text:
Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions/Chapter 16

In spite of the wit of the hostess and her exquisite cordiality, our dinner at Mrs. Leverson's was hardly a success. Oscar was not himself; contrary to his custom he sat silent and downcast. From time to time he sighed heavily, and his leaden dejection gradually infected all of us. I was not sorry, for I wanted to get him away early; by ten o'clock we had left the house and were in the Cromwell Road. He preferred to walk: without his noticing it I turned up Queen's Gate towards the park. After walking for ten minutes I said to him:

"I want to speak to you seriously. Do you happen to know where Erith is?"

"No, Frank."

"It is a little landing place on the Thames," I went on, "not many miles away: it can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a brougham in a very short time. There at Erith is a steam yacht ready to start at a moment's notice; she has steam up now, one hundred pounds pressure to the square inch in her boilers; her captain's waiting, her crew ready—a greyhound in leash; she can do fifteen knots an hour without being pressed. In one hour she would be free of the Thames and on the high seas—(delightful phrase, eh?)—high seas indeed where there is freedom uncontrolled.

"If one started now one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us say, or Dieppe; one could lunch at St. Malo or St. Enogat or any place you like on the coast of Normandy, and one could dine comfortably at the Sables d'Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and where sunshine reigns even in May from morning till night.

"What do you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French bourgeois dinner tomorrow evening at an inn I know almost at the water's edge? We could sit out on the little terrace and take our coffee in peace under the broad vine leaves while watching the silver pathway of the moon widen on the waters. We could smile at the miseries of London and its wolfish courts shivering in cold grey mist hundreds of miles away. Does not the prospect tempt you?"

I spoke at leisure, tasting each delight, looking for his gladness.

"Oh, Frank," he cried, "how wonderful; but how impossible!"

"Impossible! don't be absurd," I retorted. "Do you see those lights yonder?" and I showed him some lights at the Park gate on the top of the hill in front of us.

"Yes, Frank."

"That's a brougham," I said, "with a pair of fast horses. It will take us for a midnight visit to the steam yacht in double-quick time. There's a little library on board of French books and English; I've ordered supper in the cabin— lobster a l'Americaine and a bottle of Pommery. You've never seen the mouth of the Thames at night, have you? It's a scene from wonderland; houses like blobs of indigo fencing you in; ships drifting past like black ghosts in the misty air, and the purple sky above never so dark as the river, the river with its shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily, opaque serpent gliding with a weird life of its own. . . . . Come; you must visit the yacht."

I turned to him, but he was no longer by my side. I gasped; what had happened? The mist must have hidden him; I ran back ten yards, and there he was leaning against the railing, hung up with his head on his arm shaking.

"What's the matter, Oscar?" I cried. "What on earth's the matter?"

"Oh, Frank, I can't go," he cried, "I can't. It would be too wonderful; but it's impossible. I should be seized by the police. You don't know the police."

"Nonsense," I cried, "the police can't stop you and not a man of them will see you from start to finish. Besides, I have loose money for any I do meet, and none of them can resist a 'tip.' You will simply get out of the brougham and walk fifty yards and you will be on the yacht and free. In fact, if you like you shall not come out of the brougham until the sailors surround you as a guard of honour. On board the yacht no one will touch you. No warrant runs there. Come on, man!"

"Oh, Frank," he groaned, "it's impossible!"

"What's impossible?" I insisted. "Let's consider everything anew at breakfast to-morrow morning in France. If you want to come back, there's nothing to prevent you. The yacht will take you back in twenty-four hours. You will not have broken your bail; you'll have done nothing wrong. You can go to France, Germany or Siberia so long as you come back by the twentieth of May. Take it that I offer you a holiday in France for ten days. Surely it is better to spend a week with me than in that dismal house in Oakley Street, where the very door gives one the creeps."

"Oh, Frank, I'd love to," he groaned. "I see everything you say, but I can't. I dare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap, I can only wait for the end."

I began to get impatient; he was weaker than I had imagined, weaker a hundred times.

"Come for a trip, then, man," I cried, and I brought him within twenty yards of the carriage; but there he stopped as if he had made up his mind.

"No, no, I can't come. I could not go about in France feeling that the policeman's hand might fall on my shoulder at any moment. I could not live a life of fear and doubt: it would kill me in a month." His tone was decided.

"Why let your imagination run away with you?" I pleaded. "Do be reasonable for once. Fear and doubt would soon be over. If the police don't get you in France within a week after the date fixed for the trial, you need have no further fear, for they won't get you at all: they don't want you. You're making mountains out of molehills with nervous fancies."

"I should be arrested."

"Nonsense," I replied, "who would arrest you? No one has the right. You are out on bail: your bail answers for you till the 20th. Money talks, man; Englishmen always listen to money. It'll do you good with the public and the jury to come back from France to stand your trial. Do come," and I took him by the arm; but he would not move. To my astonishment he faced me and said:

"And my sureties?"

"We'll pay 'em," I replied, "both of 'em, if you break your bail. Come," but he would not.

"Frank, if I were not in Oakley Street to-night Willie would tell the police."

"Your brother?" I cried.

"Yes," he said, "Willie."

"Good God!" I exclaimed; "but let him tell. I have not mentioned Erith or the steam yacht to a soul. It's the last place in the world the police would suspect and before he talks we shall be out of reach. Besides they cannot do anything; you are doing nothing wrong. Please trust me, you do nothing questionable even till you omit to enter the Old Bailey on the 20th of May."

"You don't know Willie," he continued, "he has made my solicitors buy letters of mine; he has blackmailed me."

"Whew!" I whistled. "But in that case you'll have no compunction in leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go and get into the brougham."

"No, no," he repeated, "you don't understand; I can't go, I cannot go."

"Do you mean it really?" I asked. "Do you mean you will not come and spend a week yachting with me?"

"I cannot."

I drew him a few paces nearer the carriage: something of desolation and despair in his voice touched me: I looked at him. Tears were pouring down his face; he was the picture of misery, yet I could not move him.

"Come into the carriage," I said, hoping that the swift wind in his face would freshen him up, give him a moment's taste of the joy of living and sharpen the desire of freedom.

"Yes, Frank," he said, "if you will take me to Oakley Street."

"I would as soon take you to prison," I replied; "but as you wish."

The next moment we had got in and were swinging down Queen's Gate. The mist seemed to lend keenness to the air. At the bottom of Queen's Gate the coachman swept of himself to the left into the Cromwell Road; Oscar seemed to wake out of his stupor.

"No, Frank," he cried, "no, no," and he fumbled at the handle of the door, "I must get out; I will not go. I will not go."

"Sit still," I said in despair, "I'll tell the coachman," and I put my head out of the window and cried: "Oakley Street, Oakley Street, Chelsea, Robert."

I do not think I spoke again till we got to Oakley Street. I was consumed with rage and contemptuous impatience. I had done the best I knew and had failed. Why? I had no idea. I have never known why he refused to come. I don't think he knew himself. Such resignation I had never dreamt of. It was utterly new to me. I used to think of resignation in a vague way as of something rather beautiful; ever since, I have thought of it with impatience: resignation is the courage of the irresolute. Oscar's obstinacy was the obverse of his weakness. It is astonishing how inertia rules some natures. The attraction of waiting and doing nothing is intense for those who live in thought and detest action. As we turned into Oakley Street, Oscar said to me:

"You are not angry with me, Frank?" and he put out his hand.

"No, no," I said, "why should I be angry? You are the master of your fate. I can only offer advice."

"Do come and see me soon," he pleaded.

"My bolt is shot," I replied; "but I'll come in two or three days' time, as soon as I have anything of importance to say. . . . . Don't forget, Oscar, the yacht is there and will be there waiting until the 20th; the yacht will always be ready and the brougham."

"Good night, Frank," he said, "good night, and thank you."

He got out and went into the house, the gloomy sordid house where the brother lived who would sell his blood for a price!

. . . . . ..

Three or four days later we met again, but to my amaze Oscar had not changed his mind. To talk of him as cast down is the precise truth; he seemed to me as one who had fallen from a great height and lay half conscious, stunned on the ground. The moment you moved him, even to raise his head, it gave him pain and he cried out to be left alone. There he lay prone, and no one could help him. It was painful to witness his dumb misery: his mind even, his sunny bright intelligence, seemed to have deserted him.

Once again he came out with me to lunch. Afterwards we drove through Regent's Park as the quietest way to Hampstead and had a talk. The air and swift motion did him good. The beauty of the view from the heath seemed to revive him. I tried to cheer him up.

"You must know," I said, "that you can win if you want to. You can not only bring the jury to doubt, but you can make the judge doubt as well. I was convinced of your innocence in spite of all the witnesses, and I knew more about you than they did. In the trial before Mr. Justice Charles, the thing that saved you was that you spoke of the love of David and Jonathan and the sweet affection which the common world is determined not to understand. There is another point against you which you have not touched on yet: Gill asked you what you had in common with those serving-men and stable boys. You have not explained that. You have explained that you love youth, the brightness and the gaiety of it, but you have not explained what seems inexplicable to most men, that you should go about with servants and strappers."

"Difficult to explain, Frank, isn't it, without the truth?" Evidently his mind was not working.

"No," I replied, "easy, simple. Think of Shakespeare. How did he know Dogberry and Pistol, Bardolph and Doll Tearsheet? He must have gone about with them. You don't go about with public school boys of your own class, for you know them; you have nothing to learn from them: they can teach you nothing. But the stable boy and servant you cannot sketch in your plays without knowing him, and you can't know him without getting on his level, and letting him call you 'Oscar' and calling him 'Charlie.' If you rub this in, the judge will see that he is face to face with the artist in you and will admit at least that your explanation is plausible. He will hesitate to condemn you, and once he hesitates you'll win.

"You fought badly because you did not show your own nature sufficiently; you did not use your brains in the witness box and alas—" I did not continue; the truth was I was filled with fear; for I suddenly realised that he had shown more courage and self-possession in the Queensberry trial than in the trial before Mr. Justice Charles when so much more was at stake; and I felt that in the next trial he would be more depressed still, and less inclined to take the initiative than ever. I had already learned too that I could not help him; that he would not be lifted out of that "sweet way of despair," which so attracts the artist spirit. But still I would do my best.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

"Of course, Frank, of course, but you have no conception how weary I am of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the hatred. To see those people coming into the box one after the other to witness against me makes me sick. The self-satisfied grin of the barristers, the pompous foolish judge with his thin lips and cunning eyes and hard jaw. Oh, it's terrible. I feel inclined to stretch out my hands and cry to them, 'Do what you will with me, in God's name, only do it quickly; cannot you see that I am worn out? If hatred gives you pleasure, indulge it.' They worry one, Frank, with ravening jaws, as dogs worry a rabbit. Yet they call themselves men. It is appalling."

The day was dying, the western sky all draped with crimson, saffron and rosy curtains: a slight mist over London, purple on the horizon, closer, a mere wash of blue; here and there steeples pierced the thin veil like fingers pointing upward. On the left the dome of St. Paul's hung like a grey bubble over the city; on the right the twin towers of Westminster with the river and bridge which Wordsworth sang. Peace and beauty brooding everywhere, and down there lost in the mist the "rat pit" that men call the Courts of Justice. There they judge their fellows, mistaking indifference for impartiality, as if anyone could judge his fellowman without love, and even with love how far short we all come of that perfect sympathy which is above forgiveness and takes delight in succouring the weak, comforting the broken-hearted.

. . . . . ..

The days went swiftly by and my powerlessness to influence him filled me with self-contempt. Of course, I said to myself, if I knew him better I should be able to help him. Would vanity do anything? It was his mainspring; I could but try. He might be led by the hope of making Englishmen talk of him again, talk of him as one who had dared to escape; wonder what he would do next. I would try, and I did try. But his dejection foiled me: his dislike of the struggle seemed to grow from day to day.

He would scarcely listen to me. He was counting the days to the trial: willing to accept an adverse decision; even punishment and misery and shame seemed better than doubt and waiting. He surprised me by saying:

"A year, Frank, they may give me a year? half the possible sentence: the middle course, that English Judges always take: the sort of compromise they think safe?" and his eyes searched my face for agreement.

I felt no such confidence in English Judges; their compromises are usually bargainings; when they get hold of an artist they give rein to their intuitive fear and hate.

But I would not discourage him. I repeated:

"You can win, Oscar, if you like:—" my litany to him. His wan dejected smile brought tears to my eyes.

. . . . . ..

"Don't you want to make them all speak of you and wonder at you again? If you were in France, everyone would be asking: will he come back or disappear altogether? or will he manifest himself henceforth in some new comedies, more joyous and pagan than ever?"

I might as well have talked to the dead: he seemed numbed, hypnotised with despair. The punishment had already been greater than he could bear. I began to fear that prison, if he were condemned to it, would rob him of his reason; I sometimes feared that his mind was already giving way, so profound was his depression, so hopeless his despair.

. . . . . ..

The trial opened before Mr. Justice Wills on the 21st of May, 1895. The Treasury had sent Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., to lead Mr. C. F. Gill, Mr. Horace Avory, and Mr. Sutton. Oscar was represented by the same counsel as on the previous occasion.

The whole trial to me was a nightmare, and it was characterised from the very beginning by atrocious prejudice and injustice. The High Priests of Law were weary of being balked; eager to make an end. As soon as the Judge took his seat, Sir Edward Clarke applied that the defendants should be tried separately. As they had already been acquitted on the charge of conspiracy, there was no reason why they should be tried together.

The Judge called on the Solicitor-General to answer the application.

The Solicitor-General had nothing to say, but thought it was in the interests of the defendants to be tried together; for, in case they were tried separately, it would be necessary to take the defendant Taylor first.

Sir Edward Clarke tore this pretext to pieces, and Mr. Justice Wills brought the matter to a conclusion by saying that he was in possession of all the evidence that had been taken at the previous trials, and his opinion was that the two defendants should be tried separately.

Sir Edward Clarke then applied that the case of Mr. Wilde should be taken first as his name stood first on the indictment, and as the first count was directed against him and had nothing to do with Taylor. . . . . "There are reasons present, I am sure, too, in your Lordship's mind, why Wilde should not be tried immediately after the other defendant."

Mr. Justice Wills remarked, with seeming indifference, "It ought not to make the least difference, Sir Edward. I am sure I and the jury will do our best to take care that the last trial has no influence at all on the present."

Sir Edward Clarke stuck to his point. He urged respectfully that as Mr. Wilde's name stood first on the indictment his case should be taken first.

Mr. Justice Wills said he could not interfere with the discretion of the prosecution, nor vary the ordinary procedure. Justice and fair play on the one side and precedent on the other: justice was waved out of court with serene indifference. Thereupon Sir Edward Clarke pressed that the trial of Mr. Oscar Wilde should stand over till the next sessions. But again Mr. Justice Wills refused. Precedent was silent now but prejudice was strong as ever.

The case against Taylor went on the whole day and was resumed next morning. Taylor went into the box and denied all the charges. The Judge summed up dead against him, and at 3.30 the jury retired to consider their verdict: in forty- five minutes they came into court again with a question which was significant. In answer to the judge the foreman stated that "they had agreed that Taylor had introduced Parker to Wilde, but they were not satisfied with Wilde's guilt in the matter."

Mr. Justice Wills: "Were you agreed as to the charge on the other counts?"

Foreman: "Yes, my Lord."

Mr. Justice Wills: "Well, possibly it would be as well to take your verdict upon the other counts."

Through the foreman the jury accordingly intimated that they found Taylor guilty with regard to Charles and William Parker.

In answer to his Lordship, Sir F. Lockwood said he would take the verdict given by the jury of "guilty" upon the two counts.

A formal verdict having been entered, the judge ordered the prisoner to stand down, postponing sentence. Did he postpone the sentence in order not to frighten the next jury by the severity of it? Other reason I could find none.

Sir Edward Clarke then got up and said that as it was getting rather late, perhaps after the second jury had disagreed as to Mr. Wilde's guilt—

Sir F. Lockwood here interposed hotly: "I object to Sir Edward Clarke making these little speeches."

Mr. Justice Wills took the matter up as well.

"You can hardly call it a disagreement, Sir Edward," though what else he could call it, I was at a loss to imagine.

He then adjourned the case against Oscar Wilde till the next day, when a different jury would be impanelled. But whatever jury might be called they would certainly hear that their forerunners had found Taylor guilty and they would know that every London paper without exception had approved the finding. What a fair chance to give Wilde! It was like trying an Irish Secretary before a jury of Fenians.

The next morning, May 23d, Oscar Wilde appeared in the dock. The Solicitor- General opened the case, and then called his witnesses. One of the first was Edward Shelley, who in cross-examination admitted that he had been mentally ill when he wrote Mr. Wilde those letters which had been put in evidence. He was "made nervous from over-study," he said.

Alfred Wood admitted that he had had money given him quite recently, practically blackmailing money. He was as venomous as possible. "When he went to America," he said, "he told Wilde that he wanted to get away from mixing with him (Wilde) and Douglas."

Charlie Parker next repeated his disgusting testimony with ineffable impudence and a certain exultation. Bestial ignominy could go no lower; he admitted that since the former trial he had been kept at the expense of the prosecution. After this confession the case was adjourned and we came out of court.

When I reached Fleet Street I was astonished to hear that there had been a row that same afternoon in Piccadilly between Lord Douglas of Hawick and his father, the Marquis of Queensberry. Lord Queensberry, it appears, had been writing disgusting letters about the Wilde case to Lord Douglas's wife. Meeting him in Piccadilly Percy Douglas stopped him and asked him to cease writing obscene letters to his wife. The Marquis said he would not and the father and son came to blows. Queensberry it seems was exasperated by the fact that Douglas of Hawick was one of those who had gone bail for Oscar Wilde. One of the telegrams which the Marquis of Queensberry had sent to Lady Douglas I must put in just to show the insane nature of the man who could exult in a trial which was damning the reputation of his own son. The letter was manifestly written after the result of the Taylor trial:

Must congratulate on verdict, cannot on Percy's appearance. Looks like a dug up corpse. Fear too much madness of kissing. Taylor guilty. Wilde's turn tomorrow.

Queensberry.

In examination before the magistrate, Mr. Hannay, it was stated that Lord Queensberry had been sending similar letters to Lady Douglas "full of the most disgusting charges against Lord Douglas, his wife, and Lord Queensberry's divorced wife and her family." But Mr. Hannay thought all this provocation was of no importance and bound over both father and son to keep the peace—an indefensible decision, a decision only to be explained by the sympathy everywhere shown to Queensberry because of his victory over Wilde, otherwise surely any honest magistrate would have condemned the father who sent obscene letters to his son's wife—a lady above reproach. These vile letters and the magistrate's bias, seemed to me to add the final touch of the grotesque to the horrible vileness of the trial. It was all worthy of the seventh circle of Dante, but Dante had never imagined such a father and such judges!

. . . . . ..

Next morning Oscar Wilde was again put in the dock. The evidence of the Queensberry trial was read and therewith the case was closed for the Crown.

Sir Edward Clarke rose and submitted that there was no case to go to the jury on the general counts. After a long legal argument for and against, Mr. Justice Wills said that he would reserve the question for the Court of Appeal. The view he took was that "the evidence was of the slenderest kind"; but he thought the responsibility must be left with the jury. To this judge "the slenderest kind" of evidence was worthful so long as it told against the accused.

Sir Edward Clarke then argued that the cases of Shelley, Parker, and Wood failed on the ground of the absence of corroboration. Mr. Justice Wills admitted that Shelley showed "a peculiar exaltation" of mind; there was, too, mental derangement in his family, and worst of all there was no corroboration of his statements. Accordingly, in spite of the arguments of the Solicitor-General, Shelley's evidence was cut out. But Shelley's evidence had already been taken, had already prejudiced the jury. Indeed, it had been the evidence which had influenced Mr. Justice Charles in the previous trial to sum up dead against the defendant: Mr. Justice Charles called Shelley "the only serious witness."

Now it appeared that Shelley's evidence should never have been taken at all, that the jury ought never to have heard Shelley's testimony or the Judge's acceptance of it!

. . . . . ..

When the court opened next morning I knew that the whole case depended on Oscar Wilde, and the showing he would make in the box, but alas! he was broken and numbed. He was not a fighter, and the length of this contest might have wearied a combative nature. The Solicitor-General began by examining him on his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas and we had the "prose poem" again and the rest of the ineffable nonsensical prejudice of the middle-class mind against passionate sentiment. It came out in evidence that Lord Alfred Douglas was now in Calais. His hatred of his father was the "causa causans" of the whole case; he had pushed Oscar into the fight and Oscar, still intent on shielding him, declared that he had asked him to go abroad.

Sir Edward Clarke again did his poor best. He pointed out that the trial rested on the evidence of mere blackmailers. He would not quarrel with that and discuss it, but it was impossible not to see that if blackmailers were to be listened to and believed, their profession might speedily become a more deadly mischief and danger to society than it had ever been.

The speech was a weak one; but the people in court cheered Sir Edward Clarke; the cheers were immediately suppressed by the Judge.

The Solicitor-General took up the rest of the day with a rancorous reply. Sir Edward Clarke even had to remind him that law officers of the Crown should try to be impartial. One instance of his prejudice may be given. Examining Oscar as to his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, Sir Frank Lockwood wanted to know whether he thought them "decent"?

The witness replied, "Yes."

"Do you know the meaning of the word, sir?" was this gentleman's retort.

I went out of the court feeling certain that the case was lost. Oscar had not shown himself at all; he had not even spoken with the vigour he had used at the Queensberry trial. He seemed too despairing to strike a blow.

The summing up of the Judge on May 25th was perversely stupid and malevolent. He began by declaring that he was "absolutely impartial," though his view of the facts had to be corrected again and again by Sir Edward Clarke: he went on to regret that the charge of conspiracy should have been introduced, as it had to be abandoned. He then pointed out that he could not give a colourless summing up, which was "of no use to anybody." His intelligence can be judged from one crucial point: he fastened on the fact that Oscar had burnt the letters which he bought from Wood, which he said were of no importance, except that they concerned third parties. The Judge had persuaded himself that the letters were indescribably bad, forgetting apparently that Wood or his associates had selected and retained the very worst of them for purposes of blackmail and that this Judge himself, after reading it, couldn't attribute any weight to it; still he insisted that burning the letters was an act of madness; whereas it seemed to everyone of the slightest imagination the most natural thing in the world for an innocent man to do. At the time Oscar burnt the letters he had no idea that he would ever be on trial. His letters had been misunderstood and the worst of them was being used against him, and when he got the others he naturally threw them into the fire. The Judge held that it was madness, and built upon this inference a pyramid of guilt. "Nothing said by Wood should be believed, as he belongs to the vilest class of criminals; the strength of the accusation depends solely upon the character of the original introduction of Wood to Wilde as illustrated and fortified by the story with regard to the letters and their burning."

A pyramid of guilt carefully balanced on its apex! If the foolish Judge had only read his Shakespeare! What does Henry VI say:

Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester Than from true evidence of good esteem He be approved in practice culpable.

There was no "true evidence of good esteem" against Wilde, but the Judge turned a harmless action into a confession of guilt.

Then came an interruption which threw light on the English conception of justice. The foreman of the jury wanted to know, in view of the intimate relations between Lord Alfred Douglas and the defendant, whether a warrant against Lord Alfred Douglas was ever issued.

Mr. Justice Wills: "I should say not; we have never heard of it."

Foreman: "Or ever contemplated?"

Mr. Justice Wills: "That I cannot say, nor can we discuss it. The issue of such a warrant would not depend upon the testimony of the parties, but whether there was evidence of such act. Letters pointing to such relations would not be sufficient. Lord Alfred Douglas was not called, and you can give what weight you like to that."

Foreman: "If we are to deduce any guilt from these letters, it would apply equally to Lord Alfred Douglas."

Mr. Justice Wills concurred in that view, but after all he thought it had nothing to do with the present trial, which was the guilt of the accused.

The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three. After being absent two hours they returned to know whether there was any evidence of Charles Parker having slept at St. James's Place.

His Lordship replied, "No."

The jury shortly afterwards returned again with the verdict of "Guilty" on all the counts.

It may be worth while to note again that the Judge himself admitted that the evidence on some of the counts was of "the slenderest kind"; but, when backed by his prejudiced summing up, it was more than sufficient for the jury.

Sir Edward Clarke pleaded that sentence should be postponed till the next sessions, when the legal argument would be heard.

Mr. Justice Wills would not be balked: sentence, he thought, should be given immediately. Then, addressing the prisoners, he said, and again I give his exact words, lest I should do him wrong:

"Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the crime of which you have been convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to prevent one's self from describing in language which I would rather not use the sentiments which must rise to the breast of every man of honour who has heard the details of these two terrible trials.

"That the jury have arrived at a correct verdict in this case I cannot persuade myself to entertain the shadow of a doubt; and I hope, at all events, that those who sometimes imagine that a Judge is half-hearted in the cause of decency and morality because he takes care no prejudice shall enter into the case may see that that is consistent at least with the utmost sense of indignation at the horrible charges brought home to both of you.

"It is no use for me to address you. People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them. It is the worst case I have ever tried. . . . . That you, Wilde, have been the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men it is impossible to doubt.

"I shall under such circumstances be expected to pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this.

"The sentence of the court is that each of you be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for two years."

The sentence hushed the court in shocked surprise.

Wilde rose and cried, "Can I say anything, my lord?"

Mr. Justice Wills waved his hand deprecatingly amid cries of "Shame" and hisses from the public gallery; some of the cries and hisses were certainly addressed to the Judge and well deserved. What did he mean by saying that Oscar was a "centre of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind"? No evidence of this had been brought forward by the prosecution. It was not even alleged that a single innocent person had been corrupted. The accusation was invented by this "absolutely impartial" Judge to justify his atrocious cruelty. The unmerited insults and appalling sentence would have disgraced the worst Judge of the Inquisition.

Mr. Justice Wills evidently suffered from the peculiar "exaltation" of mind which he had recognised in Shelley. This peculiarity is shared in a lesser degree by several other Judges on the English bench in all matters of sexual morality. What distinguished Mr. Justice Wills was that he was proud of his prejudice and eager to act on it. He evidently did not know, or did not care, that the sentence which he had given, declaring it was "totally inadequate," had been condemned by a Royal Commission as "inhuman." He would willingly have pushed "inhumanity" to savagery, out of sheer bewigged stupidity, and that he was probably well-meaning only intensified the revolt one felt at such brainless malevolence.

The bitterest words in Dante are not bitter enough to render my feeling:

"Non ragioniam di lor ma guarda e passa."

The whole scene had sickened me. Hatred masquerading as justice, striking vindictively and adding insult to injury. The vile picture had its fit setting outside. We had not left the court when the cheering broke out in the streets, and when we came outside there were troops of the lowest women of the town dancing together and kicking up their legs in hideous abandonment, while the surrounding crowd of policemen and spectators guffawed with delight. As I turned away from the exhibition, as obscene and soul-defiling as anything witnessed in the madness of the French revolution, I caught a glimpse of Wood and the Parkers getting into a cab, laughing and leering.

These were the venal creatures Oscar Wilde was punished for having corrupted!


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (d.1640)

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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1635-1703)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1659-1724)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1729-1774)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1718-1777)


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blacks

BLACKS. Black pigments are of two types: charcoal blacks or fixed blacks, and soot blacks. The charcoal blacks include those made by the carbonization of bones and ivory, as well as those made from charcoal of wood and animal refuse. The soot blacks include carbon black or gas black, and lamp black.

Charcoal black is made by heating wood in closed retorts till it is charred through and through, and grinding the residue, after which it is thoroughly washed. The finest grade of charcoal black is that made by carbonizing cork. It is fine, smooth and of considerable body. A highly esteemed grade is Frankfort black, also known as drop black and vine black. It is made by carbonizing twigs of grapevines, to which are added hop vines, peach and plum stones, and sometimes chips and shavings of bone. Animal black is the name given to the pigment produced by charring the offal of slaughter-houses. Cheap charcoal blacks are of poor covering power, but are excellent as preservatives, and useful especially in making the gray or “lead-colored” priming coat so commonly applied to new work by painters.

Bone black is prepared by grinding the carbonaceous matter resulting from the charring of bones in iron retorts. It contains about 15 per cent carbon; 78 per cent calcium phosphate; and 7 per cent calcium carbonate, alumina, silica and iron combined. It has a specific gravity of 2.7. The grinding does not produce a uniformly smooth powder, there being always more or less grit of hard charred bone. Ivory black is made sometimes of ivory waste but more commonly of selected bone. It is a favorite with painters, having a “tooth” which is lacking in the soot blacks. It is, however, slow to dry, and a drier is usually added. Its lack of covering power is helped out by the addition of some rich velvety black, generally lamp black. The highest grade of plate ink used by printers is made from the choicest bone black with the addition of vine black and a little Prussian blue. To make the ordinary paste in which form paints are usually marketed, bone black requires the addition of 50 per cent of its weight in oil. Large quantities of bone black are used by the sugar refineries to decolorize raw sugar in solution, no other substance having been discovered of equal or even approximate efficiency. After this use the bone black goes generally to the fertilizer manufacturers, but a part comes into the paint industry.

Carbon black, a very pure form of carbon, is made by the combustion of gas in a scanty supply of air. The flames are thrown against metal or slate slabs or upon revolving cylinders. The accumulating black is scraped off and ground. It has a granular texture and requires a great deal of grinding to make a smooth pigment. Carbon black has great staining power and requires 82 per cent of its weight in oil to produce the paste form in which it is marketed — as "ground in oil." In the dry form it was formerly packed in barrels, but was found to absorb moisture. This tendency has been overcome by packing it in paper sacks. The best grades of carbon black are used in making black varnishes and printers' inks. With white, carbon black gives brownish-gray hues.

Lamp black is a nearly pure carbon made by the combustion of oils in an atmosphere lacking in oxygen. The larger part of the commercial supply is made from the dead oils distilled from coal tar and from wood tar, petroleum, rosin, etc. The choice grades are made from seed oils. Any material which in a plentiful supply of oxygen gives a highly luminous flame will produce lamp black when the air supply is cut down. The oils are ignited in a limited supply of air so that the combustion is imperfect and intensely smoky. The smoke is passed through a long series of chambers, and against and around many upright partitions on which the soot or lamp black is deposited. In Germany lamp black is made by passing the smoke from resinous wood through hanging woolen blankets. The soot is shaken from the blankets at intervals. Ordinary lamp black will weigh from 100 to 120 pounds to the (flour) barrel; the finest grade will weigh but 30 pounds to the barrel. It is required that lamp black test not more than 0.2 of 1 per cent of ash. To make the buttery paste in which the tinned lamp black is sold requires 75 to

76 pounds of oil to 24 or 25 pounds of lamp black. As a pigment lamp black is noted for its remarkable covering power. The cheaper grades are made into common printing ink; the finer grades cannot be used for this purpose as they require more than the limit of 65 per cent oil, the utmost that can be permitted in printing ink.

According to the United States census of manufactures for 1914 there were in operation 27 establishments devoted exclusively to the manufacture of bone black, carbon black and lamp black. These establishments employed 437 persons, of whom 339 were wage earners receiving annually $230,821 in wages. The capital invested was $4,995,400, and the value of the year's output was $1,463,569, of which $777,329 was the value added by manufacture. In addition, there were 19 other establishments in which some of these products were made. The total production of blacks by all makers in 1914 was valued at $2,949,797; comprising carbon black, $900,630; lamp black, $517,167; and bone black, $1,532,000. Among the States, West Virginia ranked first in production of blacks, turning out 54.5 per cent of the entire product of the country. Pennsylvania ranked second. Both of these States make their product from natural gas.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1711-1787)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1732-1809)


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blacksnake

BLACKSNAKE, or BLACK RACER, a common colubrine serpent (Zamenis constrictor) found in eastern North America from southern Canada to Florida and west to the prairie regions of the United States. The typical eastern blacksnake is uniform lustrous black above and slate-color beneath, the lower jaw, chin and sometimes upper edges of the lip-plates white, the tongue black. West of the Mississippi the typical form is replaced by a distinct variety, the “blue racer,” slenderer and smaller. The young of the blacksnake, under 18 inches in length, are pale gray above, with brownish blotches on the back, and numerous black spots on the side. The female is larger than the male, but rarely if ever exceeds six feet in length; length of tail 17½ inches. This is one of the most numerous and vigorous of American snakes, making its home in hollow stumps and underground dens. At the approach of winter, many are likely to gather together in similar retreats and remain there in a torpid condition until spring, entangled into a ball, for the sake of mutual warmth. Its motions are of the swiftest, it being capable of moving with great rapidity and of scaling trees, sometimes to a height of 100 feet above the ground, where it searches from branch to branch for birds' eggs, young squirrels, etc. It seeks much of its food in swamps and along streams, mainly frogs, toads, eggs and young of birds, insects and other snakes, and is a fine swimmer. The blacksnake is harmless, and its bite is no worse than that of a mouse. It is readily tamed, thrives well in captivity and shows some intelligence. It is unaggressive, alert in getting away from danger and will not fight unless cornered. The stories recorded of its scenting out copperheads and rattlesnakes and slowly crushing them to death are fables, as it has no power of constriction, and will only attack snakes much smaller than itself. The blacksnake breeds during the summer, the female laying 15 or 20 eggs at a time in the hollow of a

sunny bank, or in the midst of a decayed stump, around which she stays, guarding her young until they reach a considerable age.

Several other species of the genus belong to the southwestern United States, Mexico and the West Indies, and the Texan whipsnake is a near relative. The “chainsnake” is sometimes called “mountain blacksnake.” Other blackish serpents known as blacksnakes include a colubrine of Jamaica (Ocyophis ater); the death adders of Australia and Tasmania, and some others notable for dark hues. One of the most widespread of the native names of the East Indian Cobra de Capello has the meaning “blacksnake.”


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, Alice Stone

BLACKWELL, Alice Stone, American reformer, editor and author: b. East Orange, N. J., 14 Sept. 1857. A graduate and later a trustee of Boston University, she was early associated with her father and mother in editing The Woman's Journal and from 1885 to 1905 also edited The Women's Column. As chairman of the literature committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and a forceful contributor to the Political Equality series and to periodical literature she became prominent in the cause of woman suffrage, and also worked on behalf of the oppressed Armenians and others. Her published works include ‘Armenian Poems’ (1896); ‘Songs of Russia’ (1906); ‘Songs of Grief and Joy’ translated from the Yiddish of Ezekiel Leavitt (1908). Her father was a brother and she is the niece of the well-known physicians Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell (q.q.v.); also edited ‘The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution; Reminiscences and Letters of Madam Breshkovskaya’ (1917).


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 to indulge even in such mild neologisms as they might have learnt from the elder brother’s master, Nanino, nor from the necessity of preserving their purity of style by a mortified negative asceticism. They wrote pure polyphony because they understood it and loved it, and hence their work lives, as neither the progressive work of their own day nor the reactionary work of their imitators could live. The 12-part Stabat Mater in the seventh volume of Palestrina’s complete works has been by some authorities ascribed to Felice Anerio. ANET, a town of northern France, in the department of Eure-et-Loir, situated between the rivers Eure and Vègre, 10 m. N.E. of Dreux by rail. Pop. (1906) 1324. It possesses the remains of a magnificent castle, built in the middle of the 16th century by Henry II. for Diana of Poitiers. Near it is the plain of Ivry, where Henry IV. defeated the armies of the League in 1590. ANEURIN, or, the name of an early 7th-century British (Welsh) bard, who has been taken by Thomas Stephens (1821–1875), the editor and translator of Aneurin’s principal epic poem Gododin, for a son of Gildas, the historian. Gododin is an account of the British defeat (603) by the Saxons at Cattraeth (identified by Stephens with Dawstane in Liddesdale), where Aneurin is said to have been taken prisoner; but the poem is very obscure and is differently interpreted. It was translated and edited by W. F. Skene in his Four Ancient Books of Wales (1866), and Stephens’ version was published by the Cymmrodorion Society in 1888. See : Literature (Welsh). ANEURYSM, or (from Gr. , a dilatation), a cavity or sac which communicates with the interior of an artery and contains blood. The walls of the cavity are formed either of the dilated artery or of the tissues around that vessel. The dilatation of the artery is due to a local weakness, the result of disease or injury. The commonest cause is chronic inflammation of the inner coats of the artery. The breaking of a bottle or glass in the hand is apt to cut through the outermost coat of the artery at the wrist (radial) and thus to cause a local weakening of the tube which is gradually followed by dilatation. Also when an artery is wounded and the wound in the skin and superficial structures heals, the blood may escape into the tissues, displacing them, and by its pressure causing them to condense and form the sac-wall. The coats of an artery, when diseased, may be torn by a severe strain, the blood escaping into the condensed tissues which thus form the aneurysmal sac.

The division of aneurysms into two classes, true and false, is unsatisfactory. On the face of it, an aneurysm which is false is not an aneurysm, any more than a false bank-note is legal tender. A better classification is into spontaneous and traumatic. The man who has chronic inflammation of a large artery, the result, for instance, of gout, arduous, straining work, or kidney-disease, and whose artery yields under cardiac pressure, has a spontaneous aneurysm; the barman or window-cleaner who has cut his radial artery, the soldier whose brachial or femoral artery has been bruised by a rifle bullet or grazed by a bayonet, and the boy whose naked foot is pierced by a sharp nail, are apt to be the subjects of traumatic aneurysm. In those aneurysms which are a saccular bulging on one side of the artery the blood may be induced to coagulate, or may of itself deposit layer upon layer of pale clot, until the sac is obliterated. This laminar coagulation by constant additions gradually fills the aneurysmal cavity and the pulsation in the sac then ceases; contraction of the sac and its contents gradually takes place and the aneurysm is cured. But in those aneurysms which are fusiform dilatations of the vessel there is but slight chance of such cure, for the blood sweeps evenly through it without staying to deposit clot or laminated fibrine.

In the treatment of aneurysm the aim is generally to lower the blood pressure by absolute rest and moderated diet, but a cure is rarely effected except by operation, which, fortunately, is now resorted to more promptly and securely than was previously the case. Without trying the speculative and dangerous method of treatment by compression, or the application of an indiarubber bandage, the surgeon now without loss of time cuts down upon the artery, and applies an aseptic ligature close above the dilatation. Experience has shown that this method possesses great advantages, and that it has none of the disadvantages which were formerly supposed to attend it. Saccular dilatations of arteries which are the result of cuts or other injuries are treated by tying the vessel above and below, and by dissecting out the aneurysm. Popliteal, carotid and other aneurysms, which are not of traumatic origin, are sometimes dealt with on this plan, which is the old “Method of Antyllus” with modern aseptic conditions. Speaking generally, if an aneurysm can be dealt with surgically the sooner that the artery is tied the better. Less heroic measures are too apt to prove painful, dangerous, ineffectual and disappointing. For aneurysm in the chest or abdomen (which cannot be dealt with by operation) the treatment may be tried of injecting a pure solution of gelatine into the loose tissues of the armpit, so that the gelatine may find its way into the blood stream and increase the chance of curative coagulation in the distant aneurysmal sac.

ANFRACTUOSITY (from Lat. anfractuosus, winding), twisting and turning, circuitousness; a word usually employed in the plural to denote winding channels such as occur in the depths of the sea, mountains, or the fissures (sulci) separating the convolutions of the brain, or, by analogy, in the mind. ANGARIA (from , the Greek form of a Babylonian word adopted in Persian for “mounted courier”), a sort of postal system adopted by the Roman imperial government from the ancient Persians, among whom, according to Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 6; cf. Herodotus viii. 98) it was established by Cyrus the Great. Couriers on horseback were posted at certain stages along the chief roads of the empire, for the transmission of royal despatches by night and day in all weathers. In the Roman system the supply of horses and their maintenance was a compulsory duty from which the emperor alone could grant exemption. The word, which in the 4th century was used for the heavy transport vehicles of the cursus publicus, and also for the animals by which they were drawn, came to mean generally “compulsory service.” So angaria, angariare, in medieval Latin, and the rare English derivatives “angariate,” “angariation,” came to mean any service which was forcibly or unjustly demanded, and oppression in general. ANGARY (Lat. jus angariae; Fr. droit d’angarie; Ger. Angarie; from the Gr. , the office of an  , courier or messenger), the name given to the right of a belligerent to seize and apply for the purposes of war (or to prevent the enemy from doing so) any kind of property on belligerent territory, including that which may belong to subjects or citizens of a neutral state. Art. 53 of the Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, annexed to the Hague Convention of 1899 on the same subject, provides that railway plant, land telegraphs, telephones, steamers and other ships (other than such as are governed by maritime law), though belonging to companies or private persons, may be used for military operations, but “must be restored at the conclusion of peace and indemnities paid for them.” And Art. 54 adds that “the plant of railways coming from neutral states, whether the property of those states or of companies or private persons, shall be sent back to them as soon as possible.” These articles seem to sanction the right of angary against neutral property, while limiting it as against both belligerent and neutral property. It may be considered, however, that the right to use implies as wide a range of contingencies as the “necessity of war” can be made to cover.

ANGEL, a general term denoting a subordinate superhuman being in monotheistic religions, e.g. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and in allied religions, such as Zoroastrianism. In polytheism the grades of superhuman beings are continuous; but in monotheism there is a sharp distinction of kind, as well as degree, between God on the one hand, and all other superhuman beings on the other; the latter are the “angels.”

“Angel” is a transcription of the Gr. , messenger.  in the New Testament, and the corresponding mal’akh in the Old Testament, sometimes mean “messenger,” and

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/15


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (d.1820)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1768-1827)


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, Mrs. Antoinette Louisa

BLACKWELL, Mrs. Antoinette Louisa , American woman suffragist and Unitarian minister: b. Henrietta, N. Y., 20 May 1825. A graduate of Oberlin College (1847), she “preached on her own orders,” at first in Congregational churches, becoming at length a champion of women's rights. She married Samuel C., a brother of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1856). She has written ‘Shadows of Our Social System’ (1855); ‘The Island Neighbors’ (1871), a novel of American life; ‘Sexes Throughout Nature’ (1875); ‘The Physical Basis of Immortality’ (1876); ‘The Philosophy of Individuality’ (1893); ‘Sea Drift, or a Tribute to the Ocean’ (1903).


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1778-1843)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1786-1851)


text: Category:Female clergy

title: Category:Female clergy


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, Elizabeth

BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, American physician: b. Bristol, England, 3. Feb. 1821; d. London, 1 June 1910. In 1831 her father and family came to New York and in 1837 settled in Cincinnati, where he died soon after. For some years Elizabeth helped her mother to support eight other children by keeping a boarding school. In 1844 she resolved to become a physician and overcoming much serious opposition obtained admission to Geneva Medical College, Geneva, N. Y., where she was graduated with highest honors 1849, being the first woman to obtain a medical degree in the United States. She studied later with her sister Emily in Paris, again overcoming all opposition, and together in 1853 they started in New York, the Infirmary for Women and Children, the first institution of its kind conducted solely by women. In 1868 they founded the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary which was afterward affiliated with Cornell Medical College when that institution became co-educational. In 1869 Dr. Blackwell settled in London and assisted in founding the National Health Society of London and the London School of Medicine for Women. She lectured extensively on medical and educational topics and wrote among other books ‘The Physical Education of Girls’ (1852); ‘Moral Education of the Young’ (1879); ‘The Human Element in Sex’ (1884); ‘The Influence of Women in Medicine’ (1889), and ‘Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women’ (1895).


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, Emily

BLACKWELL, Emily, American physician: b. Bristol, England, 1826; d. London, 8 Sept. 1910. Following the example of her sister Elizabeth, after being refused admission to medical study at 11 different schools, including Geneva Medical School which had admitted her sister, she entered the Bellevue free hospital in New York city and later was received by the Western Reserve University where she completed her course. She studied in Edinburgh and in Paris with her sister, and was associated with her through all her professional career.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, John (1808-1892)


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


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


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, George Lincoln

BLACKWELL, George Lincoln, American author and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: b. Henderson, N. C., 2 July 1861. His parents were slaves. He was graduated from Livingstone College, Salisbury, N. C., in 1888, and from Boston University School of Theology 1892. He became dean of Livingstone College Theological School of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 1893-96, general agent of the denominational publishing house and editor 1896-1900; general secretary 1900-04, combined with missionary

secretary (1904-08) and bishop 1908. He was the delegate of his Church to the Ecumenical Councils at London (1907) and at Toronto (1911). He is the author of ‘The Model Homestead’ (1893); ‘Cloaks for Sin’ (1904); ‘A Man Wanted’ (1907).


text: Talk:Women in Industry in War-Time

title: Talk:Women in Industry in War-Time


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Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/15

398 pastry cooks set up their booths. Corbleu. it takes the strength of character not to stop and buy those cakes of so much taste and fancy! The Napoleons, they are crisp and fragile as a coquette's promise, the eclairs filled with cool, sweet cream, the cream-puffs all aglow with cherries. Just to see them is to love life better. They——"

The shrilling of the door-bell startled me. The pressure on the button must have been that of one who leant against it. "Doctor Trowbridge; I must see him right away!" a woman's voice demanded as Nora McGinnis, my household factotum, grudgingly responded to the hail.

"Th' docthor's offiss hours is over, ma'am," Nora answered frigidly. "Ha'f past nine ter eleven in th' marnin', an' two ter four in th' afthernoon is when he sees his patients. If it's an urgent case ye have there's lots o' good young docthors in th' neighborhood, but Docthor Trowbridge——"

"Is he here?" the visitor demanded sharply.

"He is, an' he's afther digestin' his dinner — an' an illigant dinner it wuz, though I do say so as shouldn't—an' he can't be disturbed——"

"He'll see me, all right. Tell him it's Nella Bentley, and I've got to talk to him!"

De Grandin raised an eyebrow eloquently. "The fish at the aquarium have greater privacy than we, my friend," he murmured, but broke off as the visitor came clacking down the hall on high French heels and rushed into the study half a dozen paces in advance of my thoroughly disapproving and more than semi-scandalized Nora.

"Doctor Trowbridge, won't you help me?" cried the girl as she fairly leaped across the study and flung her arms about my shoulders. "I can't tell Dad or Mother, they wouldn't understand; so you're the only one—oh, excuse me, I thought you were alone!" Her face went crimson as she saw de Grandin standing by the fire.

"It's quite all right, my dear," I soothed, freeing myself from her almost hysterical clutch. "This is Doctor de Grandin, with whom I've been associated many times; I'd be glad to have the benefit of his advice, if you don't mind."

She gave him her hand and a wan smile as I performed the introduction, but her eyes warmed quickly as he raised her ingers to his lips with a soft "Enchanté, Mademoiselle." Women, animals and children took instinctively to Jules de Grandin.

Nella dropped her coat of silky shaven lamb and sank down on the study couch, her slim young figure molded in her knitted dress of coral rayon as revealingly as though she had been cased in plastic cellulose. She has long, violet eyes and a long mouth; smooth, dark hair parted in the middle; a small straight nose, and a small pointed chin. Every line of her is long, but definitely feminine; breasts and hips and throat and legs all delicately curved, without a hint of angularity.

"I've come to see you about Ned," she volunteered as de Grandin lit her cigarette and she sent a nervous smoke-stream gushing from between red, trembling lips. "He—he's trying to run out on me!"

"You mean Ned Minton?" I asked, wondering what a middle-aged physician could prescribe for wandering Romeos.

"I certainly do mean Ned Minton," she replied, "and I mean business, too. The darn, romantic fool!"

De Grandin's slender brows arched upward till they nearly met the beige-blond hair that slanted sleekly backward from his forehead. "Pardonnez-moi," he murmured. "Did I understand correctly,


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Rh Mademoiselle? Your amoureux—how do you say him?—sweetheart?—has shown a disposition toward unfaithfulness, yet you accuse him of romanticism?"

"He's not unfaithful, that's the worst of it. He's faithful as Tristan and the chevalier Bayard lumped together, sans peur et sans reproche, you know. Says we can't get married, 'cause——"

"Just a moment, dear," I interrupted as I felt my indignation mounting. "D'ye mean the miserable young puppy cheated, and now wants to welch——"

blue eyes widened, then the little laughter-wrinkles formed around them. "You dear old mid-Victorian!" she broke in. "No, he ain't done wrong by our Nell, and I'm not asking you to take your shotgun down and force him to make me an honest woman. Suppose we start at the beginning: then we'll get things straight.

"You assisted at both our debuts, I've been told; you've known Ned and me since we were a second old apiece, haven't you?"

I nodded.

"Know we've always been crazy about each other, too; in grammar school, high school and college, don't you?"

"Yes," I agreed.

"All right. We've been engaged ever since our freshman year at Beaver. Ned just had his frat pin long enough to pin it on my shoulder-strap at the first freshman dance. Everything was set for us to stand up in the chancel and say 'I do' this June; then Ned's company sent him to New Orleans last December." She paused, drew deeply at her cigarette, crushed its fire out in an ash-tray, and set a fresh one glowing.

"That started it. While he was down there it seemed that he got playful. Mixed up with some glamorous Creole gal." Once more she lapsed into silence and I could see the heartbreak showing through the armor of her flippant manner.

"You mean he fell in love——"

"I certainly do not! If he had, I'd have handed back his ring and said 'Bless you, me children', even if I had to bite my heart in two to do it; but this is no case of a new love crowding out the old. Ned still loves me; never stopped loving me. That's what makes it all seem crazy as a hashish -eater's dream. He was on the loose in New Orleans, doing the town with a crowd of local boys, and prob'bly had too many Ramos fizzes. Then he barged into this Creole dame's place, and——" she broke off with a gallant effort at a smile. "I guess young fellows aren't so different nowadays than they were when you were growing up, sir. Only today we don't believe in sprinkling perfume in the family cesspool. Ned cheated, that's the bald truth of it; he didn't stop loving me, and he hasn't stopped now, but I wasn't there and that other girl was, and there were no conventions to be recognized. Now he's fairly melting with remorse, says he's not worthy of me—wants to break off our engagement, while he spends a lifetime doing penance for a moment's folly."

"But good heavens," I expostulated, "if you're willing to forgive——"

"You're telling me!" she answered bitterly. "We've been over it a hundred times. This isn't 1892; even nice girls know the facts of life today, and while I'm no more anxious than the next one to put through a deal in shopworn goods, I still love Ned, and I don't intend to let a single indiscretion rob us of our happiness. I——" the hard exterior veneer of modernism melted from her like an autumn ice-glaze melting in the warm October sun, and the tears coursed down her cheeks, cutting little valleys in her carefully-applied make-up. "He's my man, Doctor," she sobbed bitterly. "I've


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400 loved him since we made mud-pies together; I'm hungry, thirsty for him. He's everything to me, and if he follows out this fool renunciation he seems set on, it'll kill me!"

De Grandin tweaked a waxed mustache-end thoughtfully. "You exemplify the practicality of woman, Mademoiselle; I applaud your sound, hard common sense," he told her. "Bring this silly young romantic foolish one to me. I will tell him——"

"But he won't come," I interrupted. "I know these hard-minded young asses. When a lad is set on being stubborn——"

"Will you go to work on him if I can get him here?" interjected Nella.

"Of a certitude, Mademoiselle."

"You won't think me forward or unmaidenly?"

"This is a medical consultation, Mademoiselle."

"AH right; be in the office this time tomorrow night. I'll have my wandering boy friend here if I have to bring him in an ambulance."

performance matched her promise almost too closely for our comfort. We had just finished dinner next night when the frenzied shriek of tortured brakes, followed by a crash and the tinkling spatter of smashed glass, sounded in the street before the house, and in a moment feet dragged heavily across the porch. We were at the door before the bell could buzz, and in the disk of brightness sent down by the porch light saw Nella bent half double, stumbling forward with a man's arm draped across her shoulders. His feet scuifed blindly on the boards, as though they had forgot the trick of walking, or as if all strength had left his knees. His head hung forward, lolling drunkenly; a spate of blood ran down his face and smeared his collar.

"Good Lord!" I gasped. "What——"

"Get him in the surgery—quick!" the girl commanded in a whisper. "I'm afraid I rather overdid it."

Examination showed the cut across Ned's forehead was more bloody than extensive, while the scalp-wound which plowed backward from his hairline needed but a few quick stitches.

Nella whispered to us as we worked. "I got him to go riding with me in my runabout. Just as we got here I let out a scream and swung the wheel hard over to the right. I was braced for it, but Ned was unprepared, and went right through the windshield when I ran the car into the curb. Lord, I thought I'd killed him when I saw the blood—you do think he'll come through all right, don't you, Doctor?"

"No thanks to you if he does, you little ninny!" I retorted angrily. "You might have cut his jugular with your confounded foolishness. If——"

"S-s-sh, he's coming out of it!" she warned. "Start talking to him like a Dutch uncle; I'll be waiting in the study if you want me," and with a tattoo of high heels she left us with our patient.

"Nella! Is she all right?" Ned cried as he half roused from the surgery table. "We had an accident——"

"But certainly, Monsieur," de Grandin soothed. "You were driving past our house when a child ran out before your car and Mademoiselle was forced to swerve aside to keep from hitting it. You were cut about the face, but she escaped all injury. Here"—he raised a glass of brandy to the patient's lips—"drink this. Ah, so. That is better, n'est-ce-pas?"

For a moment he regarded Ned in silence, then, abruptly: "You are distrait, Monsieur. When we brought you in we were forced to give you a small whiff of ether while we patched your cuts, and in your delirium you said——"

The color which had come into Ned's W. T—1


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blackwell, Lucy Stone

BLACKWELL, Lucy Stone. See


text: Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/153


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Stone, Lucy Blackwell

STONE, Lucy Blackwell, American reformer: b. West Brookfield, Mass., 13 Aug. 1818; d. Boston, 18 Oct 1893. She was graduated at Oberlin College in 1847 and in 1855 was married to Dr. Henry B. Blackwell, retaining, however, her own name. In 1848 she toured the New England States and Canada lecturing against slavety. In 1869 she helped organize the American Woman's Suffrage Association of which she was president until 1872; became connected with the Women's Journal in 1872, and was editor after 1888. Her lectures on woman suffrage made her known throughout the country.


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blaine, Ephraim

BLAINE, Ephraim, American soldier: d. Carlisle, Pa., 1808. He entered the army as a colonel at the commencement of the Revolutionary War, and was subsequently made commissary-general. His services were gallant and patriotic. He was with Washington in many of the most trying scenes of the Revolution, and enjoyed the confidence of his chief to the fullest extent. During the “dark winter” at Valley Forge, the preservation of the American army from starvation was in a great degree owing to the exertions and sacrifices of Colonel Blaine. James Gillespie Blaine, the well-known statesman, was his grandson.


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The New York Times/1884/02/24/The Lynching of John Heith

TOMBSTONE, Arizona, Feb. 23. — At 9 o'clock on Thursday morning Judge Pinney sentenced John Heith to confinement in Yuma Penitentiary for life for complicity in the Bisbee murders. Twenty-four hours later the dead body of Heith dangled from the cross bar of a telegraph pole near the foot of Toughnut Street, where it was suspended by a rope. The following are the particulars of the occurrence as near as can be gathered: About 8:30 yesterday morning a crowd of men, mostly miners, numbering about 150, proceeded to the Courthouse. Arriving there they detailed seven of their number from Bisbee, who entered and demanded that John Heith be turned over to them. The seven men approached the door leading to the corridor of the jail and one of them knocked. Being about time for the Chinaman who brings food for the prisoners to arrive, Jailer Ward opened the door unsuspiciously, and was immediately covered by weapons and told to give up the keys of the jail. Seeing any attempt at resistance would be useless he did as requested, and in a few minutes the deputation was in the presence of the sought-for man. The crowd, which by this time had filled the spacious hall, started for the street. At the door they were met by Sheriff Ward, who called on them in the name of the law to desist. The Sheriff was picked up and gently removed down the steps out of the way, while the crowd started down the street on a run. The rope had been placed around Heith's body, and about 20 men had hold of it. It never became taut during the run, the prisoner keeping up with the crowd, and showing no signs of the white feather. Arriving at the place selected for the hanging one of the party climbed a telegraph pole and passed the rope over the cross-bar. Heith pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, placing it on his knee, coolly and deliberately folded it, and, placing it over his eyes, asked someone in the crowd to tie it. This being done, he informed the crowd they were hanging an innocent man, and would find it out when the others (meaning Dowd and his companions) were hanged. He told them he had faced death too often to be afraid, and had but one request to make, namely, that they would not shoot into his body. He was told his last wish would be respected and he told them he was ready. Countless hands grasped the rope. A run was made, and in a twinkling the man was suspended to the pole. The news spread about town rapidly, and in a few minutes an immense crowd of men, women, and children congregated on the scene. The universal expression was, "Served him right." That this opinion should be so prevalent is no doubt the result of the testimony at the trial, which was convincing to any mind of ordinary intelligence, that Heith was a guilty accessory to the Bisbee murders. The Coroner's jury found as a verdict that Heith came to his death from "emphysema, which might have been caused by strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise." A placard was posted on the telegraph pole where Heith was found suspended and dead with the following inscription: "John Heith was hanged to this pole by citizens of Cochise County for participation in the Bisbee massacre as a proved accessory at 8:20 A.M., Feb 22, 1884 to advance Arizona."


text: Talk:The New York Times/1884/02/24/The Lynching of John Heith


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blaine, James Gillespie

BLAINE, James Gillespie, American statesman: b. West Brownsville, Pa., south of Pittsburgh, 31 Jan. 1830; d. Washington, D. C., 27 Jan. 1893. His father was a Presbyterian of Scotch-Irish blood; his mother was a Catholic. He was a lad of quick action and good memory, who excelled in spelling matches and debates. He began the study of law but he never practised. For about two years he was professor in the Western Military Institute at Georgetown, Ky., and there he acquired a taste for political life. We next get a glimpse of him in Philadelphia as a teacher and contributor to the Daily Inquirer of that city. As a youth of 21 he became part owner of the Kenebec Journal, published in Augusta, Me. His work on this journal gained him a vast influence and he quickly made his mark in Maine politics. The governor sent him on a mission to examine the prisons and penitentiaries of other States, with a view to the improvement of those of Maine; and he was a delegate to the Republican convention at Philadelphia which nominated Frémont. His renown as an orator and as a party organizer was now widespread. In 1858 he was elected a member of the Maine Legislature, and soon became speaker of the House. In 1862 he was returned to Congress where his mastery of parliamentary law and his eloquence in debate soon won him distinction. The Civil War was still raging, but fortune was beginning to declare unmistakably for the North. Blaine's name is not conspicuously written in any history of the war, but he was among the foremost in directing the policy and details of Reconstruction. Blaine was a born member of Congress. His vigor, acumen, readiness, and unfailing energy marked him out as a party leader. He was elected speaker of the House of Representatives in 1869 — an office which he held till 1874 — a period of almost unequalled length. On all hands it was admitted that in that difficult position he displayed rare talents and judgment. Since Henry Clay there had been no more successful speaker. His history for 10 years is really the history of Congress. He served on all the principal committees. He spoke often, and always with effect. Never was his ability questioned; unfortunately his integrity was assailed on an occasion which cannot be passed over in any truthful biographical notice of Mr. Blaine. In 1876 an investigation by the Committee of the House of Representatives brought to light certain letters — famous “Mulligan Letters,” written by him in 1869, when he was speaker of the House. We need not set out the text of these much controverted letters, or revive a

controversy now forgotten. It is enough to say that they contained expressions open to various interpretations and which demanded explanation. The genuineness of these letters was not disputed, but over their signification all politicians, the press and the general public were greatly divided. It was urged by Mr. Blaine's friends that the matter was absurdly magnified and distorted by those who resented his free, fearless speech. On 5 June 1876 Mr. Blaine read the letters before the House, making explanations of them one by one. He defeated his opponents in the debate immediately following, and to all appearances clearly exonerated himself of all wrong-doing. But the effect throughout the land was immense and even in his own party many influential members lost their faith in him. This was made manifest when his candidacy was put forward at the Convention of 1876, where, though he held the field for several ballots, he was in the end defeated by Rutherford Hayes of Ohio, by only a small majority. Senator Morrill of Maine becoming Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Bla i ne was chosen senator for the unexpired term, and the following winter for the full term. He opposed the electoral commission on the ground that Congress was conferring powers beyond its own; opposed Hayes' withdrawal of the troops that upheld the carpet-bag governments; opposed the Bland Silver Bill and the adoption of the gold standard alike, believing bimetallism feasible and preferable; advocated ship subsidies, and rigid prohibition of Chinese immigration. In 1880 the attempt at a third term for Grant was defeated by the Blaine forces, who gave him 284 votes on the first ballot; but after six days and 35 ballots, seeing that Blaine could not be nominated, united with the Sherman party to nominate Garfield, by 399 to Grant's 306. Blaine became Secretary of State, and in his short tenure he planned a Pan-American Congress, attempted mediation between victorious Chile and crushed Peru, and attempted to induce England to consent to a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. The assassination of Garfield, and the accession of Arthur, the lieutenant of Blaine's mortal enemy, Roscoe Conkling, made his place untenable and he retired from President Arthur's cabinet in December 1881. Then came what for Mr. Blaine was a period of inactivity and of seclusion in his home at Augusta, varied by writing a book in two large volumes entitled ‘Twenty Years In Congress,’ a work of considerable value, issuing the first volume in 1884, in time to do good work conciliating support for the next election. Again the presidential campaign came round, and this time Blaine was nominated at the Chicago Convention. Into the contest, one of the bitterest in United States history, he threw himself with his usual energy. At the election the Independent Republicans deserted Blaine and voted for Cleveland. Blaine was again doomed to disappointment. He missed that which had been the aspiration of his political life. The chief reasons for his defeat were the hostility of Conkling and his followers, the defection of the Independent Republicans, and the fact that, although Blaine was well disposed toward his Catholic fellow countrymen, he had allowed the Rev. Samuel

D. Burchard to style the Democratic party “the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” After his defeat he issued the second volume of his work (1886), and the next year a volume entired ‘Political Discussions.’ Again a candidate in 1888, he was obliged to withdraw in favor of Harrison, and was made Secretary of State once more; he resumed his Pan-American policy, made a futile attempt to induce Great Britain to join in preserving the seals from extermination, and favored a reciprocity commercial policy which made many of his old opponents draw toward him. He resigned in 1892, in hope of securing the next Republican nomination, but found it out of the question. He died early the following year, of Bright's disease. In the view of Mr. Blaine's many friends he had no rival or second among his countrymen. They spoke, and no doubt with perfect truth, of his generosity in private life; they scouted all suspicion of his integrity, in their eyes he was “the peerless statesman,” uniting the best qualities of Henry Clay, Webster, Sumner and Henry Wilson. Still, in spite of the warmth and multitude of his friends, he had to endure the distrust — perhaps exaggerated and unjust, but deep-rooted and lasting — of a large number of his countrymen, who persisted in viewing him as the representative of a type of politician with which they would fain forever have done. Abroad his policy was not always thought well of; and his most searching critics, his relentless enemies, were certain members, and not the least honorable or powerful, of the Republican party. Consult the biography by his kinswoman, Gail Hamilton (Norwich 1895); also the biography by Stanwood (Boston 1905); id., ‘History of the Presidency’ (ib., 1898); Conwell, ‘Life and Public Service of James G. Blaine’ (Muskegon 1884); Crawford, ‘James G. Blaine’ (Philadelphia 1893); Peck, Harry Thurston, ‘Twenty Years of the Republic’ (New York 1906-13); id., ‘American Party Leaders’ (ib., 1914); Varigny, ‘Les Etats — Unis’ (Paris 1892).


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blankenburg, Rudolph

BLANKENBURG, Rudolph, American public official: b. Lippe-Detmold, Germany, 16 Feb. 1843. He was educated in his native city, and in 1865, in his 22d year, came to the United States, where, first as a traveling salesman and later as manufacturer, he acquired great wealth, retiring from business in 1909. From 1877 he interested himself in civic improvement and reform politics in Philadelphia; in 1905 was elected county commissioner, and in 1911 and again in 1913 mayor of the city. As an able administrator he contributed largely to improved local conditions. In earlier years he was a world-wide traveler. He also became known by his numerous magazine and newspaper articles on social, economic and religious questions.


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Blässer, Gustav

BLÄSSER, blĕ'zė, Gustav, German sculptor: b. Düsseldorf, 9 May 1813; d. Cannstatt, 20 April 1874. He was associated 11 years with Rauch and for that time shared in all his work. In 1845 he went to Rome, but returned to Berlin when appointed to design one of the groups for the “Schlossbrücke.” His group, ‘Minerva Leading a Young Warrior to Battle,’ is thought to be the best of the series. Among his other works are a statue of Saint Matthew in the church at Helsingfors; the ‘Prophet Daniel’; Barussia in the new museum at Berlin; the statues of Jeremiah, Daniel and Charlemagne for the church at Potsdam; the equestrian statue of Frederick William III at Cologne; ‘Hospitality’; and many busts, including one of Lincoln and one of Washington.


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Page:Ethnological studies (Roth).djvu/113

 THE EXPEESSION OP IDEAS BX MASrAl SIGNS : A SiaiT lAITarAGE. 89 Pig. 195. Swimming. — The one hand, with palm in a vertical plane, is thrust out directly forwards, and slowly redrawn. Woo., Goa. Fig. 196. To grasp, catch hold of, &c. — The outstretched hand pulled backwards and upwards, being simultaneously closed. P.P., Bo., Ula., Won., Wal., TJnd. Fig. 197. To grasp, to steal a gin. — The idea of dragging her away by the wrist. Kal., Mit. Fig. 198. To eat : food, S{c. — The closed hand is put up to the mouth, and then redrawn pretty quickly in a downwards and forwards direction, when the whence it is returned empty. Prom the idea of thus bolting the food, the same ideagram is in addition used among the Pitta-Pitta aboriginals to express "a large dog" (c/ the English idiom of " wolfing up one's food"). P.P., Bo., TJla., Won., Wal, Und., Kal., Mit. . Complex Conditions, &c. Abstract Ideas. — Anger is represented by a biting of the ball of the thumb in Pig 199, or, if more convenient, by the lapping over of the beard into the mouth and holding it there between the teeth : another means of expressing anger, &6., is by the idea of hitting or striking, as in Pig. 200. Illness, sickness, disease, &e., is expressed in various ways. The practice of smearing blood over the body of the patient (sect. 283) is indicated in Pig. 201 ; on account of the complaint usually necessitating the patient's lying down or going to sleep, we find the ideagram I'ig. 202 doing duty under both circumstances ; also by the pressing of the hand to the side, as in Pig. 203, a sufferer in extremis — a dramatic trick practised among even European people ; and, to express a fatal issue, the stiffening of the legs after death in Pig. 204. In loss of memory, forgetfulness, &c. (Pig. 205), attention is drawn to something having gone into the head, through the ear, but which is not willing to come out again — it is therefore being picked out with the fingers : in Pig. 206 a somewhat similar notion is expressed with the forehead. The true interpretations of the ideagramsfor "yes" (Pig. 207), "no" (Pig. 208), "good" (Pigs. 209,210), " bad" (Pig. 211), I have not succeeded in obtaining from among the aboriginals whence 1 learnt them. Nevertheless, the similarity of Pig. 210 and the expression adopted by a European child patting itself in the sense of self-satisfaction, goodness, &c., is interesting ; while an explanation of Pig. 211 may possibly be found in a comparison with Pig. 204, death from a non-physical {i.e., aboriginally unapparent) cause being always looked upon as a punishment for crime committed (sect. 279). The ideagrams indicative of two of the articles of faith, &c., though arbitrary, are recorded in Pigs. 212, 213. . Notes to lUustiations. Pig. 199. Anger : intention of fighting, Sfc. — The biting of the ball of the thumb. The same intention can also be expressed by the signaller holding his own beard between his teeth. It is possible that both these variations may be but reminiscences of the times when enemies were eaten after battle. {Of. the biting of the lip in the case of a European ; also the expression of a man having " hair on his teeth.") P.P., Bo., Ula., Won., Wal., Und., Kal., Mit., Woo., Goa. Pig. 200. Anger : intention of fighting, Sfc. — The dorsum of the one hand rapping sharply upon the hollowed palm of the other : the idea of punching, hitting, &c. P.P., Mit. {cf. Pig. 151). Pig. 201. Sickness : a sick person. — A rubbing of the chest and breast slowly up and down in a more or less circular movement with the flats of the hands : an imitation of the method adopted in times of sickness of rubbing human blood over these same parts (sect. 283). In both these tribes, sickness, &c., can also be expressed in imitation of the treatment (sect. 283) in taking the sweat with each hand alternately from the opposite armpit, and either smelling them or rubbing them over the affected parts. P.P., Und. Pig, 202. Sickness : to lie down : to sleep. — Pingers loosely closed, palm towards signaller's face, and to^and-fro flexion at wrist. Kal.
 * )alm shows forwards : the idea of the full hand, being put up to the moutb,


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Translation:Liminar Manifesto

From The Argentinian Youth of Córdoba to The Free Men of South America

Men of a Free Republic, we've just broken the last chain that, in middle of the XX century, tied us to the old monastic and monarchic domination. We've decided to call all things by their own name. Cordoba redeems itself. From today, we have in this country one less shame and one more freedom. The pains that remain are the freedoms we still lack. We think we don't err, our beating hearts warn us: we're stepping on a revolution, we're living an american hour.

Rebellion erupts in Cordoba, and is violent, because here the tyrants had become arrogant, and it was necessary to erase forever the memory of May's counterrevolutionaries. Universities had been so far the secular refuge of the mediocre, the ignorant's tenure, a safe hospital for the handicapped and -what's even worst- the place were all ways to tyranize and numb found a Chair to teach them. Universities have then become a true reflection of this decadent societies that insist in the sad spectacle of a senile immobility. That's why science passes silently through this mute and closed houses or, maimed and grotesque, enters bureaucratic service. When, in a rare flash, opens its doors to high spirits, it's to regret it later and make life immposible for them inside their walls. That's why, in such regime, natural forces lead to the mediocrization of teaching and the vital widening of academic organisms is not brought by organic developments, but by the breath of revolutionary periodicity.

Our university system -even the most recent- is anachronistic. It is founded on a sort of divine right, the divine right of tenured professors. It creates itself. It is born and dies in itself. Maintains an olympic distance. The University of Córdoba Federation stands to fight against this regime and understands that in doing so, it bets its life. It demands a strictly democratic government and argues that the university demos, sovereignty, the right to be self-government is mainly on the students. The concept of authority that belongs to and comes with being a director or teacher in a home for college students can not rely on the strength of an authority foreign to the substance of the studies. Authority, in a home for students, is not exercised by ordering, but by suggesting and loving: teaching.

If there is no spiritual connection between teacher and student, all teaching is hostile and therefore sterile. All education is a long labor of love for learning. To search for guarantees of a fruitful peace in threatening articles of a regulation or a statute is in any case, upholding military discipline, but not the work of science. To keep the current relation between those who govern and the governed is to stir the ferment for future disruptions. The souls of young people should be driven by spiritual forces. The worn springs of authority emanating from force do not agree with what our feelings and the modern concept of universities demand. The crack of the whip can only sign the silence of the unconscious or the coward. The only silent attitude which befits an institute of science is that of who hears truth or that experienced in creating and verifying it.

That's why we intend to uproot from the university body the archaic and barbaric concept of authority that in these houses of study is a bastion of absurd tyranny and only serves to criminally protect false dignities and false competence. Now we understand that the recent reform, honestly liberal and given to the University of Cordoba by Dr. Jose Nicolas Matienzo, has only come to prove that our ills were more distressing than we imagined and ancient privileges disguised a state of advanced decomposition. Matienzo's reform has not opened a university democracy; it sanctioned the dominance of a caste of teachers. The vested interests of the mediocre have found in it an unexpected support. We are accused of being insurgents on behalf of an order that we do not argue, but that has nothing to do with us. If so, if in the name of order we are to continue being mocked and brutalized, we loudly proclaim the sacred right of insurrection. So the only door that is open to hope is the heroic destiny of youth. Sacrifice is our best encouragement, spiritual redemption of American youth our only reward, for we know that our truths are real -and painful- for the whole continent. That in our country one law - they say -, the Avellaneda's Act is opposed to our desires?. Then on to reform the law; our moral health requires it.

Youth always lives in the process of heroism. It is selfless, pure. It has not yet had time to become contaminated. It's never wrong in choosing its own teachers. Young people are not swayed by flattering or riches. They have to be allowed to choose their teachers and principals themselves, confident that the success will crown its determinations. Henceforth, only the true builders of souls, creators of truth, beauty and goodness will be allowed to be teachers in the future universitary republic..

Córdoba's university students believe that it is time to raise this serious problem to the attention of the country and its representative men.

The recent events at the University of Cordoba, on the occasion of the election of University President, make singularly clear our reasoning in appreciating the university conflict. Cordoba's Student Federation believes that it must inform the country and America the circumstances of moral and legal order which invalidate the electoral process verified on June 15. By confessing the ideals and principles that motivate young people in this hour of his life, it only wants to describe the local aspects of the conflict and raise high the flame that is burning the old stronghold of clerical oppression. The National University of Cordoba and in this city have not seen disorder; what was and is being seen is the birth of a revolution that will soon reunite under its banner all free men of the continent. We'll refer to events that show how reason assisted us and how much shame brought to our face the cowardice and perfidy of the reactionaries. The violence of which we claim full responsibility was brought by the exercise of pure ideas. We deposed what represented an anachronistic coup and did it to be able to, at least, keep our hearts above the ruins. Those violent acts are also the measure of our indignation in the presence of moral misery, simulation and cunning deception that meant to filter through with the appearance of legality. The moral sense was obscured in a ruling class by traditional hypocrisy and an appalling poverty of ideals.

The spectacle of the university assembly was disgusting. Amoral groups eager to capture the goodwill of the future president explored the contours on the first ballot, to lean towoards the side for which victory seemed sure, not remembering publicly pledged supports, the honor-bound commitments made for the interest of the University. Others -the most- in name of religious feeling and under the patronage of the Society of Jesus, exhorted to treachery and subordination (curious religion that which teaches to despise honor and depress the personality! Religion for the defeated or the slave!). A liberal reform had been obtained through the heroic sacrifice of youth. A guarantee was thought to be won and the enemies of reform were seizing that same guarantee. In the shadows, the Jesuits had prepared the triumph of a deep immorality. Consenting to it would have meant another betrayal. To mockery we responded with revolution. The majority vote expressed the full burden of repression, ignorance and vice. So we gave the only proper lesson and scared away forever the threat of clerical rule.

The moral judgement is on our side. The legal right also. They tried to obtain legal sanction, barricade behind the law. We did not let them. Before iniquity was a legal fact, irrevocable and complete, we took the hall and threw such mob, only then frightened, by the side of the cloisters. That this is true, is made obvious the fact that then the Student's Federation sessioned in the university hall and a thousand students signed, on the President's desk, the call for indefinite strike.

In fact, the reformed statutes provide that the election of the President will be done in one session, proclaiming the result immediately after reading each ballot and the approval of the respective transcriptions of proceedings. We affirm, without fear of being rectified, that ballots were not read, that the transcriptions did not pass, that the President was not proclaimed and that, therefore, by law, there is still no President of this university.

The university students of Cordoba declare that they never questioned names or employments. They stood up against an administrative procedure, against a teaching method, against a concept of authority. Public functions were exercised in the interest of certain cliques. Plans or regulations were not reformed for fear that someone could lose their jobs amidst the changes. The watchword "tit for tat" ran from mouth to mouth and assumed the preeminence of university charter. The teaching methods were flawed by narrow dogmatism, helping to keep the university out of science and modern disciplines. Lessons, locked in the endless repetition of old texts, kept the spirit of routine and submission. University bodies, jealous guardians of dogma, tried to keep youth behind closed doors, believing that the conspiracy of silence can be exercised against science. That's when the dark midland university closed its doors to Ferri, Ferrero, Palacios and others, fearing it would be disturbed in its placid ignorance. We then did a holy revolution and the regime fell before our strikes.

We honestly believed that our efforts had created something new, that at least the elevation of our ideals deserved some respect. Then we look amazed as the crudest reactionaries allied themselves to snatch our conquests.

We can not leave our fate in the hands of the tyranny of a religious sect, or the games of selfish interests. To them we are to be sacrificed. He who calls himself the President of the University of San Carlos has said his first words: I'd rather have a pile of the dead bodies of students than resign. Words full of pity and love, reverential respect to discipline, words worthy of the head of a house of higher learning. He does not invoke ideals or purposes of cultural action. He feels protected by force and stands proud and threatening. Harmonious lesson given to youth by the first citizens of an academic democracy! Let us collect that lesson, peers from across America, perhaps it has the sense of a glorious omen, the virtue of being an appeal to the supreme struggle for freedom; it shows us the true character of academic authority, tyrannical and obstinate, that sees in each request a grievance and in every thought a seed of rebellion.

Youth no longer requires. It demands to be granted the right to externalize its own thought in university bodies through their representatives. It's tired of supporting tyrants. If it has been able to make a revolution in consciousness, it can not be denied the capacity to intervene in the governance of their own home.

The university students of Cordoba, through their Federation, salutes all fellow americans and encourages them to cooperate in the work of freedom that starts.

Signed: Enrique F. Barros, Ismael C. Bordabehére, Horacio Valdés,presidentes. Gumersindo Sayago, Alfredo Castellanos, Luis M. Méndez, Jorge L. Bazante, Ceferino Garzón Maceda, Julio Molina, Carlos Suárez Pinto, Emilio R. Biagosch, Angel J. Nigro, Natalio J. Saibene, Antonio Medina Allende y Ernesto Garzón.

title: Translation:Liminar Manifesto


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Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/233

Rh must be included the worthy chronometer maker, who expressed his feelings in the following letter:—

The watch can scarcely be held in fonder remembrance than your letter, received this morning, will be cherished by me.

Devoted as my life has been to the retired pursuit of mechanical art, it is not often that I have coveted great wealth or worldly position; but there have been times when the possession of these would have enabled me to fulfill the yearnings of my inclination—yearnings that were never more strongly called into action than on your arrival in this country a year ago, when I should have been gratified beyond expression to have had the power to be amongst the first to offer a secure and suitable asylum to yourself, and as many of your family as could be snatched from the frightful war which has devastated so promising a land for the last two years; not that my sympathies were called forth on any political grounds, for whenever either side has been victorious and inflicted great injury on the other, I could only mourn for it as an injury inflicted on itself, and regard it with the same feelings as though a noble form were tearing itself to pieces during the temporary absence of reason. Whatever may be the result of the contest, it must be a source of gratification for you to know, that, although you are not now young, your life has chiefly been spent in the good work of enabling mankind to cross the ocean with less risk from the elements than formerly. I have never met with a scientific man, who did not bear testimony to the great services you have rendered to mankind.

Hoping that you will not think me presumptuous in thus addressing you,

I remain, yours truly,