Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full proportion to
the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are best agglutinated by
the biographical dough. Of anecdote or gossip, glimpses of "life and
manners" or personal details, there is nothing. Nor can we justly take
exception to this. On the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by
excluding whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr.
Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and thoughts
to a degree that can have left him but little opportunity for
intercourse with mankind except in a business capacity. It is these
enterprises--not in their entirety or with reference to the objects
with which they were designed, but as evidences and illustrations
of the working force, mental and physical, demanded for their
execution--that form the real subject of the book, the matter of which
has been chiefly furnished by the various agents entrusted with the
immediate supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed.
The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid idea of
the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth century, and
of the resources they have called into play, than could have been
obtained from a survey of any other field in which the like qualities
have been displayed. It was chiefly with railway enterprises, and this
almost from their inception, and to an extent far beyond the rivalry
of any other constructor, that Mr.
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