As for letters of the alphabet attached to one’s name, almost any one nowadays may have any amount of them by paying fees or subscriptions; in particular, America has given me many honorary diplomas.  And for the matter of gold medals, who can covet them, when even the creators of baking-powder and sewing-machines are surfeited therewith.  My poor Prussian medal looks small in comparison.  And then, as for knighthood, that ancient honour has been lately so abused that vanity itself could scarcely desire it, and even modesty now might hesitate in its acceptance.

Albeit I have thus spoken only incidentally and with seeming carelessness about my Prussian medal, I am reminded that it will interest readers if I here extract the Chevalier Buensen’s letter to me on the occasion.  It runs thus in its integrity:—­

“4 Carlton Terrace, 26th September 1844.

“My Dear Sir,—­I owe you many apologies for not having answered earlier your letter of the 2d of August.  The fact is that since that time I have been travelling all over England with the Prince of Prussia.  As to your work, I laid it myself before the King, who perused it with great pleasure, when I was at Berlin.  I am now charged by His Majesty not only to express to you his thanks for having thought of him in sending him a book replete with so much Christian wisdom and experience, but also to present to you, in his Royal name, the gold medal for science and literature, as a particular sign of regard.  The medal will be delivered to you, or a person authorised by you, at the office of the Prussian Legation, any morning from 11 to 1 o’clock, Sunday of course excepted.

“Allow me to avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you my
own thanks and the expression of my high regard, and believe me,
yours sincerely,

“Buensen.

“M.F.  Tupper, Esq.”

Accordingly, I called myself and received the medal from the Chevalier, with whom afterwards I had half-an-hour’s talk, chiefly about German history, in which by good fortune I was fairly posted, perhaps with a prescience that the ambassador might allude to it.

* * * * *

An author, if he be a good man and a clever, worthy of his high vocation, already walks self-ennobled, circled by an aureola of spiritual glory such as no king can give, nor even all-devouring time, “edax rerum,” can take away.  He really gains nothing by a title—­no, not even Tennyson; as in the next world, so in this, “his works do follow him,” and the “Well done, good and faithful” from this lower world which he has served is but the prelude of his welcome to that higher world wherein he hears the same “good and faithful” from the mouth of his Redeemer.

Inventions.

It may be worth a page if I record here sundry inventions of mine, surely bits of authorship, which I found out for myself but did not patent, though others did.  As thus:—­