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Then, at last, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took up the thread of progress where antiquity had dropped it. Science revived, and bade defiance to dogma. The garnering of knowledge began afresh; and true knowledge has this to distinguish it from pseudo-sciences like astrology, theology, and philately, that it is instinct with procreative vigour.
It trains our powers of observation, enlarges our perceptions, broadens our views, and adds to our knowledge of history, art, languages, geography, botany, mythology and many kindred branches of learning. Philately embraces the whole earth and likewise the whole earth is sometimes embraced within the limits of a postage stamp.
But the children will find their way in, and then I'm seldom undisturbed anywhere for more than an hour at a time; there's always some call on me, something wanted that no one else can see to." "You ought to swap places with Berkeley for awhile. He's got more leisure than he knows what to do with." "Berkeley! Well, what's he up to now? Philately? Arboriculture? What's his last fad?
Spargo rose and moved to the door. "Well, I'm off," he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected something, he turned back. "Oh, by the by," he said, "isn't your guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on philately?" "One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast." "Do you think he'd tell me a bit about those Australian stamps which Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?" "Certain, he would delighted.
Correctly speaking, a surcharge is an added charge, but in philately the term is applied to a variety of overprints, the majority of which indicate a reduction rather than an increase in value. Years ago the word surcharge usually suggested a makeshift, something of a temporary nature prepared to meet an emergency and, therefore, interesting and likely to become valuable.
Of course, Cochrane reminded himself with conscious justice, of course there was the very great value of moon-mail cachets to devotees of philately. There was the value of the tourist facilities to anybody who could spend that much money for something to brag about afterward. There were the solar-heat mines running at a slight loss and various other fine achievements.
One of the stock arguments advanced in favor of philately, by those who think it needs other excuse than the entertainment it affords, is that it teaches geography. This is undoubtedly true, and, as if in support of the argument, several countries have given us what might be called map stamps.
There was the moral pleasure of having both outwitted a railway company and secured another specimen for my collection; and there was the physical pleasure of making a limp slip of paper stick to a hard substance that simple pleasure which appeals to all of us and is, perhaps, the missing explanation of philately. Pressed for time, I could not, of course, have played my trick.
In addition to the things to be learned from the pictorial part of stamps, there are other things which attract the attention of the thoughtful and bring with them knowledge that is both interesting and valuable. The mechanical part of stamp making may be studied with much profit and entertainment. Considered in all its aspects, philately is even more instructive than matrimony.
We find them on the tea chests, written in excellent Chinese, and, even if we do not read the language, we cannot doubt that they refer to the tea doses which the chests contain. By some, philately has been called a science. Perhaps it hardly merits so exalted a title but it opens for us a wide field for research, in which we may find many curious, interesting and instructive things.
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