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Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness/Part 1/Chapter VI

N our study of theology we saw the Christian mystic adopting, as chart and pilot book of his voyages and adventures, the scheme of faith, and diagram of the spiritual world, which is accepted by ordinary Christian men. We saw that he found in it a depth and richness of content which the conventional believer in that theology, the “good churchman,” seldom suspects: and that which is true of the Christian mystic is also true in its measure and as regards their respective theologies, of the Pagan, the Mahommedan and the Buddhist.

But since the spiritual adventures of the mystic are not those of ordinary men, it will follow that this map, though always true for him, is not complete. He can press forward to countries which unmystical piety must mark as unexplored, Pushing out from harbour to “the vast and stormy sea of the divine,” he can take soundings, and mark dangers the existence of which such piety never needs to prove. Hence it is not strange that certain maps, artistic representations or symbolic schemes, should have come into being which describe or suggest the special experiences of the mystical consciousness, and the doctrines to which these experiences have given birth. Many of these maps have an uncouth, even an impious appearance in the eyes of those unacquainted with the facts which they attempt to translate: as the charts of the deep-sea sailor seem ugly and unintelligible things to those who have never been out of sight of land. Others—and these the most pleasing, most easily understood—have already been made familiar, perhaps tiresomely familiar, to us by the poets; who, intuitively recognizing their suggestive qualities, their links with

truth, have borrowed and adapted them to their own business of translating Reality into terms of rhythm and speech. Ultimately, however, they owe their origin to the mystics, or to that mystical sense which is innate in all true poets: and in the last resort it is the mystic’s kingdom, and the mystic’s experience, which they affect to describe.

These special mystical diagrams, these symbolic and artistic descriptions of man’s inward history—his secret adventures with God—are almost endless in their variety: since in each we have a picture of the country of the soul seen through a different temperament. To describe all would be to analyse the whole field of mystical literature, and indeed much other literature as well; to epitomize in fact all that has been dreamed and written concerning the so-called “inner life”—a dreary and a lengthy task. But the majority of them, I think, express a comparatively small number of essential doctrines or fundamental ways of seeing things; and as regards their imagery, they fall into three great classes, representative of the three principal ways in which man’s spiritual consciousness reacts to the touch of Reality, the three primary if paradoxical facts of which that consciousness must be aware. Hence a consideration of mystic symbols drawn from each of these groups may give us a key with which to unlock some at least of the verbal riddles of the individual adventurer.

Thanks to the spatial imagery inseparable from human thinking and human expression, no direct description of spiritual experience is or can be possible to man. It must always be symbolic, allusive, oblique: always suggest, but never tell, the truth: and in this respect there is not much to choose between the fluid and artistic language of vision and the arid technicalities of philosophy. In another respect, however, there is a great deal to choose between them: and here the visionary, not the philosopher, receives the palm. The greater the suggestive quality of the symbol used, the more answering emotion it evokes in those to whom it is addressed, the more truth it will convey. A good symbolism, therefore, will be more than mere diagram or mere allegory: it will use to the utmost the resources of beauty and of passion, will bring with it hints of mystery and wonder, bewitch with dreamy periods the mind to which it is addressed. Its appeal will not be to the clever brain, but to the desirous heart, the intuitive sense, of man.

The three great classes of symbols which I propose to consider, appeal to three deep cravings of the self, three great expressions of man’s restlessness, which only mystic truth can fully satisfy. The first is the craving which makes him a pilgrim and wanderer. It is the longing to go out from his normal world in search of a lost home, a “better country”; an Eldorado, a Sarras, a Heavenly

Syon. The next is that craving of heart for heart, of the soul for its perfect mate, which makes him a lover. The third is the craving for inward purity and perfection, which makes him an ascetic, and in the last resort a saint.

These three cravings, I think, answer to three ways in which mystics of different temperaments attack the problem of the Absolute: three different formulae under which their transcendence of the sense-world can be described. In describing this transcendence, and the special adventures involved in it, they are describing a change from the state of ordinary men, in touch with the sense-world, responding to its rhythms, to the state of spiritual consciousness in which, as they say, they are “in union” with Divine Reality, with God. Whatever be the theological creed of the mystic, he never varies in declaring this close, definite, and actual intimacy to be the end of his quest. “Mark me like the tulip with Thine own streaks,” says the Sufi. “I would fain be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man,” says the German contemplative. “My me is God, nor do I know my self-hood save in Him,” says the Italian saint.

But, since this Absolute God is for him substance, ground or underlying Reality of all that is: present yet absent, near yet far: He is already as truly immanent in the human soul as in the Universe. The seeker for the Real may therefore objectify his quest in two apparently contradictory, yet really mutually explanatory ways. First he may see it as an outgoing journey from the world of illusion to the real or transcendental world: a leaving of the visible for the invisible. Secondly, it may appear to him as an inward alteration, remaking or regeneration, by which his personality or character is so changed as to be able to enter into communion with that Fontal Being which he loves and desires; is united with and dominated by the indwelling God who is the fount of his spiritual life. In the first case, the objective idea “God” is the pivot of his symbolism: the Blazing Star, or Magnet of the Universe which he has seen far off, and seeing, has worshipped and desired. In the second case, the emphasis falls on the subjective idea “Sanctity,” with its accompanying consciousness of a disharmony to be abolished. The Mystic Way will then be described, not as a journey, but as an alteration of personality, the transmuting of “earthly” into “heavenly” man. Plainly these two aspects are obverse and reverse of one whole. They represent that mighty pair of opposites, Infinite and Finite, God and Self, which it is the business of mysticism to carry up into a higher synthesis.

Whether the process be considered as outward search or inward change, its object and its end are the same. Man enters into that Order of Reality for which he was made, and which is indeed the inciting cause of his pilgrimage and his purification: for however great the demand on the soul’s own effort may be, the initiative always lies with the living Divine World itself. Man’s small desire is evoked, met, and fulfilled by the Divine Desire, his “separated will” or life becomes one with the great Life of the All.

From what has been said in the last chapter, it will be clear that the symbolism of outward search and of inward change will be adopted respectively by the two groups of selves whose experience of “union with the Divine” leans (1) to the Transcendent or external, (2) to the Immanent or internal way of apprehending Reality. A third or intermediate group of images will be necessary to express the experience of those to whom mystic feeling—the satisfaction of love—is the supreme factor in the mystic life. According, then, to whether man’s instinct prompts him to describe the Absolute Reality which he knows and craves for as a Place, a Person, or a State—all three of course but partial and inadequate translations of the one Indescribable Truth—so will he tend to adopt a symbolism of one or other of these three types.

A. Those who conceive the Perfect as a beatific vision exterior to them and very far off, who find in the doctrine of Emanations something which answers to their inward experience, will feel the process of their entrance into reality to be a quest, an arduous journey from the material to the spiritual world. They move away from, rather than transmute to another form, the life of sense. The ecstasies of such mystics will answer to the root-meaning of that much perverted word, as a “standing out” from themselves; a flight to happier countries far away. For them, the soul is outward bound towards its home.

B. Those for whom mysticism is above all things an intimate and personal relation, the satisfaction of a deep desire—who can say with Gertrude More, “never was there or can there be imagined such a love, as is between an humble soul and Thee”—will fall back upon imagery drawn largely from the language of earthly passion. Since the Christian religion insists upon the personal aspect of the Godhead, and provides in Christ an object of such intimacy, devotion and desire, an enormous number of Christian mystics inevitably describe their experiences under symbolism of this kind.

C. Those who are conscious rather of the Divine as a Transcendent Life immanent in the world and the self, and of a strange spiritual seed within them by whose development man, moving to higher levels of character and consciousness, attains his end,

will see the mystic life as involving inward change rather than outgoing search. Regeneration is their watchword, and they will choose symbols of growth or transmutation: saying with St. Catherine of Genoa, “my Being is God, not by simple participation, but by a true transformation of my Being.”

These three groups of mystics, then, stand for three kinds of temperament; and we may fairly take as their characteristic forms of symbolic expression the Mystic Quest, the Marriage of the Soul, and the “Great Work” of the Spiritual Alchemists.

I

The pilgrimage idea, the outgoing quest, appears in mystical literature under two different aspects. One is the search for the “Hidden Treasure which desires to be found.” Such is the “quest of the Grail” when regarded in its mystic aspect as an allegory of the adventures of the soul. The other is the long, hard journey towards a known and definite goal or state. Such are Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”; each in their manner faithful descriptions of the Mystic Way. The goal of the quest—the Empyrean of Dante, the Beatific Vision or fulfilment of love—is often called Jerusalem by the Christian mystics: naturally enough since that city was for the mediaeval mind the supreme end of pilgrimage. By Jerusalem they mean not only the celestial country Heaven, but also the spiritual life, which is “itself a heaven.”

“Right as a true pilgrim going to Jerusalem,” says Hilton, “leaveth behind him house and land, wife and child, and maketh himself poor and bare from all that he hath, that he may go lightly without letting: right so, if thou wilt be a ghostly pilgrim, thou shalt make thyself naked from all that thou hast. . . then shalt thou set in thy heart wholly and fully that thou wouldst be at Jerusalem, and at none other place but there.” “Jerusalem,” he says in this same chapter, “is as much as to say a sight of peace; and betokeneth contemplation in perfect love of God.”

Under this image of a pilgrimage—an image as concrete and practical, as remote from the romantic and picturesque, for the mediaeval writers who used it, as a symbolism of hotel and railway train would be to us—the mystics contrived to summarize and suggest much of the life history of the ascending soul; the developing spiritual consciousness. The necessary freedom and detachment of the traveller, his departure from his normal life and interests, the difficulties, enemies, and hardships encountered on

the road—the length of the journey, the variety of the country, the dark night which overtakes him, the glimpses of destination far away—all these are seen more and more as we advance in knowledge to constitute a transparent allegory of the incidents of man’s progress from the unreal to the real. Bunyan was but the last of a long series of minds which grasped this fact.

The Traveller, says the Sufi ‘Aziz bin Mahommed Nafasi, in whose book, “The Remotest Aim,” the pilgrimage-symbolism is developed in great detail, is the Perceptive or Intuitive Sense of Man. The goal to which he journeys is Knowledge of God. This mysterious traveller towards the only country of the soul may be known of other men by his detachment, charity, humility, and patience. These primary virtues, however—belonging to ethical rather than to spiritual life—are not enough to bring his quest to a successful termination. They make him, say the Sufis, “perfect in knowledge of his goal but deficient in the power of reaching it.” Though he has fraternal love for his fellow-pilgrims, detachment from wayside allurements, untiring perseverance on the road, he is still encumbered and weakened by unnecessary luggage. The second stage of his journey, therefore, is initiated like that of Christian by a casting off of his burden: a total self-renouncement, the attainment of a Franciscan poverty of spirit whereby he becomes “Perfectly Free.”

Having got rid of all impediments to the spiritual quest, he must now acquire or develop in their stead the characteristic mystical qualities, or Three Aids of the Pilgrim; which are called in this system Attraction, Devotion, and Elevation. Attraction is consciousness of the mutual desire existing between man’s spirit and the Divine Spirit: of the link of love which knits up reality and draws all things to their home in God. This is the universal law on which all mysticism is based. It is St. Augustine’s “Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except in Thee.” This “natural magnetism,” then, once he is aware of it, will draw the pilgrim irresistibly along the road from the Many to the One. His second aid, Devotion, says the “Remotest Aim” in a phrase of great depth and beauty, is “the prosecution of the journey to God and in God.” It embraces, in fact, the whole contemplative life. It is the next degree of spiritual consciousness after the blind yielding to the attraction of the Real, and the setting in order of man’s relation to his source.

The Traveller’s journey to God is complete when he attains

knowledge of Him—“Illumination,” in the language of European mystics. The point at which this is reached is called the Tavern or resting-place upon the road, where he is fed with the Divine Mysteries. There are also “Wine Shops” upon the way, where the weary pilgrim is cheered and refreshed by a draught of the wine of Divine Love. Only when the journey to God is completed begins the “Journey in God”—that which the Christian mystics call the Unitive Way—and this, since it is the essence of Eternal Life, can have no end. Elevation, the pilgrim’s third aid, is the exalted or ecstatic form of consciousness peculiar to the contemplative, and which allows the traveller a glimpse of the spiritual city towards which he goes.

The Sufi poet ‘Attar, in his mystical poem, “The Colloquy of the Birds,” has described the stages of this same spiritual pilgrimage with greater psychological insight, as the journey through “Seven Valleys.” The lapwing, having been asked by other birds what is the length of the road which leads to the hidden Palace of the King, replies that there are Seven Valleys through which every traveller must pass: but since none who attain the End ever come back to describe their adventures, no one knows the length of the way.

(1) The first valley, says the lapwing, is the Valley of the Quest. It is long and toilsome: and there the traveller must strip himself of all earthly things, becoming poor, bare, and desolate: and so stay till the Supernal Light casts a ray on his desolation. It is in fact, Dante’s Purgatorio, the Christian Way of Purgation: the period of self-stripping and purification which no mystic system omits.

(2) When the ray of Supernal Light has touched the pilgrim he enters the limitless Valley of Love: begins, that is to say, the mystic life. It is Dante’s “Earthly Paradise,” or, in the traditional system of the mystics, the onset of Illumination.

(3) Hence he passes to the Valley of Knowledge or Enlightenment—the contemplative state—where each finds in communion with Truth the place that belongs to him. No Dante student will fail to see here a striking parallel with those planetary heavens where each soul partakes of the Divine, “not supremely in the absolute sense,” as St. Bonaventura has it, but “supremely in respect of himself.” The mystery of Being is now revealed to the traveller. He sees Nature’s secret, and God in all things. It is the height of illumination.

(4) The next stage is the Valley of Detachment, of utter absorption in Divine Love—the Stellar Heaven of the Saints—where Duty is seen to be all in all. This leads to—

(5) The Valley of the Unity, where the naked Godhead is the one object of contemplation. This is the stage of ecstasy, or the Beatific Vision: Dante’s condition in the last canto of the “Paradiso.” It is transient, however, and leads to—

(6) The Valley of Amazement; where the Vision, far transcending the pilgrim’s receptive power, appears to be taken from him and he is plunged in darkness and bewilderment. This is the state which Dionysius the Areopagite, and after him many mediaeval mystics, called the Divine Dark, and described as the truest and closest of all our apprehensions of the Godhead. It is the Cloud of Unknowing, “dark from excessive bright.” The final stage is—

(7) The Valley of Annihilation of Self: the supreme degree of union or theopathetic state, in which the self is utterly merged “like a fish in the sea” in the ocean of Divine Love.

Through all these metaphors of pilgrimage to a goal—of a road followed, distance overpassed, fatigue endured—there runs the definite idea that the travelling self in undertaking the journey is fulfilling a destiny, a law of the transcendental life; obeying an imperative need. The chosen Knights are destined or called to the quest of the Grail. “All men are called to their origin,” says Rulman Merswin, and the fishes which he sees in his Vision of Nine Rocks are impelled to struggle, as it were “against nature,” uphill from pool to pool towards their source.

All mystical thinkers agree in declaring that there is a mutual attraction between the Spark of the Soul, the free divine germ in man, and the Fount from which it came forth. “We long for the Absolute,” says Royce, “only in so far as in us the Absolute also longs, and seeks, through our very temporal striving, the peace that is nowhere in Time, but only, and yet Absolutely, in Eternity.” So, many centuries before the birth of American philosophy, Hilton put the same truth of experience in lovelier words. “He it is that desireth in thee, and He it is that is desired. He is all and He doth all if thou might see Him.”

The homeward journey of man’s spirit, then, may be thought of as due to the push of a divine life within, answering to the pull of

a divine life without. It is only possible because there is already in that spirit a certain kinship with the Divine, a capacity for Eternal Life; and the mystics, in undertaking it, are humanity’s pioneers on the only road to rest. Hence that attraction which the Moslem mystic discerned as the traveller’s necessary aid, is a fundamental doctrine of all mysticism: and as a consequence, the symbolism of mutual desire is here inextricably mingled with that of pilgrimage. The spiritual pilgrim goes because he is called; because he wants to go, must go, if he is to find rest and peace. “God needs man,” says Eckhart. It is Love calling to love: and the journey, though in one sense a hard pilgrimage, up and out, by the terraced mount and the ten heavens to God, in another is the inevitable rush of the roving comet, caught at last, to the Central Sun. “My weight is my love,” said St. Augustine. Like gravitation, it inevitably compels, for good or evil, every spirit to its own place. According to another range of symbols, that love flings open a door, in order that the larger Life may rush in and it and the soul be “one thing.”

Here, then, we run through the whole gamut of symbolic expression; through Transcendence, Desire, and Immanence. All are seen to point to one consummation, diversely and always allusively expressed: the need of union between man’s separated spirit and the Real, his remaking in the interests of transcendent life, his establishment in that Kingdom which is both “near and far.”

“In the book of Hidden Things it is written,” says Eckhart, “‘I stand at the door and knock and wait’. . . thou needst not seek Him here or there: He is no farther off than the door of the heart. There He stands and waits and waits until He finds thee ready to open and let Him in. Thou needst not call Him from a distance; to wait until thou openest is harder for Him than for thee. He needs thee a thousand times more than thou canst need Him. Thy opening and His entering are but one moment.” “God,” he says in another place, “can as little do without us, as we without Him.” Our attainment of the Absolute is not a one-sided ambition, but the fulfilment of a mutual desire. “For our natural Will,” says Lady Julian, “is to have God, and the Good will of

God is to have us; and we may never cease from longing till we have Him in fullness of joy.”

So, in the beautiful poem or ritual called the “Hymn of Jesus,” contained in the apocryphal “Acts of John” and dating from primitive Christian times, the Logos, or Eternal Christ, is thus represented as matching with His own transcendent, self-giving desire every need of the soul.
 * The Soul says:—
 * “‘I would be saved.’”
 * Christ replies:—
 * “‘And I would save.’ Amen.”
 * The Dialogue continues:—
 * “‘I would be loosed.’
 * ‘And I would loose.’ Amen.
 * ‘I would be pierced.’
 * ‘And I would pierce.’ Amen.
 * ‘I would be born.’
 * ‘And I would bear.’ Amen.
 * ‘I would eat.’
 * ‘And I would be eaten.’ Amen.
 * ‘I would hear.’
 * ‘And I would be heard.’ Amen.”
 * “‘I am a Lamp to thee who beholdest Me,
 * I am a Mirror to thee who perceivest Me,
 * I am a Door to thee, who knockest at Me,
 * I am a Way to thee a wayfarer.’”

The same fundamental idea of the mutual quest of the Soul and the Absolute is expressed in the terms of another symbolism by the great Mahommedan mystic:—
 * “No lover ever seeks union with his beloved,
 * But his beloved is also seeking union with him.
 * But the lover’s love makes his body lean
 * While the beloved’s love makes her fair and lusty.
 * When in this heart the lightning spark of love arises,
 * Be sure this love is reciprocated in that heart.
 * When the love of God arises in thy heart,
 * Without doubt God also feels love for thee.”

The mystic vision, then, is of a spiritual universe held within the bonds of love: and of the free and restless human soul, having within it the spark of divine desire, the “tendency to the Absolute,” openly finding satisfaction and true life when united with this Life of God. Then, in Patmore’s lovely image, “the babe is at its mother’s breast,” “the lover has returned to the beloved.”

Whatever their outward sense, all true mystic symbols express aspects of this “secret of the world,” this primal verity. But whereas such great visionary schemes as those of ‘Attar and of Dante show it in its cosmic form, in many symbolic descriptions—particularly those which we meet in the writings of the ecstatic saints—the personal subjective note, the consciousness of an individual relation between that one self and the Supernal Self, overpowers all general applications. Then philosophy and formal allegory must step aside: the sacramental language of exalted emotion, of profoundly felt experience, takes its place. The phases of mutual love, of wooing and combat, awe and delight—the fevers of desire, the ecstasy of surrender—are drawn upon and made to contribute something to the description of the great and secret drama of the soul.

To such symbolic transcripts of intimate experience belongs one amazing episode of the spiritual life-history which, because it has been given immortal expression by the greatest mystical poet of modern times, is familiar to thousands of readers who know little or nothing of the more normal adventures incidental to man’s attainment of the Absolute. In “The Hound of Heaven” Francis Thompson described with an almost terrible power, not the self’s quest of adored Reality, but Reality’s quest of the unwilling self. He shows to us the remorseless, untiring seeking and following of the soul by the Divine Life to which it will not surrender: the inexorable onward sweep of “this tremendous Lover,” hunting the separated spirit, “strange piteous futile thing” that flees Him “down the nights and down the days.” This idea of the love-chase, of the spirit rushing in terror from the overpowering presence of God, but followed, sought, conquered in the end, is common to all the mediaeval mystics: it is the obverse of their general doctrine of the necessary fusion of human and divine life, “escape from the flame of separation.”

“I chased thee, for in this was my pleasure,” says the voice of Love to Mechthild of Magdeburg; “I captured thee, for this was my desire; I bound thee, and I rejoice in thy bonds; I have wounded thee, that thou mayst be united to me. If I gave thee blows, it was that I might be possessed of thee.”

 * So in the beautiful Middle English poem of “Quia amore langueo,”—
 * “I am true love that fals was nevere,
 * Mi sistyr, mannis soule, I loved hir thus;
 * Bicause we wolde in no wise discevere
 * I lefte my Kyngdom glorious.
 * I purveyde for hir a paleis precious;
 * She fleyth, I folowe, I sought hir so.
 * I suffride this peyne piteous
 * Quia amore langueo,”

Meister Eckhart has the same idea of the inexorable Following Love, impossible to escape,expressed under less personal images. “Earth,” he says, “cannot escape the sky; let it flee up or down, the sky flows into it, and makes it fruitful whether it will or no. So God does toman. He who will escape Him only runs to His bosom; for all corners are open to Him.”

We find in all the mystics this strong sense of a mysterious spiritual life—a Reality—over against man, seeking him and compelling him to Its will. It is not for him, they think, to say that he will or will not aspire to the transcendental world. Hence sometimes this inversion of man’s long quest of God. The self resists the pull of spiritual gravitation, flees from the touch of Eternity; and the Eternal seeks it, tracks it ruthlessly down. The Following Love, the mystics say, is a fact of experience, not a poetic idea. “Those strong feet that follow, follow after,” once set upon the chase, are bound to win. Man, once conscious of Reality, cannot evade it. For a time his separated spirit, his disordered loves, may wilfully frustrate the scheme of things: but he must be conquered in the end. Then the mystic process unfolds itself: Love triumphs: the “purpose of the worlds” fulfils itself in the individual life. II

It was natural and inevitable that the imagery of human love and marriage should have seemed to the mystic the best of all images of his own “fulfilment of life”; his soul’s

surrender, first to the call, finally to the embrace of Perfect Love. It lay ready to his hand: it was understood of all men: and moreover, it certainly does offer, upon lower levels, a strangely exact parallel to the sequence of states in which man’s spiritual consciousness unfolds itself, and which form the consummation of the mystic life. It has been said that the constant use of such imagery by Christian mystics of the mediaeval period is traceable to the popularity of the Song of Songs, regarded as an allegory of the spiritual life. I think that the truth lies rather in the opposite statement: namely, that the mystic loved the Song of Songs because he there saw reflected, as in a mirror, the most secret experiences of his soul. The sense of a desire that was insatiable, of a personal fellowship so real, inward, and intense that it could only be compared with the closest link of human love, of an intercourse that was no mere spiritual self-indulgence, but was rooted in the primal duties and necessities of life—more, those deepest, most intimate secrets of communion, those self-giving ecstasies which all mystics know, but of which we, who are not mystics, may not speak—all these he found symbolized and suggested, their unendurable glories veiled in a merciful mist, in the poetry which man has invented to honour that august passion in which the merely human draws nearest to the divine.

258. Jámi, “Joseph and Zulaikha. The Poet’s Prayer.”

259. “Theologia Germanica,” cap. x.

260. St. Catherine of Genoa, “ Vita e Dottrina,” cap. xiv.

261. “Vita e Dottrina,” p. 36.

262. This image seems first to have been elaborated by St. Augustine, from whom it was borrowed by Hugh of St. Victor, and most of the mediaeval mystics.

263. “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xxi.

264. So too Ruysbroeck says that “the just man goes towards God by inward love in perpetual activity and in God in virtue of his fruitive affection in eternal rest” (“De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum.” I. ii. cap. lxv).

265. I need not remind the reader of the fact that this symbolism, perverted to the purposes of his skeptical philosophy, runs through the whole of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám.

266. See Palmer’s “Oriental Mysticism,” pt. I. caps. i., ii., iii., and v.

267. An abridged translation of ‘Attar’s allegory of the Valleys will be found in “The Conference of the Birds,” by R. P. Masani (1924). See also W. S. Lilly’s “Many Mansions,” p. 130.

268. Jundt, “Rulman Merswin,” p. 27.

269. Royce, “The World and the Individual,” vol. ii. p. 386.

270. “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xxiv.

271. Compare Récéjac (“Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique,” p. 252). “According to mysticism, morality leads the soul to the frontiers of the Absolute and even gives it an impulsion to enter, but this is not enough. This movement of pure Freedom cannot succeed unless there is an equivalent movement within the Absolute itself.”

272. Aug. Conf., bk. xiii. cap. 9. “All those who love,” says Ruysbroeck, “feel this attraction: more or less according to the degree of their love.” (“De Calculo sive de Perfectione filiorum Dei.”)

273. Meister Eckhart, Pred. iii.

274. Ibid., Pred. xiii.

275. “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. vi.

276. The Greek and English text will be found in the “Apocrypha Anecdota” of Dr. M. R. James, series 2 (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 1-25. I follow his translation. It will be seen that I have adopted the hypotheses of Mr. G. R. S. Mead as to the dramatic nature of this poem. See his “Echoes from the Gnosis,” 1896.

277. Jalalu d’ Din Rumi (Wisdom of the East Series), p. 77.

278. So Dante— “ Nel suo profondo vidi che s’interna legato con amore in un volume cio che per l’universo si squaderna.” (Par. xxxiii. 85.)

279. “The Rod, the Root, and the Flower,” “Aurea Dicta,” ccxxviii.

280. “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” pt. i. cap. iii.

281. “Quia amore langueo,” an anonymous fifteenth-century poem. Printed from the Lambeth MS. by the E.E.T.S., 1866-67.

282. Pred. lxxxviii.

283. So we are told of St. Francis of Assisi, that in his youth he “tried to flee God’s hand.” Thomas of Celano, Legenda Prima, cap. ii.


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128 of the white and coined regiments alike took the greatest pride in seeing that the men more than did their duty; and the mortality among them was great. I spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgment we could not take these hills by firing at them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said, "Then I am the ranking officer here and I give the order to charge"—for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively return. Naturally the Captain hesitated to obey this order when no word had been received from his own Colonel. So I said, "Then let my men through, sir," and rode on through the lines, followed by the grinning Rough Riders, whose attention had been completely taken off the Spanish bullets, partly by my dialogue with the regulars, and partly by the language I had been using to themselves as I got the lines forward, for I had been joking with some and swearing at others, as the exigencies of the case seemed to demand. When we started to go through, however, it proved too much for the regulars, and they jumped up and came along, their officers and


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Rh troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at the chance. When I got to where the head of the left wing of the Ninth was lying, through the courtesy of Lieutenant Hartwick, two of whose colored troopers threw down the fence, I was enabled to get back into the lane, at the same time waving my hat, and giving the order to charge the hill on our right front. Out of my sight, over on the right. Captains McBlain and Taylor, of the Ninth, made up their minds independently to charge at just about this time; and at almost the same moment Colonels Carroll and Hamilton, who were off, I believe, to my left, where we could see neither them nor their men, gave the order to advance. But of all this I knew nothing at the time. The whole line, tired of waiting, and eager to close with the enemy, was straining to go forward; and it seems that different parts slipped the leash at almost the same moment. The First Cavalry came up the hill just behind, and partly mixed with my regiment and the Ninth. As already said, portions of the Third, Sixth, and Tenth followed, while the rest of the members of these three regiments kept more in touch with the infantry on our left.

By this time we were all in the spirit of the thing and greatly excited by the charge, the men cheering and running forward between shots, while the delighted faces of the foremost officers, like Captain


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130 C. J. Stevens, of the Ninth, as they ran at the head of their troops, will always stay in my mind. As soon as I was in the line I galloped forward a few yards until I saw that the men were well started, and then galloped back to help Goodrich, who was in command of his troop, get his men across the road so as to attack the hill from that side. Captain Mills had already thrown three of the other troops of the regiment across this road for the same purpose. Wheeling around, I then again galloped toward the hill, passing the shouting, cheering, firing men, and went up the lane, splashing through a small stream; when I got abreast of the ranch buildings on the top of Kettle Hill, I turned and went up the slope. Being on horseback I was, of course, able to get ahead of the men on foot, excepting my orderly, Henry Bardshar, who had run ahead very fast in order to get better shots at the Spaniards, who were now running out of the ranch buildings. Sergeant Campbell and a number of the Arizona men, and Dudley Dean, among others, were very close behind. Stevens, with his platoon of the Ninth, was abreast of us; so were McNamee and Hartwick. Some forty yards from the top I ran into a wire fence and jumped off Little Texas, turning him loose. He had been scraped by a couple of bullets, one of which nicked my elbow, and I never expected to see him again. As I ran up to the hill,


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Page:Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories.djvu/1

 United Nations

Fifty-seventh session Agenda item 80

The General Assembly,

Having examined the chapter of the report of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples relating to the information from Non-Self-Governing Territories transmitted under Article 73 e of the Charter of the United Nations and the action taken by the Special Committee in respect of that information,

Having also examined the report of the Secretary-General,

Recalling its resolution 1970 (XVIII) of 16 December 1963, in which it requested the Special Committee to study the information transmitted to the Secretary-General in accordance with Article 73 e of the Charter of the United Nations and to take such information fully into account in examining the situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, contained in General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960,

Recalling also its resolution 56/65 of 10 December 2001, in which it requested the Special Committee to continue to discharge the functions entrusted to it under resolution 1970 (XVIII),

Stressing the importance of timely transmission by the administering Powers of adequate information under Article 73 e of the Charter, in particular in relation to the preparation by the Secretariat of the working papers on the Territories concerned,

1. Reaffirms that, in the absence of a decision by the General Assembly itself that a Non-Self-Governing Territory has attained a full measure of self-


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 b


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Freston, Anthony


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Freville, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frewen, Accepted


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frewen, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frewen, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frideswide


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Friend, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frisell, Fraser


text: An account of the English colony in New South Wales


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frith, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frith, Mary


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frithegode


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frobisher, Martin


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frodsham, Bridge


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, Charles


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, John (1626?-1656)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, John (1803-1840)


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Pyrlæus, John Christopher


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, John (1750-1842)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, John (d.1877)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frost, William Edward


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Froucester, Walter


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Froude, Richard Hurrell


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Froude, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frowde, Philip


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frowyk, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, Edmund


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, Elizabeth


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, Francis


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, John (1609-1657)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, John (1792-1822)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, Joseph


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fry, William Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frye, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fryer, Edward


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fryer, John (d.1563)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fryer, John (fl.1571)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fryer, John (d.1672)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fryer, John (d.1733)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fulbeck, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fulcher, George Williams


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fulford, Francis


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fulke, William


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Rh of relationship to her children, will make them feel that — "All are not taken; there are left behind Living belov'ds, tender looks to bring, And make the daylight still a happy thing. And tender voices, to make soft the wind?" I have now fulfilled my promise, made at the beginning of this treatise, and placed the subject in an impartial manner before the reader, and now leave it for his serious consideration.

THE END.

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38 to shew the views generally entertained upon this vexed question. Indeed, within the last and present centuries, there are comparatively few writers of note who have looked on the subject in any other light than that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is unquestionably lawful.

Leaving then the exegetical path, and for a moment taking a glance at the subject from a utilitarian point of view, here no mist any longer dims the prospect, but all is clear and serene; for we venture to say, there is no one, however great his conscientious scruples regarding the lawfulness of such marriage may be, but who will admit that such alliances from this standpoint are most desirable. The lifelong misery which is often entailed upon children by a second marriage is, alas, only too well known. Far be it from us, even to hint, that there are not many stepmothers to be found who are kind and loving towards their little charges; but we fear these are the exception, and not the rule. How often are children driven from their happy homes and sweet associations, driven into the wide world among strangers, just at the time when they most need the counsel and fostering care of parents. The father, only too often swayed by the will of the stepmother, perhaps for his own peace and comfort sake, becomes gradually indifferent to the feelings and sufferings of his children, and at last entirely forgets his duties as a parent.

Need we, then, wonder that a mother, concerned for the welfare of the dear ones she leaves behind, should be solicitous that her loss, though it can never be fully replaced, should yet in a measure be deprived of the sting which such a bereavement inflicts. This she can best hope for from a loving sister who, thus doubly united in the sacred bond

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Rh Dr. Gardiner observes, in his preliminary remarks on Lev. xviii.: "Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is clearly allowed under the Levitical law, not merely by not being prohibited, but being prohibited during the life time of the sister first taken to wife, it becomes doubly certain that it was permitted afterwards. It is even made still more clear by the reason assigned; the relation of two wives of the same man are not apt to be friendly, and Moses would not allow, either that the natural affection of sisters should be subjected to this strain, or that the inevitable animosities of the harem should be increased by previous familiar relation of sisters. Keil and Delitzsch observe: "No punishment is fixed for the marriage with two sisters; and, of course, after the death of the first wife, a man was at liberty to marry her sister: Com. on Leviticus, vol. ii., p. 410.

Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi of the religious community of Israelites in Frankfort-on-the-Main, remarks on our verse: "Es ist nun gesagt: du kannst nicht zwei Schwestern zugleich heirathen dass sie in einem Ehebund zusammen vereinigt seien. Wenn du daher eine geheirathet hast so kann die andere, so lange die erste lebt, nicht deine Gattin werden.

"It is now said here, you are not permitted to marry two sisters at the same time, so that they would be united in one marriage bond; if you, therefore, have married one, then the other may not become your wife as long as the first lives."

We might yet adduce a host of similar opinions of the best critics and commentators of America and Europe, but, we think, those above quoted are sufficient

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36 Sir John David Michaelis, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Göttingen, remarks, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses: "Marriage with a deceased wife's sister he permits, but prohibits on the other hand the marrying of two sisters at once. The words of the law, Lev. xviii. 18, are very clear, "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to be her rivals and to uncover her nakedness along with hers in her lifetime." After so distinct a definition of his meaning, and the three limitations added, I. As to one being the other's rival (to express which we may observe, by the way, that the same word is used, as in 1 Sam. i. 6, where two wives have but one husband; 2. As to the man's uncovering the nakedness of both, and 3. As to his doing so in the life time of the first, I cannot comprehend how it should ever have been imagined that Moses also prohibited marriage with a deceased wife's sister, — that very connection which we so often find a dying wife entreating her husband to form." Vol. ii. pp. 112, 113.

F. E. C. Rosenmüller, the distinguished orientalist and profound scholar and commentator, whose opinions are always highly esteemed, in his learned production "Scholia in Vetus Testamentum," in explaining Lev. xviii. 18, has the following remarks: "Uxorem ad sororem ejus ne ducas, duas sorores ne ducas in matrimonium, scil, in vita ejus, ut in fine versus additur i. e., uxore tua vivente. Non igitur prohibit Moses matrimonium cum sorore uxoris mortiæ. . Ad infestandum, s. infestando, quod Onkelos bene sic reddidit: ad dolorem ei creandum, ita ut oriatur æmulatio sive lis inter eas, ut in matrimonio Jacobi."

Dr. Alex. McCaul, late of Trinity College, London, likewise decidedly held that marriage with a deceased wife's sister was not prohibited under the Mosaic dispensation.

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Rh were not deemed allowable; the words of the text were indeed taken in a literal sense, but still such alliances were looked upon as against the spirit of the law. Hence the Council of Illiberis, about the year 305, excluded from holy communion for five years those persons who had contracted such a marriage. St. Basil was even more severe in punishing such persons, he visited them with the ecclesiastical penalties fixed for adultery. According to his letter on this subject, "a custom equivalent to a law, and handed down by holy men," had been established in the Church against such marriages. Bishop Diodorus of Tarsus, on the contrary, held that these marriages were not prohibited. Influenced by the opinions of the Bishops some of the Christian emperors likewise enforced this law. Yet dispensations were readily granted in the Roman Church from time to time, from which one would infer that the Popes themselves did not look upon such marriages as absolutely forbidden by Holy Writ. In England, marriage with a deceased wife's sister, was forbidden, in 1603, in a Canon by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. Martin Luther was of opinion that only those prohibitions in the marriage laws were binding which were expressly set forth in Scripture, and his opinion, no doubt, had great influence in the Protestant Churches. Hence Frederick the Great, at the very beginning of his reign, in the year 1740, allowed marriages in ten cases which hitherto had been prohibited, because they had been thought to be against the spirit of the law. One of these is marriage with a deceased wife's sister.

Philip Jacob Spener, born in 1635, who is regarded as the founder of the sect of Pietists, following the opinion of Luther, also maintained that marriages with a deceased wife's sister was allowed, since it was not unequivocally forbidden in the Bible.

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text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Stowe, Calvin Ellis


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34 then any child born before the death of the first wife is illegitimate, but not those born after her death." (See Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Yebamoth, tom v., p. 94, Amsterdam Ed.) In this treatise there occur even several passages where such marriages are encouraged, as, for example, chapter iv., § 13, p. 49. So also the celebrated and voluminous writer, Rabbi Maimonides, held the same views.

The Caraites, however, who reject altogether the Oral Law and the Talmudic traditions, and are therefore regarded as heretics by the other Jews, do not allow such marriages in their community. They argue that if the law forbids one degree of consanguinity, that which is equal or nearer ought to be forbidden also. There exists a great diversity of opinion as to the antiquity of this sect. According to their own writers they belong to the ten tribes that were led captives by Shalmaneser, but as neither Philo nor Josephus make mention of this sect, some writers infer from it that they could not then have existed in their times, and place their origin in the fourth or fifth century. Some of the Rabbies maintain that they sprung from the Sadducces. If this be true, they evidently must be a reformed sect, since the Caraites believe fully in the immortality of the soul. There are still some members of this sect existing in Poland, Russia, Constantinople, Cairo, and other places in the Levant.

But with the exception of this sect, the Jewish people as a whole held marriage with a deceased wife's sister not only permissible, but in some cases desirable. Upon this point all Jewish commentators and critics are perfectly agreed. Even the celebrated Maimonides and his followers, who denied the Divine origin of the Oral Law, and held other liberal views, and were therefore looked upon as schismatics, were, on this subject, in perfect harmony with their brethren.

In the early times of the Christian Church, however, it appears that marriages with a deceased wife's sister

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6 neighbours, were distinctly and definitely defined. Of these, the laws regulating the degrees of relationship with which marriages are prohibited, form a prominent part: and are recorded in Lev. xviii. 6-18, xx. 111-21; Deut xxvii. 20, 22, 23. These matrimonial laws were, however, entirely based upon the fundamental principle already annunciated at the creation of Eve, namely, that the husband and wife should be "one flesh;" and, therefore, it is of the utmost importance in discussing any question relating to affinity, that this fundamental principle shall on no account be lost sight of, otherwise it would not easily be seen, what relationship there existed, for instance, between a man and his uncle's wife, his brother's wife, or his wife's sister, coming as they do altogether from a different family, or, as the case may be, even from a different race. The relationships in the above cases are, therefore, no blood-relationships, but merely contracted by marriage; but as the uncle's wife, according to the fundamental principle, becomes one with the uncle, hence she stands in the same relationship to the nephew as does the uncle; and so, according to the same principle, the brother's wife becomes the sister of the brother, and the wife's sister becomes the sister of the husband.

Having made these preliminary remarks, we may now proceed to enquire what is recorded in the Mosaic law regarding the marriage with a deceased wife's sister.

On turning to Lev. xviii. 18, we find the following prohibition:—"And thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to cause jealousy (or enmity), to uncover her nakedness, beside her, (bechay-yeha), in her life time". Now nothing can be clearer than that according to the plain wording of the text, a man is only prohibited from marrying the sister of his wife so long as the latter is still alive. There is not the slightest allusion that he may not do so after her death. On

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text:
Author:Thomas Gilray

Works

 * (in part)

Works about Gilray

 * Colin Macdonald Gilray (1885-1974), son of Thomas Gilray

title: Author:Thomas Gilray


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Rh the contrary, from the use of the expression "in her life time," it may safely be assumed that the text rather intends to convey that such a marriage may then be consummated. To place any other construction upon the text would render the use of the word "" (beehay-yeha), "in her life time," altogether meaningless.

But it will now be asked, if the sacred text is so plain, wherein then lies the difficulty with which the subject is said to be beset? The reply to this question is furnished by verse 16, where we read, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife; it is thy brother's nakedness." This prohibition is repeated again, ch. xx. 21, with the addition of the punishment for violating this law, that "they shall be childless." It is proper to remark here, that the expression "they shall be childless," has by many commentators been explained merely to mean that the children born of such a marriage should find no place in the public registers, so that in a civil point of view they would in reality be childless. This view is adopted by Sir J. D. Michaelis, in his "Commentary on the Laws of Moses." He remarks: "''They shall be childlesschildless." [sic]''. This does not mean that God would miraculously prevent the procreation of children from such a marriage; for God nowhere promises any continual miracle of this nature; but only that the children proceeding from it should not be put to their account in the public registers, so that in a civil sense they would be childless." (Vol. ii. p. 114, Eng. Edit. London.)

So, in somewhat a similar manner, Fred. Cardiner, D. D., in his Commentary on Leviticus :—"In the

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8 punishments described in ch. xx., against the sins here prohibited, it will be found that a distinction is made in the degrees of guilt. One, the larger class is to be capitally punished (in one case even the bodies of both parties are to be burned), while in the other class the penalty is simply that 'they shall be childless.' It cannot be supposed that a perpetual miracle was to be maintained through all the ages of Israel's history, but the meaning evidently is, that the children of such marriages should be reckoned not to their actual father, but to the former husband of the woman. In the strong feeling of the Israelites in regard to posterity, this penalty seems to have been sufficient."

In this manner, has the phrase "they shall die childless" been explained by many modern writers. The Rabbinical interpreters, on the contrary, explain the phrase, either that they shall remain childless, or if they have children, that they will prematurely die. And this view is also adopted by many of our modern commentators. Dr. Kalisch, for example, says: "It is evidently meant as a heavenly and supernatural retribution; and the term childlessness is to be taken literally, implying that such an union will not be blessed with offspring." (Com. on Lev. p. 450.) Keil and Delitzsch merely explain, that "God would reserve the punishment to Himself" (Com. vol. ii., p. 428.)

We do not generally lay so much stress upon the opinions of commentators — especially as orthodoxy is not always the order in our days — but rather place our chief reliance upon the usage of words in Scripture. If a word in a certain passage presents any difficulty as to its proper meaning, we generally endeavour to trace the force of it by comparing other passages in which it occurs, thus making Scripture as it were its own interpreter. In the present case, we fear, however, we cannot obtain much assistance from that

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Rh source. The word (Aririm), childless, occurs only four times in the Old Testament, namely, Lev. xx. 21, 22, in reference to one taking his uncle's wife, "they shall die childless"; and in reference to one taking his brother's wife, "they shall be childless." But these are precisely the two passages in which the meaning of "childless" is not quite clear, and about which, as we have seen, different opinions exist. We have, therefore, only two other passages to fall back upon. In Gen. xv. 2, Abram says, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless." In this passage, the meaning is perfectly clear, as the context plainly indicates, for in verse 3, Abram says, "Behold to me hast thou given no seed." But in the remaining passage, viz., Jer. xxii. 30, the term "childless" is applied to Coniah, who evidently had children,—"Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David." And in verse 28, it is distinctly stated, "Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? "In modern history, too, we have, for example, the marriage of Henry the VIII. with his brother's widow, Catharine of Arragon, a marriage which, although unfortunate, was certainly not childless. On the whole, however, it appears to me that the expressions "they shall die childless," "they shall be childless," point to a supernatural retribution, that God would visit such alliances with punishment Himself In the Septuagint version, the Hebrew word (Ariri) is rendered always by, i.e., childless, or bereaved of children. I have dwelt upon this point at some length, since from the severity of the punishment we may generally infer the degree of guilt, and as it likewise brings the importance of the prohibition more prominently before us.

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10 Now, as it is clearly forbidden for a man to marry the widow of his brother, why then should a woman be permitted to marry the widower of a deceased sister? The degree of relationship in both cases are precisely the same. It is true, that, according to Deut. XXV. 5-10, the marriage with a brother's widow is under certain circumstances not only clearly and emphatically commanded, but the refusal to obey this injunction was even to be visited with a lasting disgrace. And there have not been wanting writers who have charged the Hebrew lawgiver with inconsistency in solemnly enjoining here what he elsewhere has strictly forbidden. But these writers have evidently overlooked two important points, namely, in the first place, that these are Divine laws, and that Moses was only the mouthpiece; and secondly, the necessity that may have existed of guarding against evils, the pernicious results of which we are perhaps at this distance of time unable to fathom. The granting of an exception in a special case does by no means imply inconsistency, but rather presupposes the existence of circumstances which render a deviation from a general law imperative. Kalisch need not, therefore, have come to the rash conclusion that "the prohibition and the custom cannot have existed simultaneously, they must belong to different periods," and that the levitical author must have lived in the post-Babylonian period.

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text:
Author:Jacob Mair Hirschfelder

Works

 * Scriptures Defended
 * The Immortality of the Soul
 * An Essay on the Spirit and Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry
 * A Keyto to German Conversation
 * Biblical Expositor and People's Commentary
 * A Wife to Her Sister: Whether Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister is Prohibited Under the Mosaic Law, 1878
 * All About Creation

title: Author:Jacob Mair Hirschfelder


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A/RES/57/131 government in terms of Chapter XI of the Charter of the United Nations, the administering Power concerned should continue to transmit information under Article 73 e of the Charter with respect to that Territory;

2. Requests the administering Powers concerned to transmit or continue to transmit to the Secretary-General the information prescribed in Article 73 e of the Charter, as well as the fullest possible information on political and constitutional developments in the Territories concerned, within a maximum period of six months following the expiration of the administrative year in those Territories;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure that adequate information is drawn from all available published sources in connection with the preparation of the working papers relating to the Territories concerned;

4. Requests the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples to continue to discharge the functions entrusted to it under General Assembly resolution 1970 (XVIII), in accordance with established procedures.

73rd plenary meeting 11 December 2002


text:
Author:Robert Wallace (1853-1939)

Works

 * Farm Live Stock of Great Britain
 * The Agriculture and Rural Economy of Australia and New Zealand
 * Farming Industries of Cape Colony
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)

title: Author:Robert Wallace (1853-1939)


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Rh Bardshar stopped to shoot, and two Spaniards fell as he emptied his magazine. These were the only Spaniards I actually saw fall to aimed shots by any one of my men, with the exception of two guerillas in trees.

Almost immediately afterward the hill was covered by the troops, both Rough Riders and the colored troopers of the Ninth, and some men of the First. There was the usual confusion, and afterward there was much discussion as to exactly who had been on the hill first. The first guidons planted there were those of the three New Mexican troops, G, E, and F, of my regiment, under their Captains, Llewellen, Luna, and Muller, but on the extreme right of the hill, at the opposite end from where we struck it, Captains Taylor and McBlain and their men of the Ninth were first up. Each of the five captains was firm in the belief that his troop was first up. As for the individual men, each of whom honestly thought he was first on the summit, their name was legion. One Spaniard was captured in the buildings, another was shot as he tried to hide himself, and a few others were killed as they ran.

Among the many deeds of conspicuous gallantry here performed, two, both to the credit of the First Cavalry, may be mentioned as examples of the others, not as exceptions. Sergeant Charles Karsten, while close beside Captain Tutherly, the squadron


text:
Author:Charles Edward Stowe

Works

 * The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Compiled from Her Letters and Journals (1889)
 * Rhymes from the Santa Barbara hills (1920)
 * Simsbury's part in the war of the American revolution (1896)

title: Author:Charles Edward Stowe


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132, was hit by a shrapnel bullet. He continued on the line, firing until his arm grew numb; and he then refused to go to the rear, and devoted himself to taking care of the wounded, utterly unmoved by the heavy fire. Trooper Hugo Brittain, when wounded, brought the regimental standard forward, waving it to and fro, to cheer the men. No sooner were we on the crest than the Spaniards from the line of hills in our front, where they were strongly intrenched, opened a very heavy fire upon us with their rifles. They also opened upon us with one or two pieces of artillery, using time fuses which burned very accurately, the shells exploding right over our heads.

On the top of the hill was a huge iron kettle, or something of the kind, probably used for sugar refining. Several of our men took shelter behind this. We had a splendid view of the charge on the San Juan block-house to our left, where the infantry of Kent, led by Hawkins, were climbing the hill. Obviously the proper thing to do was to help them, and I got the men together and started them volley-firing against the Spaniards in the San Juan block-house and in the trenches around it. We could only see their heads; of course this was all we ever could see when we were firing at them in their trenches. Stevens was directing not only his own colored troopers, but a number of Rough Riders; for in a


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Rh mêlée good soldiers are always prompt to recognize a good officer, and are eager to follow him.

We kept up a brisk fire for some five or ten minutes; meanwhile we were much cut up ourselves. Gallant Colonel Hamilton, than whom there was never a braver man, was killed, and equally gallant Colonel Carroll wounded. When near the summit Captain Mills had been shot through the head, the bullet destroying the sight of one eye permanently and of the other temporarily. He would not go back or let any man assist him, sitting down where he was and waiting until one of the men brought him word that the hill was stormed. Colonel Veile planted the standard of the First Cavalry on the hill, and General Sumner rode up. He was fighting his division in great form, and was always himself in the thick of the fire. As the men were much excited by the firing, they seemed to pay very little heed to their own losses.

Suddenly, above the cracking of the carbines, rose a peculiar drumming sound, and some of the men cried, "The Spanish machine-guns!"Listening, I made out that it came from the flat ground to the left, and jumped to my feet, smiting my hand on my thigh, and shouting aloud with exultation, "It's the Gatlings, men, our Gatlings!" Lieutenant Parker was bringing his four Gatlings into action, and shoving them nearer and nearer the front. Now


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134 and then the drumming ceased for a moment; then it would resound again, always closer to San Juan hill, which Parker, like ourselves, was hammering to assist the infantry attack. Our men cheered lustily. We saw much of Parker after that, and there was never a more welcome sound than his Gatlings as they opened. It was the only sound which I ever heard my men cheer in battle. The infantry got nearer and nearer the crest of the hill. At last we could see the Spaniards running from the rifle-pits as the Americans came on in their final rush. Then I stopped my men for fear they should injure their comrades, and called to them to charge the next line of trenches, on the hills in our front, from which we had been undergoing a good deal of punishment. Thinking that the men would all come, I jumped over the wire fence in front of us and started at the double; but, as a matter of fact, the troopers were so excited, what with shooting and bang shot, and shouting and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed me; and after running about a hundred yards I found I had only five men along with me. Bullets were ripping the grass all around us, and one of the men. Clay Green, was mortally wounded; another, Winslow Clark, a Harvard man, was shot first in the leg and then through the body. He made not the slightest murmur, only asking me to put his


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 THE PRE-BUDDHIST RELIGION OF THE BURMESE.

BY R. GRANT BROWN.

Object of paper.—The object of this paper is to gather together and co-ordinate the information regarding the pre-Buddhist religion of the Burmese which is now scattered through numerous records, and to add to it some hitherto unpublished results of my own observation. The information is still very incomplete, and such as there is has been difficult to obtain owing to the natural reluctance of Buddhists to admit the existence of beliefs and practices condemned by their own religious teachers.

I propose to limit myself to religious survivals, other than Buddhist, among the Burmese themselves; that is, among a civilized people speaking Burmese and professing Buddhism. The religion of other and less civilized communities living in Burma will only be referred to for purposes of comparison. I also propose to exclude as far as may be, after a short discussion, such survivals of primitive religion as appear to have been imported from India along with the Buddhist faith.

Burmese origins and affinities.—In order to understand the subject it is necessary to realize who the Burmese are. They live within the Indian Empire. They are Buddhists, and have received their religion, their sacred language, their sacred books, and to a great extent their civilization from India. But they belong to the yellow race, and their characteristics are those of the yellow


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Rh and the tragic history of the death of little Menaldo passed out of mind? And yet the public attention was so deeply interested in the details of the trial that the occurrence of a ministerial crisis was completely unnoticed at the time. Now "The Yellow Room" trial, which, preceded that of the Nayves by some years, made far more noise. The entire world hung for months over this obscure problem—the most obscure, it seems to me, that has ever challenged the perspicacity of our police or taxed the conscience of our judges. The solution of the problem baffled everybody who tried to find it. It was like a dramatic rebus with which old Europe and new America alike became fascinated. That is, in truth—I am permitted to say, because there cannot be any author's vanity in all this, since I do nothing more than transcribe facts on which an exceptional documentation enables me to throw a new light—that is because, in truth, I do not know that, in the domain of reality or imagination, one can discover or recall to mind anything comparable, in its mystery, with the natural mystery of "The Yellow Room."

That which nobody could find out, Joseph Rouletabille, aged eighteen, then a reporter engaged on a leading journal, succeeded in discovering. But when, at the Assize Court, he brought in the key to the whole case, he did not tell the whole truth. He only allowed so much of it to appear as sufficed to ensure the acquittal of an innocent man. The reasons which he had for his reticence no longer exist. Better still, the time has come for my friend to speak out fully. You


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Rh are going to know all; and, without further preamble, I am going to place before your eyes the problem of "The Yellow Room" as it was placed before the eyes of the entire world on the day following the enactment of the drama at the Château du Glandier.

On the 25th of October, 1892, the following note appeared in the latest edition of the "Temps":—

"A frightful crime has been committed at the Glandier, on the border of the forest of Sainte-Geneviève, above Epinay-sur-Orge, at the house of Professor Stangerson. On that night, while the master was working in his laboratory, an attempt was made to assassinate Mademoiselle Stangerson, who was sleeping in a chamber adjoining this laboratory.  The doctors do not answer for the life of Mdlle. Stangerson."

The impression made on Paris by this news may be easily imagined. Already, at that time, the learned world was deeply interested in the labours of Professor Stangerson and his daughter. These labours—the first that were attempted in radiography—served to open the way for Monsieur and Madame Curie to the discovery of radium. It was expected the Professor would shortly read to the Academy of Sciences a sensational paper on his new theory,—the Dissociation of Matter,—a theory destined to overthrow from its base the whole of official science, which based itself on the principle of the Conservation of Energy.

On the following day, the newspapers were full of the tragedy. The "Matin," among others,


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Rh the following article, entitled:  "A Supernatural Crime":—

"These are the only details," wrote the anonymous writer in the "Matin"—"we have been able to obtain concerning the crime of the Château du Glandier. The state of despair in which Professor Stangerson is plunged, and the impossibility of getting any information from the lips of the victim, have rendered our investigations and those of justice so difficult that, at present, we cannot form the least idea of what has passed in 'The Yellow Room' in which Mdlle. Stangerson, in her night-dress, was found lying on the floor in the agonies of death. We have, at least, been able to interview Daddy Jacques—as he is called in the country—an old servant in the Stangerson family. Daddy Jacques entered 'The Yellow Room' at the same time as the Professor. This chamber adjoins the laboratory. Laboratory and Yellow Room are in a pavilion at the end of the park, about three hundred metres (a thousand feet) from the château.

"'It was half-past twelve at night,' this honest old man told us, 'and I was in the laboratory, where Monsieur Stangerson was still working, when the thing happened. I had been cleaning and putting instruments in order all the evening and was waiting for Monsieur Stangerson to go to bed. Mademoiselle Stangerson had worked with her father up to midnight; when the twelve strokes of midnight had sounded by the cuckoo-clock in the laboratory, she rose, kissed Monsieur Stangerson and bade him good-night. To me she said


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Rh "bon soir, Daddy Jacques" as she passed into "The Yellow Room." We heard her lock the door and shoot the bolt, so that I could not help laughing, and said to Monsieur: "There's Mademoiselle double-locking herself in,—she must be afraid of the Bête du bon Dieu!" Monsieur did not even hear me, he was so deeply absorbed in what he was doing. Just then we heard the distant miawing of a cat. "Is that going to keep us awake all night?" I said to myself; for I must tell you, Monsieur, that, to the end of October, I live in an attic of the pavilion over The Yellow Room, so that Mademoiselle should not be left alone through the night in the lonely park. It was the fancy of Mademoiselle to spend the fine weather in the pavilion; no doubt, she found it more cheerful than the château and, for the four years it had been built, she had never failed to take up her lodging there in the spring. With the return of winter, Mademoiselle returns to the château, for there is no fireplace in The Yellow Room.

"'We were staying in the pavilion, then—Monsieur Stangerson and me. We made no noise. He was seated at his desk. As for me, I was sitting on a chair, having finished my work and, looking at him, I said to myself: "What a man!—what intelligence!—what knowledge!" I attach importance to the fact that we made no noise; for, because of that, the assassin certainly thought that we had left the place.  And, suddenly, while the cuckoo was sounding the half after midnight, a desperate clamour broke out in


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Rh The Yellow Room. It was the voice of Mademoiselle, crying "Murder!—murder!—help!" Immediately afterwards revolver shots rang out and there was a great noise of tables and furniture being thrown to the ground, as if in the course of a struggle, and again the voice of Mademoiselle calling, "Murder!—help!—Papa!—Papa!—"

"'You may be sure that we quickly sprang up and that Monsieur Stangerson and I threw ourselves upon the door. But alas! it was locked, fast locked, on the inside, by the care of Mademoiselle, as I have told you, with key and bolt. We tried to force it open, but it remained firm. Monsieur Stangerson was like a madman, and truly, it was enough to make him one, for we heard Mademoiselle still calling "Help!—help!" Monsieur Stangerson showered terrible blows on the door, and wept with rage and sobbed with despair and helplessness.

"'It was then that I had an inspiration. "The assassin must have entered by the window!" I cried;—"I will go to the window!" and I rushed from the pavilion and ran like one out of his mind.

"'The inspiration was that the window of The Yellow Room looks out in such a way that the park wall, which abuts on the pavilion, prevented my at once reaching the window. To get up to it one has first to go out of the park. I ran towards the gate and, on my way, met Bernier and his wife, the gate-keepers, who had been attracted by the pistol reports and by our cries.


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Rh In a few words I told them what had happened, and directed the concierge to join Monsieur Stangerson with all speed, while his wife came with me to open the park gate. Five minutes later she and I were before the window of The Yellow Room.

"'The moon was shining brightly and I saw clearly that no one had touched the window. Not only were the bars that protect it intact, but the blinds inside of them were drawn, as I had myself drawn them early in the evening, as I did every day, though Mademoiselle, knowing that I was tired from the heavy work I had been doing, had begged me not to trouble myself, but leave her to do it; and they were just as I had left them, fastened with an iron catch on the inside. The assassin, therefore, could not have passed either in or out that way; but neither could I get in.

"'It was unfortunate,—enough to turn one's brain! The door of the room locked on the inside and the blinds on the only window also fastened on the inside; and Mademoiselle still calling for help!— No! she had ceased to call. She was dead, perhaps. But I still heard her father, in the pavilion, trying to break down the door.

"'With the concierge I hurried back to the pavilion. The door, in spite of the furious attempts of Monsieur Stangerson and Bernier to burst it open, was still holding firm; but at length, it gave way before our united efforts,—and then what a sight met our eyes! I should


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Rh tell you that, behind us, the concierge held the laboratory lamp—a powerful lamp, that lit the whole chamber.

"'I must also tell you, monsieur, that The Yellow Room is a very small room. Mademoiselle had furnished it with a fairly large iron bedstead, a small table, a night-commode; a dressing-table, and two chairs. By the light of the big lamp we saw all at a glance. Mademoiselle, in her night-dress, was lying on the floor in the midst of the greatest disorder. Tables and chairs had been overthrown, showing that there had been a violent struggle. Mademoiselle had certainly been dragged from her bed. She was covered with blood and had terrible marks of finger-nails on her throat,—the flesh of her neck having been almost torn by the nails. From a wound on the right temple a stream of blood had run down and made a little pool on the floor. When Monsieur Stangerson saw his daughter in that state, he threw himself on his knees beside her, uttering a cry of despair. He ascertained that she still breathed. As to us, we searched for the wretch who had tried to kill our mistress, and I swear to you, monsieur, that, if we had found him, it would have gone hard with him!

"'But how to explain that he was not there, that he had already escaped? It passes all imagination!— Nobody under the bed, nobody behind the furniture!— All that we discovered were traces, blood-stained marks of a man's large hand on the walls and on the door; a big handkerchief red with blood, without any initials, an old cap,


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Rh and many fresh footmarks of a man on the floor,—footmarks of a man with large feet whose boot-soles had left a sort of sooty impression. How had this man got away? How had he vanished? Don't forget, monsieur, that there is no chimney in The Yellow Room. He could not have escaped by the door, which is narrow, and on the threshold of which the concierge stood with the lamp, while her husband and I searched for him in every corner of the little room, where it is impossible for anyone to hide himself. The door, which had been forced open against the wall, could not conceal anything behind it, as we assured ourselves. By the window, still in every way secured, no flight had been possible. What then?— I began to believe in the Devil.

"'But we discovered my revolver on the floor!—Yes, my revolver! Oh! that brought me back to the reality! The Devil would not have needed to steal my revolver to kill Mademoiselle. The man who had been there had first gone up to my attic and taken my revolver from the drawer where I kept it. We then ascertained, by counting the cartridges, that the assassin had fired two shots. Ah! it was fortunate for me that Monsieur Stangerson was in the laboratory when the affair took place and had seen with his own eyes that I was there with him; for otherwise, with this business of my revolver, I don't know where we should have been,—I should now be under lock and bar. Justice wants no more to send a man to the scaffold!'"

The editor of the "Matin" added to this interview the following lines:—


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Rh "We have, without interrupting him, allowed Daddy Jacques to recount to us roughly all he knows about the crime of The Yellow Room. We have reproduced it in his own words, only sparing the reader the continual lamentations with which he garnished his narrative. It is quite understood, Daddy Jacques, quite understood, that you are very fond of your masters; and you want them to know it, and never cease repeating it—especially since the discovery of your revolver. It is your right, and we see no harm in it. We should have liked to put some further questions to Daddy Jacques—Jacques—Louis Moustier—but the inquiry of the examining magistrate, which is being carried on at the château, makes it impossible for us to gain admission at the Glandier; and, as to the oak wood, it is guarded by a wide circle of policemen, who are jealously watching all traces that can lead to the pavilion, and that may perhaps lead to the discovery of the assassin.

"We have also wished to question the concierges, but they are invisible. Finally, we have waited in a roadside inn, not far from the gate of the château, for the departure of Monsieur de Marquet, the magistrate of Corbeil. At half-past five we saw him and his clerk and, before he was able to enter his carriage, had an opportunity to ask him the following question:—

"'Can you, Monsieur de Marquet, give us any information as to this affair, without inconvenience to the course of your inquiry?'

"'It is impossible for us to do it,' replied Monsieur de Marquet. 'I can only say that it is the


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Rh strangest affair I have ever known. The more we think we know something, the further we are from knowing anything!'

"We asked Monsieur de Marquet to be good enough to explain his last words; and this is what he said,—the importance of which no one will fail to recognise:—

"'If nothing is added to the material facts so far established, I fear that the mystery which surrounds the abominable crime of which Mademoiselle Stangerson has been the victim will never be brought to light; but it is to be hoped, for the sake of our human reason, that the examination of the walls, and of the ceiling of The Yellow Room—an examination which I shall to-morrow intrust to the builder who constructed the pavilion four years ago—will afford us the proof that may not discourage us. For the problem is this: we know by what way the assassin gained admission,—he entered by the door and hid himself under the bed, awaiting Mademoiselle Stangerson. But how did he leave? How did he escape? If no trap, no secret door, no hiding place, no opening of any sort is found; if the examination of the walls—even to the demolition of the pavilion—does not reveal any passage practicable—not only for a human being, but for any being whatsoever—if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor hides no underground passage, one must really believe in the Devil, as Daddy Jacques says!'"

And the anonymous writer in the "Matin" added in this article—which I have selected as the most interesting of all those that were


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Rh on the subject of this affair—that the examining magistrate appeared to place a peculiar significance to the last sentence: "One must really believe in the Devil, as Jacques says."

The article concluded with these lines: "We wanted to know what Daddy Jacques meant by the cry of the Bête Du Bon Dieu." The landlord of the Donjon Inn explained to us that it is the particularly sinister cry which is uttered sometimes at night by the cat of an old woman,—Mother Angenoux, as she is called in the country. Mother Angenoux is a sort of saint, who lives in a hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the grotto of Sainte-Geneviève.

"The Yellow Room, the Bête Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil, Sainte-Geneviève, Daddy Jacques,—here is a well entangled crime which the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us to-morrow. Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human reason, as the examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mademoiselle Stangerson—who has not ceased to be delirious and only pronounces one word distinctly, 'Murderer! Murderer!'—will not live through the night."

In conclusion, and at a late hour, the same journal announced that the Chief of the Sûreté had telegraphed to the famous detective, Frédéric Larsan, who had been sent to London for an affair of stolen securities, to return immediately to Paris.


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Rh

University College, Aberystwyth.

(Vol. xxxi. p. 307.)

read Miss Berkeley's notes on Glastonbury with great interest. I agree with her that the locality was most probably an early centre of Nature worship, but that it can be identified as the "High Place," the Grail Castle of the romances, I very much doubt.

It is worth noting that the only one of the romances that can be directly connected with Glastonbury, i.e. the Perlesvaus, appears to be interested in the Abbey as the burial place of Arthur and Guenevere, not as the home of the Grail. In fact, there is reason to believe that the romance was composed with the direct intention of exploiting the supposed discovery of the tomb in 1191. (Cf. Dr. Nitze's "Notes on the Chronology of the Grail Romances," Modern Philology, 1919-20, and my article, “The Perlesvaus and the prose Lancelot,” Romania, Dec. 1920.) It is by no means clear where the author located the Grail Castle; it is certainly not in Avalon, and the final home of the Grail is in a sea-girt island.

Before these cults became banned by the advance of orthodox Christianity, there must certainly have been more than one place of celebration, and the topography of Grail Castle, Perilous Chapel, etc., may well vary as the result of surviving traditions of different localities; but when our romances were composed I imagine that the tradition of one secret sanctuary where the banished ritual still survived was dominant. Where that sanctuary was located it is hard to say. The Grail Castle seems to be generally connected with living water, sea, as in the Bleheris-Gawain version, and the Queste, or river, as in Chrétien, ‘Didot’ Perceval, and Perlesvaus, not with a lake, or marshes.


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Author:Frederick Alexis Eaton

Works

 * Albert Dürer, his Life and Works 2 volumes by Moritz Thausing(1882) Edited and translated

title: Author:Frederick Alexis Eaton


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REMEMBER as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of young Rouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about eight o'clock and I was still in bed reading the article in the "Matin" relative to the Glandier crime.

But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend to the reader.

I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At that time I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the corridors of examining magistrates, when I had gone to get a "permit to communicate" for the prison of Mazas, or for Saint-Lazare. He had, as they say, "a good nut." He seemed to have taken his head—round as a bullet—out of a box of marbles, and it is from that, I think, that his comrades of the press—all determined billiard-players—had given him that nickname, which was to stick to him and be made illustrious by him. He was always as red as a tomato, now gay as a lark, now grave as a judge. How, while still so young—he was only sixteen and a half years old when I saw him for the first time—had he already won his way on the press? That was what everybody who came into


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Rh contact with him might have asked, if they had not known his history. At the time of the affair of the woman cut in pieces in the Rue Oberskampf—another forgotten story—he had taken to one of the editors of the "Epoque,"—a paper then rivalling the "Matin" for information,—the left foot, which was missing from the basket in which the gruesome remains were discovered. For this left foot the police had been vainly searching for a week, and young Rouletabille had found it in a drain where nobody had thought of looking for it. To do that he had dressed himself as an extra sewer-man, one of a number engaged by the administration of the city of Paris, owing to an overflow of the Seine.

When the editor-in-chief was in possession of the precious foot and informed as to the train of intelligent deductions the boy had been led to make, he was divided between the admiration he felt for such detective cunning in a brain of a lad of sixteen years, and delight at being able to exhibit, in the "morgue window" of his paper, the left foot of the Rue Oberskampf.

"This foot," he cried, "will make a great headline."

Then, when he had confided the gruesome packet to the medical lawyer attached to the journal, he asked the lad, who was shortly to become famous as Rouletabille, what he would expect to earn as a general reporter on the "Epoque"?

"Two hundred francs a month," the youngster replied modestly, hardly able to breathe from surprise at the proposal.


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Rh "You shall have two hundred and fifty," said the editor-in-chief; "only you must tell everybody that you have been engaged on the paper for a month. Let it be quite understood that it was not you but the 'Epoque' that discovered the left foot of the Rue Oberskampf. Here, my young friend, the man is nothing, the paper everything."

Having said this, he begged the new reporter to retire, but before the youth had reached the door he called him back to ask his name. The other replied:—

"Joseph Josephine."

"That's not a name," said the editor-in-chief, "but since you will not be required to sign what you write it is of no consequence."

The boy-faced reporter speedily made himself many friends, for he was serviceable and gifted with a good humour that enchanted the most severe-tempered and disarmed the most zealous of his companions. At the Bar café, where the reporters assembled before going to any of the courts, or to the Prefecture, in search of their news of crime, he began to win a reputation as an unraveller of intricate and obscure affairs which found its way to the office of the Chief of the Sûreté. When a case was worth the trouble and Rouletabille—he had already been given his nickname—had been started on the scent by his editor-in-chief, he often got the better of the most famous detective.

It was at the Bar café that I became intimately acquainted with him. Criminal lawyers and journalists are not enemies, the former need


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Rh, the latter information. We chatted together, and I soon warmed towards him. His intelligence was so keen, and so original!—and he had a quality of thought such as I have never found in any other person.

Some time after this I was put in charge of the law news of the "Cri du Boulevard." My entry into journalism could not but strengthen the ties which united me to Rouletabille. After a while, my new friend being allowed to carry out an idea of a judicial correspondence column, which he was allowed to sign "Business," in the "Epoque," I was often able to furnish him with the legal information of which he stood in need.

Nearly two years passed in this way, and the better I knew him, the more I learned to love him; for, in spite of his careless extravagance, I had discovered in him what was, considering his age, an extraordinary seriousness of mind. Accustomed as I was to seeing him gay and, indeed, often too gay, I would many times find him plunged in the deepest melancholy. I tried then to question him as to the cause of this change of humour, but each time he laughed and made me no answer. One day, having questioned him about his parents, of whom he never spoke, he left me, pretending not to have heard what I said.

While things were in this state between us, the famous case of "The Yellow Room" took place. It was this case which was to rank him as the leading newspaper reporter, and to obtain for him the reputation of being the greatest detective in the world. It should not surprise us to find in the one


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Rh man the perfection of two such lines of activity if we remember that the daily press has already beginning to transform itself and to become what it is to-day—the gazette of crime.

Morose-minded people may complain of this; for myself I regard it a matter for congratulation. We can never have too many arms, public or private, against the criminal. To this some people may answer that, by continually publishing the details of crimes, the press ends by encouraging their commission. But then, with some people we can never do right.

Rouletabille, as I have said, entered my room that morning of the 26th of October, 1892. He was looking redder than usual, and his eyes were bulging out of his head, as the phrase is, and altogether he appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement. He waved the "Matin" with a trembling hand, and cried:—

"Well, my dear Sainclair,—have you read it?"

"The Glandier crime?"

"Yes; 'The Yellow Room'!—What do you think of it?"

"I think that it must have been the Devil or the Bête du Bon Dieu that committed the crime."

"Be serious!"

"Well, I don't much believe in murderers who make their escape through walls of solid brick. I think Daddy Jacques did wrong to leave behind him the weapon with which the crime was committed and, as he occupied the attic immediately above Mademoiselle Stangerson's room, the builder's job ordered by the examining magistrate