as lost without deserving.’ Yet I cannot easily reconcile
myself to your being a slave to business, and I shall hardly be able to
leave you an independence. A situation in a public office is secure,
but laborious and mechanical, and without the two great springs of
life, Hope and Fear. Perhaps, however, it might ensure you a
competence, and leave you leisure for some other favourite
amusement or pursuit. I have said all reputation is hazardous, hard
to win, harder to keep. Many never attain a glimpse of what they
have all their lives been looking for, and others survive a passing
shadow of it. Yet if I were to name one pursuit rather than another, I
should wish you to be a good painter, if such a thing could be hoped.
I have failed in this myself, and should wish you to be able to do what
I have not—to paint like Claude or Rembrandt or Guido or Vandyke,
if it were possible. Artists, I think, who have succeeded in their chief
object, live to be old, and are agreeable old men. Their minds keep
alive to the last. Cosway’s spirits never flagged till after ninety, and
Nollekins, though nearly blind, passed all his mornings in giving
directions about some group or bust in his workshop. You have seen
Mr. Northcote, that delightful specimen of the last age. With what
avidity he takes up his pencil, or lays it down again to talk of
numberless things! His eye has not lost its lustre, nor ‘paled its
ineffectual fire.’ His body is a shadow: he himself is a pure spirit.
There is a kind of immortality about this sort of ideal and visionary
existence that dallies with Fate and baffles the grim monster, Death.
If I thought you could make as clever an artist and arrive at such an
agreeable old age as Mr. Northcote, I should declare at once for your
devoting yourself to this enchanting profession; and in that reliance,
should feel less regret at some of my own disappointments, and little
anxiety on your account!