The question of lodgings brought also many difficulties, for nobody wanted to, or could put us up. At last we succeeded at the H?tel l'union, where we first ate two roasted pigeons which were intended for a couple of officers, who would return in the evening from the front line. The three of us subsequently occupied one room, after having written on the door with chalk that Lieutenants So and So were staying there. For the landlady had told us that she was willing to put us up, but that the officers who returned every night from the front line were sure to turn us out. Indeed in the evening we heard heavy steps before our door, but after a voice had read out that Lieutenants So244 and So were passing the night there, they all went away again.
When I was eating a little at one of the hotels near the railway station, I was offered the newspaper l'Ami de l'Ordre, which had appeared again for the first time on that day, September 7th, under the Censorship of the German authorities. For curiosity's sake I translate here the first leaderette, published under the rule of the new masters:"These banknotes were paid to your firm?" he asked.All the lights in the room were ablaze; at one end of the table was a dainty supper, flanked by a couple of gold-topped bottles. A little shabby man with a hooked nose was in the act of taking off a heavy fur-lined coat.My obligations to other writers have been acknowledged throughout this work, so far as I was conscious of them, and so far as they could be defined by reference to specific points. I take the present opportunity for mentioning in a more general way the valuable assistance which I have derived from Schweglers Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie, Langes Geschichte des Materialismus, and Dührings Geschichte der Philosophie. The parallel between Socrates, Giordano Bruno, and Spinoza was probably suggested to mexxiv by Dühring, as also were some points in my characterisation of Aristotle. As my view of the position occupied by Lucretius with respect to religion and philosophy differs in many important points from that of Prof. Sellar, it is the more incumbent on me to state that, but for a perusal of Prof. Sellars eloquent and sympathetic chapters on the great Epicurean poet, my own estimate of his genius would certainly not have been written in its present form and would probably not have been written at all.If a civil engineer is wanted to survey railways, construct docks, bridges, buildings, or permanent works of any kind, there are scores of men ready for the place, and qualified to discharge the duties; but if an engineer is wanted to design and construct machinery, such a person is not easy to be found, and if found, there remains that important question of competency; for the work is not like that of constructing permanent works, where several men may and will perform the undertaking very much in the same manner, and perhaps equally well. In the construction of machinery it is different; the success will be directly as the capacity of the engineer, who will have but few precedents, and still fewer principles, to guide him, and generally has to set out by relying mainly upon his special knowledge of the operation and application of such machines as he has to construct.