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Bothon

, at his shower-bath before dinner in the bathroom adjoining his room in his New York City club, allowed the cake of soap to drop on the tiled floor. Stooping to recover it he rapped the side of his head against the marble sidewall. The resulting bruise was painful, and almost at once puffed up into a noticeable lump ....

Meredith dined in the grill that evening. Having no after-dinner engagement he went into the quiet library of the club, empty at this hour, and settled himself with a new book beside a softly-shaded reading lamp.

From time to time a slight, inadvertent pressure of his head against the chair’s leather upholstered back would remind him unpleasantly of his accident in the shower-bath. This, after it happened several times, became an annoyance, and Meredith shifted himself into a preventive attitude with his legs draped over one of the chair’s rounded arms.

No one else came into the library. Faint, clicking noises came in from the nearby billiard-room where .a couple of men were playing, but, absorbed in his book, he did not notice these. The only perceptible sound was that of the gentle, steady rain outside. This, in the form of a soothing, continuous murmur, came through the partly—opened, high windows. He read on.

Precisely as he turned over the ninety-sixth page of his book, he heard a dull sound, like a very large explosion coming from a vast distance. Alert now, his finger, holding his place in the book, he listened. Then he heard a rumbling roar, as though countless tons of wrecked masonry were falling; falling; clearly, unmistakably, the remote thunder of some catastrophic ruin. He dropped his book, and, obeying an almost automatic impulse, started for the door.

HE met nobody as he rushed down the stairs. At the coatroom, which he had to pass on his way to the doorway, two fellow members were chatting easily as they took their checks. Meredith glanced at them, surprised. He rushed on, to the doorway, and out into the street, where he paused. An empty street!

The rain, reduced now to a mere drizzle, made the asphalt shimmer in the street lights. Over towards Broadway, certainly, there must be clamor! But when he reached it he found only the compound eleven o’clock bedlam of Times Square.

Along Sixth Avenue, countless taxi-cabs weaved in a many—hued stream, jockeying for position in the maëlström of the night-traffic about the Hippodrome. On the corner, a solitary rubber-coated policeman, swung long efficient arms like a pair of mechanical semaphores, and skillfully directed the crawling traffic. To his ever-increasing wonderment, everything seemed normal. But what then had been that catastrophic sound?

RETURNING to the club entrance, he hesitated, a frown creasing his brow. He mounted the three steps hesitatingly, and entered, pausing at the door-man’s desk. `

"Send me up an ‘extra,’ please, if one comes out," he told the clerk. Then he went up to his bedroom completely puzzled.

Half an hour later as he lay in bed wakeful and trying to compose in his thoughts the varying, incongruous aspect of this strange affair, he was all at once acutely conscious of a distant, thin, confused, roaring hum. The most prominent element in this sound was the deep, soft, and insistently penetrating blending of countless voices. Through it ran a kind of dominant note—a note of horror. The sound chilled his blood. It was eerie. He found himself holding his breath as he listened, straining every faculty to take in that faint, distant, terrible clamor of fear and despair.

Of just when he fell asleep he had no recollection, but when he awakened the next morning there hung over his mind a shadow of remembered horror, not wholly dissipated until he had bathed and begun to dress. He heard none of the sounds at the time of his awakening.

No “extra" lay outside his bedroom door, and a little later at breakfast he opened expectantly and scanned several newspapers vainly and with a mounting sense of wonderment for any account of a catastrophe which could have caused the sounds. Gradually the implication grew upon him. He had, actually, heard the convincing, unmistakable evidence of such a catastrophe—and no one else knew anything about it!

He fell asleep immediately after turning in.

The following morning was Sunday. The reading—room was full, and he carried his book up to his bed-room after late breakfast to read the rest of it in peace. Soon after he became immersed in it, his attention was distracted by the tapping of a window-shade, blown in and out by the breeze. It was annoying and he paused in his reading, intending to rise and adjust the shade.

As he withdrew his eyes, and part of his attention, from his book, all at once he heard a new sound. It was precisely as though a distant, sound-proof door had been abruptly opened.

As he listened, fascinated, there came back to him and grew upon him a paralyzing, cold fear. There seemed to be no stopping it. The faint penumbra of a slight nausea shook him. He could distinguish overtones now, high tones, cries of battle; the impact of a charge against a resistant horde; noise of plied weapons.

THE window-shade tapped again against the window casing. He snapped back into the familiar environment of his bedroom. He felt a little sick and weak. He rose shakily, walked across the room and into the bathroom, and, noisily splashing the water about, washed his hands and face.

Then he paused, suddenly to listen again, a towel gripped between clenched hands. But he could hear nothing now, nothing except the tapping of that window-shade in the fresh breeze blowing through the open window. He hung the towel on its porcelain rod and walked back to his chair.

It was an hour too early for lunch, but he wanted urgently to be where there were people about, even waiters, people who were not “hearing things!"

In order to prolong his companionship with old Cavanagh, the only other early luncher, Meredith ate somewhat more than usual. The unaccustomed heavy meal at such an hour made him drowsy, and after lunch he stretched out on a davenport before one of the two open fireplaces in the now unoccupied reading-room, and fell at once into an uneasy sleep.

A little before three he awakened, stale, and as he came to conscious wakefulness he began to hear, at first quite distinctly, and then with increasing loudness and clarity as-though a steady hand were opening' up a loudspeaker, that same sound of fire and human conflict, and the dreadful, menacing roar of a thunderous ocean’s incalculable anger.

Then, Old Cavanagh, napping on the other davenport, struggled with senile deliberation to his feet with many accompanying "hums” and "ha’s," and began lumbering across the room towards him.

"Lords’ sake, what’s the matter?" he demanded.

Kindly goodwill looked out of the old man’s distorted countenance. Meredith, unable to control himself any longer, stammered out his incredible story.

"Hm! Strange . . ." was the old man’s comment when Meredith ended. He produced, lighted deliberately, and puffed upon an enormous cigar. He seemed to cogitate as the two sat side by side in a pregnant silence of many minutes. At last he spoke.

"You’re upset, my boy, naturally. But, you can hear everything that’s going on around you, can’t you? Your actual hearing’s all right, then. Hm! This other ‘hearing’ starts up and goes on only when everything’s perfectly quiet. First time, you were here reading; second time, in bed; third time, reading again; this time—if I wasn’t snoring—you were in perfect quiet once more. Let’s test that out, now. Keep perfectly still, and I’ll do the same. Let’s see if you hear anything."

They fell silent once more, and for a while Meredith could hear nothing of the strange sounds. Then, as the silence deepened, once again came that complex of sounds indicating devastating battle, murder, and sudden death.

He nodded silently at Cavanagh, and at the old man’s acquiescent murmur the sounds ceased abruptly.

IT TOOK urging before Meredith could be persuaded to consult an aurist. Medical men, Cavanagh reminded him, would keep quiet about anything strange or embarrassing. Professional ethics....

They went uptown together that afternoon to Dr. Gatefield, a noted specialist. The doctor heard the story with close-lipped, professional attention. Then he tested Meredith’s hearing with various delicate instruments. Finally he gave an opinion.

"We are familiar with various ‘ear-noises’ Mr. Meredith. In some cases the location of one of the arteries too close to the ear-drum gives ‘roaring’ noises. There are others, similar. I have eliminated everything of that kind. Your physical organism is in excellent condition, and unusually acute. There is nothing wrong with your hearing. This is a case for a psychiatrist.

“I am not suggesting anything like mental derangement, you will please understand! But I recommend Dr. Cowlington. This seems to be a clear case of what is sometimes called ‘clairaudience,’ or something similar—his department-; not mine. The aural equivalent of ‘clairvoyance’ is what I am indicating, you see what I mean. ‘Second-sight’ has to do with the eyes, of course, but it is mental, although there is often some physical background, I have no knowledge of those phenomena. I hope you will take my advice and allow Dr. Cowling—"

"All right!" interrupted Meredith. "Where does he live? I might as well go through with the thing now as later."

Dr. Gatefield showed traces of sympathy under his rather frosty professional exterior. He dropped the diagnostician, became the obliging, courteous gentleman. He telephoned to his colleague, the psychiatrist, and then surprised both Meredith and Cavanagh by accompanying them to Dr. Cowlington’s. The psychiatrist proved to be a tall, thin, and rather kindly person, with heavy, complex spectacles on a prominent nose, and then, sand-colored wisps of hair in a complication of cowlicks. He showed marked interest in the case from the start. After hearing Meredith’s story and the aurist’s report he subjected Meredith to an examination of more than an hour, from which, feeling more or less as though he had been dissected, he nevertheless derived a considerable sense of relief.

It was decided that Meredith should arrange at once to take several days off, come to Dr. Cowlington’s house, and remain "under observation."

HE ARRIVED at the doctor’s the next morning and was given a pleasant, upstairs room, with many books and a comfortable davenport on which, in a recumbent position, the psychiatrist suggested, he should spend most of his waking hours, reading.

During Monday and Tuesday, Meredith, now after Dr. Cowlington’s skillful reassurances no longer upset at hearing the strange sounds, listened carefully for whatever might reach him from what seemed like another—and very restless—world! He heard as he listened for long periods uninterrupted by any aural distractions, the drama of a great community in the paralyzing grip of fear—fighting for its corporate life—against irresistible, impending, dreadful doom.

He began, about this time, at Dr. Cowlington’s suggestion, to write down some of the syllabification of the cries and shouts as well as he could manage it, on a purely phonetic basis. The sounds corresponded to no language known to him. The words and phrases were blurred and marred by the continuous uproar of the fury of waters. This was invariably, and continued to be, the sustained, distinctive background for every sound he heard during the periods while he remained passive and quiet. The various words and phrases were entirely unintelligible. His notes looked like nothing which either he or Cowlington could relate to any modern or ancient tongue. When read aloud they made nothing but gibberish.

These strange terms were studied over very carefully by Dr. Cowlington, by Meredith himself, and by no less than three professors, of Archeology and Comparative Philology, one of whom, the Archeologist, was a friend of Cowlington’s and the other two called in by him. All of these experts on ancient and obsolete languages listened with the greatest courtesy to Meredith’s attempt to explain the apparent setting of the sounds—most of them were in the nature of battle—cries and what Meredith took to be fragments of desperately uttered prayer—some of the material having come to him in the form of uncouth, raucous howls—and with the greatest interest to his attempts at reproducing them orally. They studied his written notes with the most meticulous care. The verdict was unanimous, even emphatic on the part of the younger and more dogmatic philologist. These sounds were quite utterly at variance with any known speech, including Sanskrit, Indo-Iranian, and even the conjectural Akkadian and Sumerian spoken tongues. The transcribed syllables corresponded to nothing in any known language, ancient or modern. Emphatically they were not Japanese.

The three professors took their departure, and Meredith and the psychiatrist Dr. Cowlington went over the list again.

Meredith had written: “I, I, I, I;—R’ly-eh!—Ieh nya, —Ieh  nya; —zoh, zoh-an-nuh!” There was only one grouping of the words which formed anything like a section of continuous speech, or sentence, and which Meredith had been able to capture more or less intact and write down—"Ióth, Ióth,—natcal-o, do yan kho thútthut."

There were many other cries and, as he believed, desperately uttered prayers quite as strange and off the beaten tracks of recognized human speech as those noted down.

IT WAS quite possibly because of his concentration on this affair of the remembered words-his own interest in them being naturally enhanced by Dr. Cowlington’s and that of the three experts—that Meredith’s dream-state impressions just at this time, and suddenly, became markedly acute. These dreams had been continuous and consecutive since their beginning several nights before, but on this night after the rather elaborate investigation of the words and syllables, Meredith began in earnest to get the affair of his environment in the strange city of the flames and conflicts and confusion and of a roaring ocean, cleared up with a startling abruptness. His dream impression that night was so utterly vivid; so acutely identical with the terms of the waking state; that he couldn’t tell the difference between his dream slumber and wakeful consciousness!

Everything that he had derived mentally out of that night’s sleep was clearly and definitely present in his mind. It seemed to him precisely as though he had not been asleep; that he had not emerged from an ordinary night’s rest into the accustomed circumstances of an early morning’s awakening. It was, rather, as though he had very abruptly passed out of one quite definite life into another; as though, as it came to him afterwards, he had walked out of a theatre into the wholly unrelated after-theatre life of Times Square.

One of the radical phases of this situation was not only that the succession of dream experiences had been continuous, with time—allowances for the intervening periods of those days-in-between which he had spent here in Dr. Cowlington’s quiet house; not only that, extraordinary as this realization seemed to him. The nearly consecutive dream experiences had been the events of the past few days in a life of thirty-two years, spent in that same environment and civilization of which the cataclysmic conditions which he had been envisaging appeared to presage a direful end.

HE WAS, to set out plainly what he had brought out of that last night’s dream-experience, one Bothon, general of the military forces of the great district of Ludekta, the south-westerly provincial division of the continent of Atlantis, which had been colonized, as every Atlantean school child was well aware, some eighteen hundred years before by a series of emigrations from the mother continent. The Naacal language—with minor variations not unlike the differences between American speech and "English English"—was the common language of both continents.

From his native Ludekta the General Bothon had made several voyages to the mother land. The first of these had been to Ghua, the central eastern province, a kind of grand tour made just after his finishing, at the age of twenty-two, his professional course in the Ludekta College of Military Training. He was thus familiar by experience, as were many other cultivated Atlanteans of the upper classes, with the very highly developed civilization of the mother continent. These cultural contacts had been aided by his second visit, and further enhanced not long before the present period of the dream-experiences when, at the age of thirty-one, Bothon, already of the rank of general, had been sent out as Ambassador to Aglad-Dho, joint capital of the confederated south-eastern provinces of Yish, Knan, and Buathon, one of the most strategic diplomatic posts, and the second most important provincial confederation of the mother continent.

He had served in his ambassadorial capacity for only four months, and then had been abruptly recalled without explanation, but, as he had soon discovered upon his arrival home, because of the privately communicated request of the Emperor himself. His diplomatic superiors at home offered him no censure. Such Imperial requests were not unknown. These gentlemen were, actually, quite unaware of the reasons behind the Imperial request. No explanations had been given them, but there had been no Imperial censure of any kind.

But the General, Bothon, knew the reasons very well, although he kept them strictly to himself. There was, indeed, only one reason, as he was acutely and very well aware.

The requirements of his office had taken him rather frequently to Alu, the continental capital, metropolis of the civilized world.

Here in the great city of Alu were assembled from all known parts of the terrestrial globe the world’s diplomats, artists, philosophers, traders and shipmasters. Here in the great warehouses of solid stone and along the innumerable wharves were piled the world’s goods—fabrics and perfumes; strange animals for the delectation of the untraveled curious. Here in the endless stalls and markets were dyed stuffs and silks; tubas and cymbals and musical rattles and lyres; choice woods and implements for the toilet—strigils, and curiously carved hand-fitting little blocks of soapstone, and oils innumerable for the freshening of beards and the anointing of bodies. Here were tunics and sandals and belts and thongs of soft-tanned, variously perfumed leathers. Here were displayed carved and cunningly wrought pieces of household furniture—glowing, burnished wall-mirrors of copper and tin and steel, bedsteads of an infinite range and design, cushions of swans’ feathers, tables of plain and polished artizanship and of intarsia with metal scrolls set flush to their levels; marquetry work of contrasting woods-chairs and stools and cupboards and chests and foot-rests. Here were ornaments innumerable—fire—screens, and spindles for parchment-rolls, and tongs, and shades for lamps made of the scraped skins of animals; metal lamps of every design, and vegetable oils for the lamps in earthenware jars of many sizes and shapes. Here were foods and wines and dried fruits, and honey of many flavors; grains and dried meats and loaves of barley and wheat-meal past computation. Here in the great street of the armorers were maces and axes and swords and daggers of all the world's varieties and designs; armor of plate and chain-hauberks, and greaves and bassinets, and shelves with rows and rows of the heavy plate and helmets standardized for the use of such fighting men as Bothon himself commanded in their thousands.

HERE were to be seen and examined costly canopies and the elaborate litters in which the slaves of the rich carried their masters through the narrow streets and broad, airy avenues of Alu. Rugs there were in an endless profusion of size and shape and design; rugs from distant Lemuria and from Atlantis and from tropical Antillea, and from the mountainous interior regions of the mother continent itself, where thousands of cunning weavers of fabrics worked at their looms; ordinary rugs of pressed felt, and gorgeous glowing rugs of silk from the southern regions where the mulberry trees grew; rugs, too, and thin, soft draperies of complex patterns made of the wool of lambs and of the long, silk-like hair of the mountain sheep.

Here in Alu, center of the world’s culture, were philosophers with their groups of disciples, small or great, propounding their systems on the corners of streets and in the public squares, wrangling incessantly over the end of man, and the greatest good, and the origin of material things. Here were vast libraries containing the essence of all that had been written down concerning science and religion and engineering and the innumerable fine arts, of the civilization of forty thousand years. Here were the temples of religion where the hierarchs propounded the principles of life, colleges of priests studying incessantly more and more deeply into the mysteries of the four principles; teaching the people the endless applications of these esoteric affairs to their conduct and daily lives.

Into this fascinating treasure house of a great civilization the ambassador Bothon had penetrated as often as possible. The excellence of his family background, his own character and personal qualities, and his official position, all combined to make him a welcome guest in the mansions of the members of the emperor’s court and of the highest stratum of social life in Alu.

An impressionable young man, most of whose life previous to his appointment as ambassador had been spent in hard training for his military duties and in the rigorous prosecution of these as he rose rapidly grade by grade by hard man’s work in camp and field during his many campaigns in the standing army of Ludekta, the general, Bothon, revelled in these many high social contacts. Very soon he found within himself and growing apace, the strong and indeed natural desire for a type of life to which his backgrounds and achievements had amply entitled him, but of which he had been, so far, deprived because of the well—nigh incessant demands upon him of his almost continuous military service.

In short, the ambassador from Ludekta very greatly came to desire marriage, with some lady of his own caste and, preferably, of this metropolitan city of Alu with its sophistication and wide culture; a lady who might preside graciously over his ambassadorial establishment; who, when his term of office was concluded, would return with him to his native Ludekta in Atlantis, there permanently to grace the fine residence he had in his mind’s eye when, a little later, he should retire from the Ludektan army and settle down as a senator into the type of life which he envisaged for his middle years.

HE HAD been both fortunate and unfortunate in his actual falling in love. The lady, who reciprocated his ardent advances, was the Netvissa Ledda, daughter of the Netvis Toldon who was the emperor’s brother. The fortunate aspect of this intense and sudden love affair which set all social Alu to commenting upon it, was the altogether human one of a virtually perfect compatability between the two. Their initial mutual attraction had become a settled regard for each other almost overnight. Within a few days thereafter they were very deeply in love. Humanly considered, the affair was perfection itself. Every circumstance save one, and that a merely artificial side of the case, gave promise of an ideal union.

The single difficulty in the way of this marriage was, however, most unfortunately, an insuperable one. The Netvissa Ledda, niece of the emperor, belonged of right to the very highest social caste of the empire. The rank and degree of Netvis lay next to Royalty itself and in the case of the family of the Netvis Toldon partook of royalty. Against this fact basic in the structure of the empire’s long-established custom, the Ambassador, General Bothon of Ludekta—although a gentleman of the very highest attainments, character, and worth, whose family record reached back a thousand years into the dim past before the colonization of Atlantis, whose reputation was second to none in the empire-—the General, Bothon, was a commoner. As such, according to the rigid system prevalent at the court in Alu, capital of the Empire, he was hopelessly ineligible. The marriage was simply out of the question.

The Emperor being called upon to settle this awkward affair, acted summarily, quite in the spirit of one who destroys a hopelessly wounded and suffering creature as an act of mercy. The Emperor took the one course open to him under these circumstances, and the General, Bothon, without any choice being open to him save submission to an Imperial request which had the force of law, took ship for Ludekta, leaving behind him in Alu the highest and dearest hope of his life, irreparably shattered.

For the subsequent conduct of the General Bothon, recently Ludektan Ambassador to Aglad-Dho, there were three very definite contributing reasons. Of these the first and most prominent was the depth and intensity and genuineness of his love for the Netvissa Ledda. Beyond all possible things, he wanted her; and the proud soul of Bothon was very grievously racked and torn at the sudden unexpected and arbitrary separation from her which the Imperial request had brought about.

The voyage from Aglad-Dho to Ludetka, across two sections of the globe’s great oceans and through the ship canals and lakes which bisected the southern continent of the western hemisphere, occupied seven weeks. During this period of enforced inaction the bitter chagrin and deep disappointment of Bothon crystallized itself by means of the sustained reflection inevitable under the circumstances. General Bothon arrived in Ludekta in a state of mind which made him ready for anything, provided only it was action. This state of mind was the second of these contributory factors. The third was the immediate satisfaction of his desire for activity. During the course of his voyage home the ghoulish and, indeed, sub-human factory slaves, the shockingly Simian Gyaa-Hau, had inaugurated a revolt. This had spread, by the time of Bothon’s arrival, throughout the entire province of Ludekta. The state sorely needed the efficient services of this, the youngest and most brilliant of its generals, and his reception on landing was more nearly that of a savior of his country than what a virtually disgraced diplomat might expect.

INTO this campaign, which he prosecuted with the utmost vigor and a thorough-going military effectiveness, Bothon threw himself with an abounding energy which even his most ardent Ludektan admirers had not anticipated. At the end of an intensive campaign of less than three weeks, with this very dangerous revolt completely crushed and the leaders of the Gyaa-Hua hanging to a man by great hooks through their neck muscles in dreadful rows along the outer city walls on either side of the great archway that pierced the defense of Ludekta’s capital, the General Bothon found himself the hero of Ludekta and the idol of his admiring troops. A rigid disciplinarian; the attitude of the officers and men of the Ludektan standing army towards this general had hitherto been based upon the respect which his great abilities had always commanded. Now he found himself the recipient of something almost like worship because of this last brilliant campaign of his. It had been a tour de force.

Although it is highly probable that they would have advanced him because of this achievement in any event, the actual occasion for the action of the Ludektan Senate in rewarding Bothon with the supreme command of the standing army was the speech before that body of the aging generalissimo Tarba. Old Tarba ended his notable panegyric by laying his truncheon, emblem of the supreme command, on the great marble slab before the presiding senator, with a dramatic gesture.

Bothon thus found himself suddenly possessed of that intensive hero worship which would cause the state to acquiesce in anything which its object might suggest. He was, at the same time, in supreme command of the largest sectional standing army of the entire continent of Atlantis; an army, thanks chiefly to his own efficiency, probably the best trained and most effective fighting unit then extant.

Under the combined effect of the contributing causes and his new authority General Bothon made up his mind. On the eleventh day after his triumphal entry into Ludekta’s capital city" forty-seven Ludektan war vessels freshly outfitted, their oar-slaves supplemented by a reserve of the Gyaa-Hau, selected for the power and endurance of their gorilla-like bodies, with new skin sails throughout the fleet, and the flower of the Ludektan army on board, sailed out from Ludekta westward for Alu under the command of the General Bothon.

IT WAS precisely simultaneous with the arrival of this war fleet off the shores of the great city of Alu that there began unprecedented natural disturbances affecting the entire area of the mother continent. These were comparable to nothing recorded in the capital’s carefully kept slate and parchment records, which went back over a period of thousands of years.

The first presage of these impending calamities took the form of a coppery tinge which replaced the blue of the sky. Without any warning the long ground-swell of this Western Ocean changed abruptly, along with the color of the water, into a kind of dull brick-grey, to short, choppy, spray-capped waves. These tossed even the great Ludektan war galleys so violently as to shatter many of the sweeps. The wind, to the consternation of several of Bothon’s captains, appeared to come from every quarter at once! It tore the heavy skin sails of the Ludektan galleys away from their copper rings and bolts in some cases. In others it split the sails in clean straight lines as though they had been slit with sharp knives.

Undaunted by these manifestations and the reports of his augurs who had cast their lots and slain their sheep and fowls in a hasty series of divinations to account, if possible, for this unfavorable reception at the hands of the elements, the indomitable will of Bothon forced his fleet to an orderly landing. He sent forthwith as his herald to the Emperor himself, his highest ranking sub-general, accompanied by an imposing guard of honor. On slate tablets Bothon had set forth his demand in his own hand. This was in the form of a set of alternatives. The Emperor was asked to receive him as Generalissimo of the military forces of Ludekta, and to consent to his immediate marriage with the Netvissa Ledda; or, he, Bothon, would proceed forthwith to the siege of Alu and take the lady of his heart by force and arms.

The message prayed the Emperor to elect the first alternative. It also set forth briefly and in formal heraldic terms the status of the ancient family of Bothon.

The Emperor had been very seriously annoyed at this challenge, as he chose to regard it. He felt that his office and dignity had been outraged. He crucified Bothon’s entire delegation.

The siege of Alu began forthwith under that menacing copper-tinted sky and to the accompaniment of a rumbling series of little earthquakes.

NOT only not within the memory of living men, but, as the records indicated, during its entire history over thousands of years as the metropolis of the civilized world, had there been any previous hostile manifestations against the great city of Alu. That anything like this terrible campaign which the renowned General Bothon of Ludekta set in motion against her might come to pass, had never even remotely occurred to anyone in Alu. So promptly did Bothon launch his attack that the tortured bodies of the members of his delegation to the Emperor had not' yet ceased writhing on their row of crosses before he had penetrated, at the head of his trained legionaries, to a point within two squares of the Imperial Palace which stood at the center of the great city.

There had been virtually no resistance. This intensive campaign would have been triumphantly concluded within twenty minutes, the Emperor probably captured along with all his Palace guards and household, the person of the Lady Ledda secured by this ardent lover of hers, and the entire objective of the expedition accomplished, save for what in modern legal phraseology would have been described as An Act of God.

The premonitory earth-shakings which had accompanied this armed invasion culminated, at that point in the advance of Bothon’s army, in a terrific seismic cataclysm. The stone-paved streets opened in great gaping fissures. Massive buildings crashed tumultuously all about and upon the triumphantly advancing Ludektans. The General, Bothon, at the head of his troops, dazed and deafened and hurled violently upon the ground, retained consciousness long enough to see three quarters of his devoted following engulfed, smashed, torn to fragments, crushed into unrecognizable heaps of bloody pulp; and this holocaust swiftly and mercifully obliterated from before his failing vision by the drifting dust from millions of tons of crumbled masonry.

He awakened in the innermost keep of the dungeon in Alu’s citadel.

COMING quietly into Meredith’s bedroom about ten o’clock in the morning, Dr. Cowlington, who had made up his mind overnight on a certain matter, quietly led his initial conversation with his observation-patient around to the subject which had been most prominent in his mind since their conference of yesterday over the strange linguistic terms which Meredith had noted down.

“It has occurred to me that I might very well tell you about something quite out of the ordinary which came under my notice seven or eight years ago. It happened while I was chief intern in the Connecticut State Hospital for the Insane. I served there for two years under Dr. Floyd Haviland before I went into private practice. We had a few private patients in the hospital, and one of these, who was in my particular charge, was a gentleman of middle-age who had come to us because of Haviland’s enormous reputation, without commitment. This gentleman, whom I will call ‘Smith’, was neither legally nor actually ‘insane’. His difficulty, which had interfered very seriously with the course of his life and affairs, would ordinarily be classified as ‘delusions’. He was with us for nearly two months. As a voluntary patient of the institution, and being a man of means, he had private rooms. He was in every way normal except for his intensive mental preoccupation with what I have called his delusions. In daily contact with him during this period I became convinced that Mr. Smith was not suffering from anything like a delusive affection of the mind.

“I diagnosed his difficulty—and Dr. Haviland agreed with me—that this patient, Smith, was suffering mentally from the effects of an ancestral memory.

“Such a case is so rare as to be virtually unique. The average psychiatrist would go through a life-time working at his specialty without encountering anything of the sort. There are, however, recorded cases. We were able to send our patient home in a mental condition of almost complete normality. As sometimes occurs in mental cases, his virtual cure was accomplished by making our diagnosis very clear to him—impressing upon his mind through reiterated and very positive statements that he was in no sense of the word demented, and that his condition, while unusual, was not outside the range and limitations of complete normality."

“IT MUST have been a very interesting case” said Meredith. His reply was dictated by nothing deeper than a desire to be courteous. For his mind was full of the affairs of the General, Bothon, raging now in his prison-chamber; his mind harried, anxious over the fate of his surviving soldiers; that lurid glare, dimmed by the remoteness of his flame-tinted prison-chamber, in his eyes; his mind tortured and his keen sense of hearing stultified by the sustained, dreadful roaring of that implacable sea. He, Meredith, for reasons far too deep for his own analysis, felt utterly incapable of telling Dr. Cowlington what was transpiring in those dreams of his. All his inmost basic instincts were warning him, though subconsciously, that what he might tell now, if he would, could not possibly be believed! Dr. Cowlington, looking at his patient, saw a face drawn and lined as though from some devastating mental stress; a deeply introspective expression in the eyes, which, professionally speaking, he did not like. The doctor considered a moment before resuming, erect in his chair, his knees crossed, his finger-tips joined in a somewhat judicial attitude.

"Frankly, Meredith, I emphasized the fact that the man I have called Smith was in no sense insane because I feel that I must go farther and tell you that the nature of his apparent “delusions’ was, in one striking particular, related to your own case. I did not wish to give you the slightest alarm over the perfect soundness of your own mentality! To put the matter plainly, Mr. Smith remembered, although rather vaguely and dimly, certain phases of those ancestral memories I mentioned, and was able to reproduce a number of the terms of some unknown and apparently prehistoric language. Meredith —" the doctor turned and looked intensely into the eyes of his now interested patient, “—there were three or four of Smith’s words identical with yours!”

"Good God!" Meredith exclaimed, "What were the words, Doctor? Did you make notes of them?"

"Yes, I have them here," answered the psychiatrist.

Meredith was out of his chair and leaning eagerly over the doctor’s shoulder long before Cowlington had his papers arranged. He gazed with a consuming intensity at the words and phrases carefully typed on several sheets of foolscap; listened, with an almost tremulous attention, while Dr. Cowlington carefully reproduced the sounds of these uncouth terms. Then, taking the sheets and resuming his chair, he read through all that had been written down, pronouncing the words, though very quietly, under his breath, his lips barely moving.

HE WAS pale, and shaking from head to foot when he rose at last and handed back, hands trembling, the thin fascicle of papers to its owner. Dr. Cowlington looked at him anxiously, his professional mind alert, his fears somewhat aroused over the wisdom of this experiment of his in bringing his former case thus abruptly to his patient’s attention. Dr. Cowlington felt, if he had cared to put his impression into words, somewhat baffled. He could not, despite his long and careful training in dealing with mental, nervous, and "borderland" cases, quite put his acute professional finger upon just which one of the known simple and complex emotions was, for this moment, dominating this very interesting patient of his.

Dr. Cowlington would have been even more completely puzzled if he had known.

For Meredith, reading through the strange babblings of the patient, Smith, had recognized all the words and terms, and had lit upon the phrase:

“Our beloved Bothon has disappeared.”

Dr. Cowlington, sensing accurately that it might be unwise to prolong this particular interview, concluded wisely that Meredith would most readily regain his normal poise and equanimity if left alone to cope with whatever, for the time-being, held possession of his mind, rose quietly and walked over to the bedroom door.

He paused there, however, for an instant, before leaving the room, and looked back at the man. Meredith had not, apparently, so much as noted the doctor’s movements towards departure. His mind, very obviously, was turned inward. He was, it appeared, entirely oblivious to his surroundings.

And Dr, Cowlington, whose professional outward deportment, acquired through years of contact with abnormal people, had not wholly obliterated a kindly disposition, noted with a certain emotion of his own that there were unchecked tears plainly visible in his patient’s inward-gazing eyes.

SUMMONED back to Meredith’s room an hour later by one of his house nurses, Dr. Cowlington found his patient restored to his accustomer urbane normality.

“I asked you to come up for a moment, Doctor," began Meredith, "because I wanted to inquire if there is anything that you would care to give a patient to induce sleep." Then, with a deprecating smile: "The only such things I know about are morphine and laudanum! I don’t know very much about medicine and naturally you wouldn’t want to give me one of those any more than I would want to take it.”

Dr. Cowlington resumed his judicial manner. He thought rapidly about this unexpected request. He took into consideration how his story about the patient, Smith, had appeared to upset Meredith. He deliberately refrained from inquiring why Meredith wanted a sleeping potion. Then he nodded his head.

"I use a very simple preparation;" he said. “It is non-habit-forming; based on a rather dangerous drug, chloral; but, as I use it for my patients, compounded with an aromatic syrup and diluted with half a tumbler of water, it works very well. I will send some up to you but remember, please, four teaspoonfuls of the syrup is the outside dose. Two will probably be enough. Never more than four at any time, and not more than one dose in twenty-four hours."

Dr. Cowlington rose, came over to Meredith, and looked at the place where he had struck the side of his head against the marble wall of his shower-bath. The bruise was still there. The doctor passed his fingers lightly over the contusion.

“It’s beginning to go down,’ he remarked. Then he smiled pleasantly, again nodded his head at Meredith, and, started to leave. Meredith stopped him as he was about to go out of the room.

"I wanted to ask you," said Meredith, "I wanted to ask you, Doctor, if you would be willing to put me in touch with the man to whom you referred as "Smith’?"

The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith died two years ago."

IN TEN minutes the house nurse fetched in a small tray. On it was a tumbler, a mixing spoon, and a freshly put up eight-ounce bottle containing a reddish colored, pleasant tasting syrup.

Twenty minutes later, Meredith, who had compromised on three teaspoons, was deeply asleep on his bed; and the General, Bothon, in the innermost dungeon chamber of the great citadel of Alu, was standing poised in the center of that dungeon’s smooth stone floor, tensed to leap in any direction; while all about him the rending crashes of thousands of tons of the riven and falling masonry of the citadel itself was deafening him against all other sounds except the incessant and indescribably thunderous fury of the now utterly maddened ocean. The lurid glare of the tires from without had been markedly heightened. Detonation after detonation came to Bothon’s ears at frequent intervals. The Aluans were blowing up this central portion of their great city, in order to check the advance of the conflagration which had raged for days and nights and was utterly beyond control. These detonations seemed actually faint to the alert man in that prison room against the hideous crashing of the sections of the citadel itself, and the sustained roar of the ocean.

Abruptly the crisis for which he had been waiting arrived. The stone flooring beneath his feet buckled and sagged at his right. He whirled about and leaped far in the other direction, pressing himself, hands and arms stretched out above his head, against the wall of the prison-chamber, his heart pounding wildly, his breath coming in great gasps and sobs as the stifling, earthquake-deadened air about him shrank to a sudden and devastating attenuation. Then the solid wall opposite split in a tearing gap from top to bottom, and an even more stifling cloud of white dust sifted abruptly through the room as the ceiling was riven asunder.

Stifling, choking, fighting for breath and life, the General, Bothon, lowered his arms and whirled about again in the direction of this thunderous breakage, and groped his way across the now precarious flooring in the faint hope of discovering an avenue of escape. He struggled up a steep mound of débris through the grey darkness of the hanging dust where a few seconds before there had been a level floor of solid masonry. He groped his way through thicker clouds of the drifting, settling stone-dust, skirted the irregular edges of yawning holes and toiled up and down mounded heaps of rubble, far past the place where the confining wall of his dungeon had stood, onward and forward resolutely towards that vague goal of freedom.

At last, the resources of his mighty body spent, his eyes two tortured red holes, his mouth and throat one searing pain, Bothon emerged across the last hill of rubbish which had been the citadel of Alu and came out upon the corner edge of one of the largest of the city’s great public squares.

FOR the first time in the course of his progress out of that death trap, Bothon suddenly trod on something soft and yielding. He paused. He could hardly see, and he crouched and felt with his hands, under the thickly mounded dust.

It was the body of a man, in chain mail. Bothon, exhaled a painful breath of satisfaction. He rolled the body over, freeing it from the pounds of dust upon it, and slid his hand along the copper-studded leather belt to where a short, heavy, one-handed battle-axe was attached. This he drew from its sheath.

Then from the dead man’s silken tunic he tore off a large section and cleansed his eyes and mouth and wiped the sweat-caked dust from his face.

Finally he took from the corpse a heavy leathern purse. He lay down for a few moments beside the dead soldier on the soft dust for a brief rest. Some ten minutes later he rose, stretched himself, testing the heavy axe with three or four singing strokes through the clearing air, and dusted out and readjusted his garments, finally tightening a loosened sandal thong.

He stood free now in the center of Alu. He was adequately armed. A great gust of energy surged through him. He oriented himself; then he turned with an instinct as sure as a homing bee’s in the direction he had been seeking, and began to march at the unhurrying, space-devouring pace of a Ludektan legionary, straight for the Imperial Palace.

Bothon had thoroughly settled in his mind the answer to a question which, for the first few days of his captivity had puzzled him greatly. Why had he been left alone and undisturbed in that confinement; food and water brought to him at regular intervals in accordance with the ordinary routine of the citadel? Why, to put the matter plainly, having been obviously captured by the Emperor’s retainers while lying unconscious within two squares of the Imperial Palace, had he not been summarily crucified? His keen trained mind had apprised him that the answer was to be found in the hideous turmoil of the raging sea and in the fearful sounds of a disintegrating city. The Emperor had been too greatly occupied by those cataclysms even to command the punishment of this leader of such an armed attack against the world’s metropolis as had not been known in all the long history of the mother continent.

Skirting its enormous outer walls, Bothon came at last to the massive chief entrance-way to the Imperial Palace. This enormous structure, its basic walls eight feet thick, stood massive, magnificent, intact. Without any hesitation he began mounting the many broad steps straight towards the magnificent entrance-gates of copper and gold and porphyry.

Before these gates, in the rigid line and under the command of an officer beneath whose corselet appeared the pale blue tunic of the Emperor’s house-hold-guards, stood a dozen fully armed soldiers. One of these, at a word from the officer, ran down the steps to turn back this intruder. Bothon slew him with a single crashing stroke and continued to mount the steps. At this a shouted command of the officer sent the entire troop down the steps upon him in close order. Bothon paused, and waiting until the foremost was no more than the space of two of the broad steps above him, leaped lightly to his right. Then as the foremost four of the soldiers passed beyond him under the impetus of their downward charge, Bothon as lightly leaped back again, his heavy axe falling upon the troop’s flank with deadly, short, quick-swinging blows.

Before they could collect themselves the officer and five of his men lay dead upon the steps. Leaving the demoralized remainder to gather themselves together as best they might, Bothon leaped up the intervening steps and was through the great entrance-doors, and, with a pair of lightning-like right-and-left strokes of his axe, had disposed of the two men-at-arms stationed just inside the doorway.

HIS way into the Palace now entirely unobstructed, Bothon sped through well-remembered rooms and along broad corridors into the heart of the Imperial Palace of Alu.

Within thirty seconds he had located the entrance to the brother of the Emperor, Netvis Toldon’s apartments, and had passed through the doorway.

He discovered the family reclining about the horseshoe-shaped table in the refectory, for it was the hour of the evening meal. He paused in the doorway, was met with surprised glances, and bowed low to the Netvis Toldon.

"I beseech you to pardon this intrusion, my Lord Netvis. It would be inexcusable under other circumstances, at a more favorable time." The nobleman returned no answer, only stared in surprise. Then, the dear lady of his heart, the Netvissa Ledda, rose to her feet from her place at her father’s table, her eyes wide with wonderment. A dawning realization of what this strange invasion might mean, made her lovely face suddenly the hue of the Aluan roses, She looked at this heroically formed lover of hers, her soul in her eyes.

"Come, my lady Ledda" said Bothon quickly, and as lightly as a deer the Netvissa Ledda ran to him.

He took her arm, very quietly, and, before the assembled members of the family of Toldon had recovered from their surprise, the two were hastening along the corridor towards the palace entrance.

From around the first corner before them came then abrupt sounds of armed men. They paused, listening, and Bothon shifted his axe into his right hand and stepped before the lady Ledda, but she laid firm hands upon his left arm. "This way, swiftly" she whispered, and led him down a narrow passageway at the wide corridor’s left. This they traversed in haste, and had barely negotiated a sharp turn when they heard the guard-troop rush along the main corridor, and a voice, commanding:

“To the apartment of my Lord, the Netvis Toldon!"

The narrow passage-way led them past cook-rooms and scullery-chambers, and ended at a small door which opened upon a narrow court. Rapidly traversing this, they emerged upon a square at the west side of the palace, and well before any pursuit could have traced their course, were indistinguishable among the vast concourse of the people who thronged the wide avenues of Alu.

Bothon now resumed the direction of their course of escape. Leading the way across a larger adjacent square, he reached the secluded corner, mounded about with débris, where he had secured his weapon. It was not yet past the early dusk of a mid-summer evening, and now there was nothing to interfere with his keen vision.

Yes, it was as he had guessed from the quality of that torn fragment of silken tunic with which he had wiped his tortured eyes free of the stone-dust. The dead man was an officer of one of the Imperial Legions.

Seating the Lady Ledda upon a block of granite and requesting her to watch, Bothon knelt swiftly beside the dead body and busied himself upon it.

AT THE end of two intensive minutes the Netvissa Ledda looked up at his touch upon her shoulder to see her lover apparelled from head to foot in the uniform, armor, and accoutrements of an Elton of the Imperial Legion of the Hawk.

Then they hurried southward, side by side, across the great square with its desolation of shattered buildings, towards one of the few remaining residences of the rich before which four coal-black slaves in the livery of their household were lowering an ornamental litter to the ground.

From the luxurious vehicle, as they arrived beside it, there emerged a stout citizen who stared at them inquiringly, his initial fear disappearing at recognition of the Emperor’s niece and the uniform of an Imperial Legion.

“We request the loan of your litter, my lord," said Bothon.

“Most willingly," returned the citizen, bowing. Bothon expressed thanks, handed his companion into the litter, distributed a handful of silver among the four slaves, and gave the destination to the Negro who stood beside the forward left-hand pole. Then he climbed in himself and drew the red silk curtains together.

The strong litter-poles strained and creaked as the load was hoisted to four brawny shoulders, and then the litter swung away from the residence of its still bowing and smirking owner towards the military enclosure which housed and guarded the flying-vessels of the Aluvian standing army.

"You may have observed how very completely I have entrusted my Imperial person to you," remarked the Netvissa Ledda, smiling. She was very well aware of the reasons for the Imperial request which had sent Bothon back to Ludekta, and for the first armed invasion against the Aluvian metropolis.

“I have not so much as inquired as to our destination! "

"It is my intention to seek safety to the northwest," answered Bothon gravely. "I am convinced the prediction of Bal, Lord of Fields, as to the destruction of the Mother Continent, is not a mere classic to be learned, as we learned it in our childhood, as a formal exercise in rhetoric, Here, all about us, is the evidence. More, my four augurs warned me of the continent’s danger ere I brought my war-galleys up upon the beaches of Alu. The four great forces, they insisted, were in collusion to that end. Do we not see and hear them at work? Fire raging through the land; earth shaking mightily; winds such as never were encountered hitherto upon the planet, else the old records lie! Water, the commotion of which surpasses all experiences;—is it not so, my beloved? Am I not constrained to speak thus to be heard amidst this hellish tumult?"

The Lady Ledda nodded, grave now in her turn.

"There are many deafened in the palace," she remarked. "Where are we to go for refuge?”

“We depart straight this night, for the great mountains of ‘A-Wah-Ii,” answered Bothon, “if so be the four great forces allow us possession of a war chariot. And, to that end, your ring, my beloved.”

THE Lady Ledda nodded again, understandingly, and removed from the middle finger of her right hand the ring of the two suns and the eight-pointed star which, as a member of the Royal Family, she was entitled to wear. Bothon received it, and slipped it upon the little finger of his right hand.

The sentinel on guard before the barracks of the officer commanding the military enclosure of the Aluvian supply-barracks, saluted the commanding looking Elton of the Legion of the Hawk who stepped down from the ornamented litter. The Elton addressed him in formal military phrases.

“Report at once to the Ka-Kalbo Netro, the arrival of the Elton Barko of the Legion of the Hawk, conveying a member of the Imperial household into exile. I am requisitioning one battle-chariot of capacity for two persons, and officer’s rations sufficient for fourteen days, together with the medicinal supply for a full kit-va of men. My authority, the Imperial Signet. Behold!”

The sentinel saluted the sun-and-star ring of the Emperor, repeated his orders like an efficient automaton, saluted the Elton of the Hawk Legion, and departed at the double to fetch the commandant, the Ka-Kalbo Netro.

The Ka-Kalbo arrived promptly in answer to this summons. He saluted the Imperial Signet, and, as a Ka-Kalbo outranked an Elton by one full grade, was punctiliously saluted according to military usage by the Elton Barko of the Legion of the Hawk, an officer whose personal acquaintance he had not previously made.

Within ten minutes the Netvissa Ledda had been ceremoniously carried to and placed upon her seat in the commandeered battle-chariot, and the Elton Barko had taken his place beside her. Then, the dozen sweating mechanicians who had carried out their commandant’s orders in record time, standing in a stiff, saluting row, the battle-chariot started off at a stiff gallop, the driver standing and plying his long thong with loud, snapping reports over the horses' backs, while at the great chariot’s rear the spare-horse leader whistled continuously to the four relay animals which galloped behind.

The heights of ‘A-Wah-Ii, to the northwest, gave some promise, in Bothon’s opinion, of security from the anciently predicted submersion of the continent. Those towering mountains would, at least, be among the last sections to sink, should the gas belts, hypothecated by the scientists of the mother continent, explode, and remove the underseas support of this great land of the globe’s most ancient and noble civilization.

Shortly after daybreak, and accurately, according to the map and careful explanations of the painstaking Ka-Kalbo Netro, the chariot paused in the centre of a great level table-land one quarter of the way to his destination. The country was utterly uninhabited. They were relatively safe here in a region only lightly visited by the earthquakes, and not at all by fire. The roar of the north wind troubled the Netvissa Ledda severely. Bothon barely noticed it. He was now convinced that he was losing his sense of hearing.

They ate and slept and resumed their journey at noon after a readjustment of the provisions and a change of the now rested animals.

Their four days’ journey steadily northwest was uneventful. The charioteer drove onward steadily. On the fourth day, as the coppery ball which was the smoking sun reached and touched a flat horizon, they caught their first view of the lofty summits of the ‘A-Wah-Ii’ region, a goal of a possible immunity.

DR. COWLINGTON, an anxious look on his face, was standing beside Meredith’s bed when he awakened in mid-morning. He had slept twenty hours. However, what the doctor thought of as his patient’s mental condition was so entirely normal, and his cheerfulness so pronounced after his protracted sleep, that Dr. Cowlington was reassured, and changed his mind about removing the bottle of sleeping medicine. Plainly it had had an excellent effect on Meredith.

Stretched out in his usual quiet-inducing attitude on the davenport just before lunch, Meredith suddenly ceased reading and put down his magazine, It had occurred to him that he had heard none of the turmoil of Alu during that waking period. He sat up, puzzled. Bothon, he remembered, had been hearing the sounds about him only dimly, a strange, perhaps a significant, coincidence.

He felt the bruise behind his right ear. It was no longer even slightly painful to the touch. He pressed his finger-tips firmly against the place. The contusion was now barely perceptible to the sense of touch.

He reported the apparent loss of what the ear-specialist Gatefield had named his "clairaudience" to Dr. Cowlington after lunch.

"Your bruise is going down," said the doctor significantly. He examined the posterior edge of Meredith’s right temporal area.

"I thought so," remarked the doctor, nodding. "Your secondary ‘hearing’ began with that injury to your head. As it goes down, some obscure stimulation of the auditory apparatus, which accounts for your ability to hear those sounds, diminishes accordingly. You could probably hear only some stupendous sound from there now. And in a day or so I predict that you will be hearing nothing more, and then you can, go home!"

And, within an hour came the "stupendous sound" in very truth. It broke in upon Meredith’s quiet reading once more as though someone had opened that sound-proof door.

A curious, secondary, mental vision accompanied it. It was as though Meredith, in his own proper person, yet through the strange connection of his personality with the General, Bothon, stood on the heights of Tharan-Yud, overlooking the stricken city of Alu. The utter fury of mountainous waves accompanied the now titanic rumblings of malignant earth, the wholesale crashing of the cyclopean masonry of Alu as the vast city crumbled and melted beneath his horrified eyes. With these hellish horrors went the wild roaring of ravaging flame, and the despairing, hysterical cacophony of Alu’s doomed millions.

Then there came, at last, a sound as of the veritable yawning of the nethermost watery gulf of earth, and the high sun itself was blotted out by a monstrous green wall of advancing death. The sea rose up and fell upon accursed Alu, drowning forever the shrieks of utter despair, the piping and chittering of the obscurely gnawing Gyaa-Hua distracted at last from their loathsome banquet—hissings, roarings, shriekings, whinings, tearings, seethings—a cacophony more than human ears might bear, a sight of utter devastation more onerous than man might look upon, and live.

THERE came to Meredith a merciful stupor, as the waters of Mu-Iadon closed in forever over the mother continent, and as his consciousness failed him, he emerged once more out of that quiet bedroom—away from his overlooking of the world’s major catastrophe, and as Bothon, walked beside the Lady Ledda along a wooded ravine in ‘A•Wah-Ii,’ goal of safety, among laden fruit trees, yet not, it seemed, upon the towering heights of those noble mountains but upon an island about the shores of which rolled and roared a brown and viscid ocean choked with the mud which had been the soil of the mother continent.

"We are safe here, it would appear, my Bothon," said the Netvissa Ledda. "Let us lie down and sleep, for I am very weary."

And after watching for a little space while the Lady Ledda reclined and slept, Bothon lay down beside her and fell at once into the deep and dreamless slumber of utter physical exhaustion.

MEREDITH awakened on his davenport. The room was dark, and when he had risen, switched on the lights and looked at his watch, he found that it was four o’clock in the morning. He undressed and went to bed and awakened three hours later without having dreamed.

A world and an era had come to its cataclysmic end, and he had been witness of it.

The contusion on his head had disappeared, Dr. Cowlington observed later in the morning.

“I think you can go home now, you’ll never hear again,” said the doctor, in his judicial manner. “But, by the way, Meredith, what, if you can remember, was the name of that ‘mother continent’ of yours?”

"We called it Mu," said Meredith. The doctor was silent for a while; then he nodded his head. He had made up his mind.

"I thought so," said he, gravely.

"Why?" Meredith asked.

"Because Smith called it that," replied the doctor.

title: Bothon


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Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/175

N contrast to the remoteness, the detached and moralizing method, of the poet of the Beowulf, the singer of Finnsburg comes to close quarters with his theme, and treats it in nervous, direct, dramatic fashion. Fragment as this is, it serves to stamp its maker as no bookman, but a minstrel, who knew how to rouse his hearers in the hall with living words. In directness of treatment, in delight of battle, it sounds the same note that one hears in the historical poems of Maldon and Brunnanburh. But it is not an historical poem like those. It is a piece of the old traditional and mainly oral epic, closely related to the legendary cycle from which the Beowulf derived, and resembling that poem in all essentials of style and metre. Those qualities which difference it from the Beowulf are mainly negative; it lacks sentiment, moralizing, the leisure of the writer; it did not attempt, probably, to cover more than a single event; and one will not err in finding it a fair type of the epic songs which roving singers were wont to chant before lord and liegemen in hall and which were used with more or less fidelity by makers of complete epic poems.

The manuscript which contained the Finnsburg fragment once belonged to the library at Lambeth Palace, but was lost some time ago. Hickes made a copy of it for his Thesaurus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and all editions are based on the copy. Hickes may have Rh

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 240 the luxuries now), the fruit in summer, the roaring fires and the 'hog-killings' in winter, and those delicious sweet potatoes!

"I remember how often we danced in the hall in summer, but I have no recollection of any music. We must have needed some. Your father was always ready to take his place with us, and I can see him now as he walked around the card-table, looking into the band of each one, drawing his red silk handkerchief through his fingers as a bad play was made, regarding it as a serious business, and being by far too honorable to 'tell.' He never seemed to think we were doing it for fun, and enjoyed a bad play as much as a good one.*

"The first time I saw the white beard was on the day of the memorable barbecue at Terry. I recall so well your father's appearance that day, as he took his place on the stand among the Democrats. His bearing was a compromise between the respect he felt for 'these gentlemen' individually, and a protest against that vile thing known as Democracy. The red silk handkerchief was often brought into requisition that day, like a Whig banner flaunted in the face of Democracy,—as if to say, 'We two old Whigs are as stanch and true as ever, although we allow you Democrats to approach us today on terms of familiarity. We make no concession, nor do we propose to make any.'

"You remember the introductions we had to pass through? A group of us (myself included) would be presented as 'my daughters;' then, out would spring the old 'bandanna,' and after a clearing of his throat, he would give a little sketch of each, as we were

.* "I should not have said that everybody laughed, for my grandfather did not even smile. . . . He was totally absorbed in contemplation of the enormity of playing out one's ace of trumps second in hand. And that Charley,—Charley, whom he had trained from a boy to the rigor of the game according to Hoyle,—that he should seem to defend such—so—so horrible a solecism! It was too much. He was a picture to look at, as he stood erect, the nostrils of his patrician nose dilated with a noble indignation, his snowy hair contrasting with his dark and glowing eyes, that swept from group to group of mirthful faces, and back again, sternly wondering at their untimely merriment."—Don Miff, page 239.


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Monmouth, Battle of


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 Rh brought to the front in rotation. It was as good as a tooth-drawing!

"I can recall so many movements and gestures,—that way he had of throwing his leg out,—I often try to do that, but have never succeeded to my satisfaction. I think it must be some 'Old-Line Whig' sign, and no one but one of them can achieve it.

"This is the bright side of the picture, and I turn with reluctance to the other, the one which looks like a dark one, but is far more beautiful than the former, and is bright with an inner radiance which is not seen in the earlier time.

"My first visit to Burleigh after the war seemed like an evil dream. The old nursery, where the long line of 'knitters' were ranged on rainy days, is a kitchen now with all the necessary appointments; the well-furnished apartments look almost bare now; not a servant appears about the premises. I find the same warm greeting, but the hands extended to welcome me are no longer the soft ones of a gentleman. Instead of them I seem to grasp the toil-hardened ones of a laboring man, and such they are. The man born and bred in all the comfort of a Virginia home, in manhood saying to his servant 'do this, and he doeth it,' has in advancing years found himself bereft of the faithful wife who for so many years shared his life, and deprived of nearly all his possessions. How does he bear himself now? The time formerly devoted to the care of his estate, to the exercise of hospitality, to enjoyment, is not given to manual labor. A few faithful servants still linger around the old home and cling to 'ole marster'; but times are changed with them too, and they must toil for their daily bread, formerly dealt out to them without stint from 'ole marster's' table. So I see that dear 'ole marster' cutting with his own hands the wood for the fires, toiling with it up the long flight of stairs, making fires, doing the family washing, and after a hard day's work, seeing you make the starch over the dining-room fire he said, so regretfully, 'I wish I could make the starch too.' I recall how he insisted on washing my clothes also, and how I let him believe he was doing it.


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moussorgsky, Modeste Petrovich


text:
Page:On Governors.pdf/1

A GOVERNOR is a part of a machine by means of which the velocity of the machine is kept nearly uniform, notwithstanding variations in the driving-power or the resistance.

Most governors depend on the centrifugal force of a piece connected with a shaft of the machine. When the velocity increases, this force increases, and either increases the pressure of the piece against a surface or moves the piece, and so acts on a break or a valve.

In one class of regulators of machinery, which we may call moderators, the resistance is increased by a quantity depending on the velocity. Thus in some pieces of clockwork the moderator consists of a conical pendulum revolving within a circular case. When the velocity increases, the ball of the pendulum presses against the inside of the case, and the friction checks the increase of velocity. In Watt’s governor for steam-engines the arms open outwards, and so contract the aperture of the steam-valve.

In a water-break invented by Professor J. Thomson, when the velocity is increased, water is centrifugally pumped up, and overflows with a great velocity, and the work is spent in lifting and communicating this velocity to the water.

In all these contrivances an increase of driving-power produces an increase of velocity, though a much smaller increase than would be produced without the moderator.

But if the part acted on by centrifugal force, instead of acting directly on the machine, sets in motion a contrivance which continually increases the resistance as long as the velocity is above its normal value, and reverses its action when the velocity is below that value, the governor will bring the velocity to the same normal value whatever variation (within the working limits of the machine) be made in the driving-power or the resistance.

I propose at present, without entering into any details of mechanism to direct the attention of engineers and mathematicians to the dynamical theory of such governors.

It will be seen that the motion of a machine with its governor consists in general of a uniform motion, combined with a disturbance which may be expressed as the sum of several component motions. These components may be of four different kinds:-

(1) The disturbance may continually increase. (2) It may continually diminish. (3) It may be an oscillation of continually increasing amplitude. (4) It may be an oscillation of continually decreasing amplitude.

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2 The first and third cases are evidently inconsistent with the stability of the motion; and the second and fourth alone are admissible in a good governor. This condition is mathematically equivalent to the condition that all the possible roots, and all the possible parts of the impossible roots, of a certain equation shall be negative.

I have not been able completely to determine these conditions for equations of a higher degree than the third; but I hope that the subject will obtain the attention of mathematicians.

The actual motions corresponding to these impossible roots are not generally taken notice of by the inventors of such machines, who naturally confine their attention to the way in which it is designed to act; and this is generally expressed by the real root of the equation. If, by altering the adjustments of the machine, its governing power is continually increased, there is generally a limit at which the disturbance, instead of subsiding more rapidly, becomes an oscillating and jerking motion, increasing in violence till it reaches the limit of action of the governor. This takes place when the possible part of one of the impossible roots becomes positive. The mathematical investigation of the motion may be rendered practically useful by pointing out the remedy for these disturbances.

This has been actually done in the case of a governor constructed by Mr Fleeming Jenkin, with adjustments, by which the regulating power of the governor could be altered. By altering these adjustments the regulation could be made more and more rapid, till at last a dancing motion of the governor, accompanied with a jerking motion of the main shaft, shewed that an alteration had taken place among the impossible roots of the equation.

I shall consider three kinds of governors, corresponding to the three kinds of moderators already referred to.

In the first kind, the centrifugal piece has a constant distance from the axis of motion, but its pressure on a surface on which it rubs varies when the velocity varies. In the moderator this friction is itself the retarding force. In the governor this surface is made moveable about the axis, and the friction tends to move it; and this motion is made to act on a break to retard the machine. A constant force acts on the moveable wheel in the opposite direction to that of the friction, which takes off the break when the friction is less than a given quantity.

Mr Jenkin’s governor is on this principle. It has the advantage that the centrifugal piece does not change its position, and that its pressure is always the same function of the velocity. It has the disadvantage that the normal velocity depends in some degree on the coefficient of sliding friction between two surfaces which cannot be kept always in the same condition.

In the second kind of governor, the centrifugal piece is free to move further from the axis, but is restrained by a force the intensity of which varies with the position of the centrifugal piece in such a way that, if the velocity of rotation has the normal value, the centrifugal piece will be in equilibrium in every position. If the velocity is greater or less than the normal velocity. the centrifugal piece will fly out or fall in without any limit except the limits of motion of the piece. But a break is arranged so that it is made more or less powerful according to the distance of the centrifugal piece from the axis, and thus the oscillations of the centrifugal piece are restrained within narrow limits.

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Rh Governors have been constructed on this principle by Sir W. Thomson and by M. Foucault. In the first, the force restraining the centrifugal piece is that of a spring acting between a point of the centrifugal piece and a fixed point at a considerable distance, and the break is a friction-break worked by the reaction of the spring on the fixed point.

In M. Foucault’s arrangement, the force acting on the centrifugal piece is the weight of the balls acting downward, and an upward force produced by weights acting on a combination of levers and tending to raise the balls. The resultant vertical force on the balls is proportional to their depth below the centre of motion, which ensures a constant normal velocity. The break is:- in the first place, the variable friction between the combination of levers and the ring on the shaft on which the force is made to act; and, in the second place, a centrifugal air-fan through, which more or less air is allowed to pass, according to the, position of the levers. Both these causes tend to regulate the velocity according to the same law.

The governors designed by the Astronomer-Royal on Mr Siemens’s principle for the chronograph and equatorial of Greenwich Observatory depend on nearly similar conditions. The centrifugal piece is here a long conical pendulum, not far removed from the vertical, and it is prevented from deviating much from a fixed angle by the driving-force being rendered nearly constant by means of a differential system. The break of the pendulum consists of a fan which dips into a liquid more or less, according to the angle of the pendulum with the vertical. The break of the principal shaft is worked by the differential apparatus; and the smoothness of motion of the principal shaft is ensured by connecting it with a fly-wheel.

In the third kind of governor a liquid is pumped up and thrown out over the sides of a revolving cup. In the governor on this principle, described by Mr C. W. Siemens, the cup is connected with its axis by a screw and a spring, in such a way that if the axis gets ahead of the cup the cup is lowered and more liquid is pumped up; If this adjustment can be made perfect, the normal velocity of the cup will remain the same through a considerable range of driving-power.

It appears from the investigations that the oscillations in the motion must be checked by some force resisting the motion of oscillation. This may be done in some cases by connecting the oscillating body with a body hanging in a viscous liquid, so that the oscillations cause the body to rise and fall in the liquid.

To check the variations of motion in a revolving shaft, a vessel filled wit 1h viscous liquid may be attached to the shaft. It will have no effect on uniform rotation, but will check periodic alterations of speed.

Similar effects are produced by the viscosity of the lubricating matter in the sliding parts of the machine, and by other unavoidable resistances; so that it is not always necessary to introduce special contrivances to check oscillations.

I shall call all such resistances, if approximately proportional to the velocity, by the name of “viscosity”, whatever be their true origin.

In several contrivances a differential system of wheel-work is introduced between the machine and the governor, so that the driving-power acting on the governor is nearly constant.

I have pointed out that, under certain conditions, the sudden disturbances of the machine do not act through the differential system on the governor, or vice versa. When these conditions are fulfilled, the equations of motion are not only simple,

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4 but the motion itself is not liable to disturbances depending on the mutual action of the machine and the governor.

In regulators of the first kind, let $$\scriptstyle\ P$$ be the driving-power and $$\scriptstyle\ R$$ the resistance, both estimated as if applied to a given axis of the machine. Let $$\scriptstyle\ V$$ be the normal velocity, estimated for the same axis, and $$\scriptstyle\ dx/dt$$ the actual velocity, and let $$\scriptstyle\ M$$ be the moment of inertia of the whole machine reduced to the given axis. Let the governor be so arranged as to increase the resistance or diminish the driving-power by a quantity $$\scriptstyle\ F(dx/dt-V)$$, then the equation of motion will be

When the machine has obtained its final rate the first term vanishes, and

Hence, if $$\scriptstyle\ P$$ is increased or $$\scriptstyle\ R$$ diminished, the velocity will be permanently increased. Regulators of this kind, as Mr Siemens, has observed, should be called moderators rather than governors.

In the second kind of regulator, the force $$\scriptstyle\ F(dx/dt - V)$$, instead of being applied directly to the machine, is applied to an independent moving piece, $$\scriptstyle\ B$$, which continually increases the resistance, or diminishes the driving-power, by a quantity depending on the whole motion of $$\scriptstyle\ B$$.

If $$\scriptstyle\ y$$ represents the whole motion of $$\scriptstyle\ B$$, the equation of motion of $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ is

and that of $$\scriptstyle\ M$$

where $$\scriptstyle\ G$$ is the resistance applied by $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ when $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ moves through one unit of space. We can integrate the first of these equations at once, and we find

so that if the governor $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ has come to rest $$\scriptstyle\ x=Vt$$, and not only is the velocity of the machine equal to the normal velocity, but the position of the machine is the same as if no disturbance of the driving-power or resistance had taken place.

Jenkin’s Governor. In a governor of this kind, invented by Mr Fleeming Jenkin, and used in electrical experiments, a centrifugal piece revolves on the principal axis, and is kept always at a constant angle by an appendage which slides on the edge of a loose wheel, $$\scriptstyle\ B$$, which works on the same axis. The pressure on the edge of this wheel would be proportional to the square of the velocity; but a constant portion

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Rh of this pressure is taken off by a spring which acts on the centrifugal piece. The force acting on $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ to turn it round is therefore

and if we remember that the velocity varies within very narrow limits, we may write the expression

where $$\scriptstyle\ F$$ is a new constant, and $$\scriptstyle\ V_1$$ is the lowest limit of velocity within which the governor will act.

Since this force necessarily acts on $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ in the positive direction, and since it is necessary that the break should be taken off as well as put on, a weight $$\scriptstyle\ W$$ is applied to $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ tending to turn it in the negative direction; and, for a reason to be afterwards explained, this weight is made to hang in a viscous liquid, so as to bring it to rest quickly.

The equation of motion of $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ may then be written

where $$\scriptstyle\ Y$$ is a coefficient depending on the viscosity of the liquid and on other resistances varying with the velocity, and $$\scriptstyle\ W$$ is the constant weight. Integrating this equation with respect to $$\scriptstyle\ t$$, we find

If $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ has come to rest, we have

or the position of the machine is affected by that of the governor, but the final velocity is constant, and

where $$\scriptstyle\ V_1$$ is the normal velocity.

The equation of motion of the machine itself is

This must be combined with equation (7) to determine the motion of the whole apparatus. The solution is of the form

where $$\scriptstyle\ n_1,\ n_2,\ n_3$$ are the roots of the cubic equation

If $$\scriptstyle\ n$$ be a pair of roots of this equation of the form $$\scriptstyle\ a\pm \sqrt{-1}b$$, then the part of $$\scriptstyle\ x$$ corresponding to these roots will be of the form

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6 If $$\scriptstyle\ a$$ is a negative quantity, this will indicate an oscillation the amplitude of which continually decreases. If $$\scriptstyle\ a$$ is zero, the amplitude will remain constant, and if $$\scriptstyle\ a$$ is positive, the amplitude will continually increase.

One root of the equation (12) is evidently a real negative quantity. The condition that the real part of the other roots should be negative is

.

This is the condition of stability of the motion. If it is not fulfilled there will be a dancing motion of the governor, which will increase till it is as great as the limits of motion of the governor. To ensure this stability, the value of $$\scriptstyle\ Y$$ must be made sufficiently great, as compared with $$\scriptstyle\ G$$, by placing the weight $$\scriptstyle\ W$$ in a viscous liquid if the viscosity of the lubricating materials at the axle is not sufficient.

To determine the value of $$\scriptstyle\ F$$, put the break out of gear, and fix the moveable wheel; then, if $$\scriptstyle\ V$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ V'$$ be the velocities when the driving-power is $$\scriptstyle\ P$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ P'$$,

To determine $$\scriptstyle\ G$$, let the governor act, and let $$\scriptstyle\ y$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ y'$$ be the positions of the break when the driving-power is $$\scriptstyle\ P$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ P'$$, then

Sir W. Thomson’s and M. Foucault’s Governors. Let $$\scriptstyle\ A$$ be the moment of Inertia of a revolving apparatus, and $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$ the angle of revolution. The equation of motion is

where $$\scriptstyle\ L$$ is the moment of the applied force round the axis. Now, let $$\scriptstyle\ A$$ be a function of another variable $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ (the divergence of the centrifugal piece), and let the kinetic energy of the whole be

where $$\scriptstyle\ B$$ may also be a function of $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$, if the centrifugal piece is complex.

If we also assume that $$\scriptstyle\ P$$, the potential energy of the apparatus is a function of $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ then the force tending to diminish ?, arising from the action of gravity, springs, etc., will be $$\scriptstyle\ dP/d\phi$$.

The whole energy, kinetic and potential, is

Differentiating with respect to $$\scriptstyle\ t$$, we find

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Rh whence we have, by eliminating $$\scriptstyle\ L$$,

The first two terms of the right-hand side indicate a force tending to increase $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ depending on the squares of the velocities of the main shaft and of the centrifugal piece. The force indicated by these terms may be called the centrifugal force.

If the apparatus is so arranged that

where $$\scriptstyle\ \omega$$ is a constant velocity, the equation becomes

In this case the value of $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ cannot remain constant unless the angular velocity is equal to $$\scriptstyle\ \omega$$.

A shaft with a centrifugal piece arranged on this principle has only one velocity of rotation without disturbance. If there be a small disturbance, the equations for the disturbance $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ may be written

The period of such small disturbances is $$\scriptstyle\ (dA/d\phi)(AB)^{-1/2}$$ revolutions of the shaft.

They will neither increase nor diminish if there are no other terms in the equations.

To convert this apparatus into a governor, let us assume viscosities $$\scriptstyle\ X$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ Y$$ in the motions of the main shaft and the centrifugal piece, and a resistance $$\scriptstyle\ G\phi$$ applied to the main shaft. Putting $$\scriptstyle\ (dA/d\phi) \omega =K$$, the equations become

The condition of stability of the motion indicated by these equations is that all the possible roots, or parts of roots, of the cubic equation

shall be negative; and this condition is

Combination of Governors. If the break of Thomson’s governor is applied to a moveable wheel, as in Jenkin’s governor, and if this wheel works a steam-valve, or a more powerful break, we have to consider the motion of three pieces. Without

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8 entering into the calculation of the general equations of motion of these pieces, we may confine ourselves to the case of small disturbances, and write the equations

where $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$, $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$, $$\scriptstyle\ \chi$$ are the angles of disturbance of the main shaft, the centrifugal arm, and the moveable wheel respectively, $$\scriptstyle\ A$$, $$\scriptstyle\ B$$, $$\scriptstyle\ C$$ their moments of inertia, $$\scriptstyle\ X$$, $$\scriptstyle\ Y$$, $$\scriptstyle\ Z$$ the viscosity of their connexions, $$\scriptstyle\ K$$ is what was formerly denoted by $$dA/d\phi$$, and $$\scriptstyle\ T$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ J$$ are the powers of Thomson's and Jenkin's breaks respectively.

The resulting equation in $$\scriptstyle\ n$$ is of the form

or

I have not succeeded in determining completely the conditions of stability of the motion from this equation; but I have found two necessary conditions, which are in fact the conditions of stability of the two governors taken separately. If we write the equation

then, in order that the possible parts of all the roots shall be negative, it is necessary that

I am not able to show that these conditions are sufficient. This compound governor has been constructed and used.

Mr C. W. Siemens’s Liquid Governor. Let $$\scriptstyle\ \rho$$ be the density of the fluid, $$\scriptstyle\ k$$ the section of the tube at a point whose distance from the origin measured along the tube is $$\scriptstyle\ s$$, $$\scriptstyle\ r$$, $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$, $$\scriptstyle\ z$$ the coordinates of this point referred to axes fixed with respect to the tube, $$\scriptstyle\ Q$$ the volume of liquid which passes through any section in unit of time. Also let the following integrals, taken over the whole tube, be

the lower end of the tube being in the axis of motion.

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12 the equations of motion in $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ will be

If $$\scriptstyle\ M'=0$$, then the motions in $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$ and $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$ will be independent of each other. If $$\scriptstyle\ M$$ is also 0, then we have the relation

and if this is fulfilled, the disturbances of the motion in $$\scriptstyle\ \theta$$ will have no effect on the motion in $$\scriptstyle\ \phi$$. The teeth of the differential system in gear with the main shaft and the governor respectively will then correspond to the centres of percussion and rotation of a simple body, and this relation will be mutual.

In such differential systems a constant force, $$\scriptstyle\ H$$, sufficient to keep the governor in a proper state of efficiency, is applied to the axis $$\scriptstyle\ \eta$$, and the motion of this axis is made to work a valve or a break on the main shaft of the machine. $$\scriptstyle\ \Xi$$ in this case is merely the friction about the axis of $$\scriptstyle\ \zeta$$. If the moments of inertia of the different parts of the system are so arranged that $$\scriptstyle\ M'=0$$, then the disturbance produced by a blow or a jerk on the machine will act instantaneously on the valve, but will not communicate any impulse to the governor.

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Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/292

274 because of recommendation by friends. I saw two syphilitic and one local chancre, and several fissures; and at present I am treating a gentleman for condylomata of the anus, which form a rounded tumor as large as a fist. One case of primary affection of the soft palate I saw in Vienna, in a young man who was accustomed to frequent mask-balls dressed as a girl, and entice young men; he would then pretend that he was menstruating, and thus induce the others to use him per os. The assertion was made that in this way he had deceived fourteen men in one evening. Since, in none of the publications concerning contrary sexuality that I have seen, I have found anything concerning the intercourse of pederasts among themselves, I venture to communicate something concerning it in conclusion:—

“As soon as individuals that are affected with contrary sexuality become acquainted, there is a detailed narration of their experiences, loves, and seductions, as far as the social difference between them allows such entertainment. Only in very few cases is this amusement uncommon with new acquaintances. Among themselves, they call themselves ‘aunts’; in Vienna, ‘sisters’; and two very masculine public prostitutes in Vienna, whom I accidentally became acquainted with, and who lived in a perverse sexual relation with each other, told me that for the corresponding condition in women the name ‘uncle’ was used. Since becoming conscious of my abnormal instinct, I have met thousands of such individuals.

“Almost every large city has some meeting-place, as well as a so-called promenade. In smaller cities there are relatively few ‘aunts,’ though in a small town of 2300 inhabitants I found eight, and in one of 7000 eighteen of whom I was absolutely sure,—to say nothing of those whom I suspected. In my own town of 30,000 inhabitants, I personally know about one hundred and twenty ‘aunts.’ The greater number of them, and I especially, possess the capability of judging another immediately as to whether they are alike or not, which, in the language of the ‘aunts,’ is called ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable.’ My acquaintances are often astounded at the certainty of my judgment. Individuals that are apparently absolutely masculine I recognize as ‘aunts’ at the first sight. On the other hand, I am able to behave myself in such a masculine way that, in circles to which I have been introduced by acquaintances, there is a doubt as to my genuineness. When I am in the mood, I can act exactly like a girl.

“Since the majority of ‘aunts,’ like myself, in no way regret their abnormality, but would be sorry if the condition were to be changed; and, moreover, since the congenital condition, according to my own and all other experience, cannot be influenced; therefore, all our hope rests upon the possibility of a change of the laws with reference to it, so that only rape or the commission of public offense, when this can be proved at the same time, shall be punishable.”


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Library Periodicals

LIBRARY PERIODICALS. The special publications devoted to library work throughout the world will be found detailed by nations in the following list:

United States. — American Library Annual (New York 1911-); American Library Association. Bulletin (Chicago 1907-); American Library Association. Proceedings (Chicago); Bibliographical Society of America. Papers (Chicago 1906-); Library Journal (New York 1876-); Public Libraries (Chicago 1896-); Special Libraries (Boston 1910-).

Austria-Hungary. — Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen (1897-); Zeitschrift des Österreichischen Vereins für Bibliothekswesen (Vienna 1910-).

Belgium. — Bulletin de l'Institut International de Bibliographie (Brussels 1895-); Revue des Bibliothèques et Archives de Belgique (Brussels 1903-).

Denmark. — Bogsamlingsbladet (Copenhagen 1906-).

France. — Bulletin de l'Association des Bibliothècaires Français (1907-); Bulletin du Bibliophile et Bibliothècaire (1834-); Bulletin des Bibliothèques Populaires (Paris 1906-); Courrier des Bibliothèques (Paris); Revue des Bibliothèques (Paris 1891-).

German Empire. — Bibliothekar (Leipzig 1909-); Blätter fur Volksbibliotheken u. Lesehallen (Leipzig 1900-) ; Jahrbuch der Deutschen Bibliotheken (Leipzig 1902-); Zentralblatt fur Bibliothekswesen (Leipzig 1884-).

Great Britain. — Librarian and Book World (1910-); Library (1884-); Library Assistant (1898-); Library Association Record (1899-); Library World (London 1898-).

Holland. — De Bibliothecaris (Rotterdam 1912-); De Boekzaal (The Hague 1907-); Het Boek (The Hague 1912-); Maandblad voor Bibliothekwesen (The Hague 1913-).

India. — Library Miscellany (Baroda 1913-).

Italy. — Bolletino della Civica Biblioteca e del Museo; Bollettino delle Biblioteche Popolari (Milano 1907-); Revista della Biblioteche e degli Archivi (Florence 1890-).

Norway. — For Folkeoplysning (Christiania 1907-); Nordisk Tidskrift för Bok-och Bibliotekswesen (Upsala 1914-).

Russia. — Le Bibliothécaire (Saint Petersburg 1910-).

Spain. — Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos (Madrid 1897).

Sweden. — Bibliotheks Bladet (Stockholm

1916-); Folke Bibliotheks Bladet (Stockholm 1903-).


text:
Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/250

 242 "Not a word of complaint was heard, no matter how coarse the fare was; if he could eat it, he did so. I remember once he handed his cup for tea the second time, saying to me as I passed it, 'With some people it is an evidence that the tea is good when they take a second cup, but with me it is the reverse. I must have a certain quantity of tea, no matter how much water I drink to get it.' Late one cold evening we heard a tramping of many feet as we sat around the dining-room fire. Soon the door to the kitchen opened wide, and your father ushered in as many as five forlorn-looking females in thin calico dresses and and sun-bonnets, some with babies in their arms. I can see him now, seating them as if they had been the greatest ladies in the land, and telling them to stay there until the fires were made in the cabins he had given them permission to occupy for the night. I suspect each one had a beating from her husband that night because she did not make a fire for him.

"When the old place was deserted, and your father came down here for the winter, I took the same train at Brookhaven. He was quite sick all day and seemed pleased to have me near him. I saw him frequently during the winter at Tom's and at Emmy's rooms; and no matter where I was, he never thought it too much trouble to find me. It is very gratifying that one you love and revere should feel confidence in your affection and value it. So, I am confident, he felt towards me. When I went to bid him good-by I found him out and waited for him. I can see now the smile on his face when he came in. He insisted on seeing me down-stairs, but I succeeded in effecting a compromise, and we parted at the landing. He said good-by and kissed me as if he thought it was for the last time, then took my hand again and said, earnestly, 'God bless you.' I love to remember that when his voice fell on my ear for the last time, it was to call down a blessing on my head."

In the changed circumstances of the family it was impossible to attend the services at the Raymond


text: Category:Women's rights

title: Category:Women's rights


text: Category:Women

title: Category:Women


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Library Schools

LIBRARY SCHOOLS. See.


text: Popular Science Monthly/Volume 51/August 1897/The Despotism of Democracy