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III many large genera. As examples we may take the roses, the brambles, and the willows as well illustrating this fact. In Mr. Baker's Revision of the British Roses (published by the Linnean Society in 1863), he includes under the single species, Rosa canina—the common dog-rose—no less than twenty-eight named varieties distinguished by more or less constant characters and often confined to special localities, and to these are referred about seventy of the species of British and continental botanists. Of the genus Rubus or bramble, five British species are given in Bentham's Handbook of the British Flora, while in the fifth edition of Babington's Manual of British Botany, published about the same time, no less than forty-five species are described. Of willows (Salix) the same two works enumerate fifteen and thirty-one species respectively. The hawkweeds (Hieracium) are equally puzzling, for while Mr. Bentham admits only seven British species, Professor Babington describes no less than thirty-two, besides several named varieties.

A French botanist, Mons. A. Jordan, has collected numerous forms of a common little plant, the spring whitlow-grass (Draba verna); he has cultivated these for several successive years, and declares that they preserve their peculiarities unchanged; he also says that they each come true from seed, and thus possess all the characteristics of true species. He has described no less than fifty-two such species or permanent varieties, all found in the south of France; and he urges botanists to follow his example in collecting, describing, and cultivating all such varieties as may occur in their respective districts. Now, as the plant is very common almost all over Europe and ranges from North America to the Himalayas, the number of similar forms over this wide area would probably have to be reckoned by hundreds if not by thousands.

The class of facts now adduced must certainly be held to prove that in many large genera and in some single species there is a very large amount of variation, which renders it quite impossible for experts to agree upon the limits of species. We will now adduce a few striking cases of individual variation.

The distinguished botanist, Alp. de Candolle, made a special study of the oaks of the whole world, and has stated some


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78 remarkable facts as to their variability. He declares that on the same branch of oak he has noted the following variations: (1) In the length of the petiole, as one to three; (2) in the form of the leaf, being either elliptical or obovoid; (3) in the margin being entire, or notched, or even pinnatifid; (4) in the extremity being acute or blunt; (5) in the base being sharp, blunt, or cordate; (6) in the surface being pubescent or smooth; (7) the perianth varies in depth and lobing; (8) the stamens vary in number, independently; (9) the anthers are mucronate or blunt; (10) the fruit stalks vary greatly in length, often as one to three; (11) the number of fruits varies; (12) the form of the base of the cup varies; (13) the scales of the cup vary in form; (14) the proportions of the acorns vary; (15) the times of the acorns ripening and falling vary.

Besides this, many species exhibit well-marked varieties which have been described and named, and these are most numerous in the best-known species. Our British oak (Quercus robur) has twenty-eight varieties; Quercus Lusitanica has eleven; Quercus calliprinos has ten; and Quercus coccifera eight.

A most remarkable case of variation in the parts of a common flower has been given by Dr. Hermann Müller. He examined two hundred flowers of Myosurus minimus, among which he found thirty-five different proportions of the sepals, petals, and anthers, the first varying from four to seven, the second from two to five, and the third from two to ten. Five sepals occurred in one hundred and eighty-nine out of the two hundred, but of these one hundred and five had three petals, forty-six had four petals, and twenty-six had five petals; but in each of these sets the anthers varied in number from three to eight, or from two to nine. We have here an example of the same amount of "independent variability" that, as we have seen, occurs in the various dimensions of birds and mammals; and it may be taken as an illustration of the kind and degree of variability that may be expected to occur among small and little specialised flowers.

In the common wind-flower (Anemone nemorosa) an almost equal amount of variation occurs; and I have myself gathered

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III in one locality flowers varying from inch to  inch in diameter; the bracts varying from  inch to 4 inches across; and the petaloid sepals either broad or narrow, and varying in number from five to ten. Though generally pure white on their upper surface, some specimens are a full pink, while others have a decided bluish tinge.

Mr. Darwin states that he carefully examined a large number of plants of Geranium phæum and G. pyrenaicum (not perhaps truly British but frequently found wild), which had escaped from cultivation, and had spread by seed in an open plantation; and he declares that "the seedlings varied in almost every single character, both in their flowers and foliage, to a degree which I have never seen exceeded; yet they could not have been exposed to any great change of their conditions."

The following examples of variation in important parts of plants were collected by Mr. Darwin and have been copied from his unpublished MSS.:—

"De Candolle (Mem. Soc. Phys. de Genève, tom. ii. part ii. p. 217) states that Papaver bracteatum and P. orientale present indifferently two sepals and four petals, or three sepals and six petals, which is sufficiently rare with other species of the genus."

"In the Primulaceæ and in the great class to which this family belongs the unilocular ovarium is free, but M. Dubury (Mem. Soc. Phys. de Genève, tom. ii. p. 406) has often found individuals in Cyclamen hederæfolium, in which the base of the ovary was connected for a third part of its length with the inferior part of the calyx."

"M. Aug. St. Hilaire (Sur la Gynobase, Mem. des Mus. d'Hist. Nat., tom. x. p. 134), speaking of some bushes of the Gomphia oleæfolia, which he at first thought formed a quite distinct species, says: 'Voilà donc dans un même individu des loges et un style qui se rattachent tantôt a un axe vertical, et tantôt a un gynobase; donc celui-ci n'est qu'un axe veritable; mais cet axe est deprimé au lieu d'être vertical." He adds (p. 151), 'Does not all this indicate that nature has tried, in a manner, in the family of Rutaceæ to produce from a single multilocular ovary, one-styled and symmetrical, several unilocular ovaries, each with its own style.' And he


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80 subsequently shows that, in Xanthoxylum monogynum, 'it often happens that on the same plant, on the same panicle, we find flowers with one or with two ovaries;' and that this is an important character is shown by the Rutaceæ (to which Xanthoxylum belongs), being placed in a group of natural orders characterised by having a solitary ovary."

"De Candolle has divided the Cruciferæ into five sub-orders in accordance with the position of the radicle and cotyledons, yet Mons. T. Gay (Ann. des Scien. Nat., ser. i. tom. vii. p. 389) found in sixteen seeds of Petrocallis Pyrenaica the form of the embryo so uncertain that he could not tell whether it ought to be placed in the sub-orders 'Pleurorhizée' or 'Notorhizée'; so again (p. 400) in Cochlearia saxatilis M. Gay examined twenty-nine embryos, and of these sixteen were vigorously 'pleurorhizées,' nine had characters intermediate between pleuro- and notor- hizées, and four were pure notorhizées."

"M. Raspail asserts (Ann. des Scien. Nat., ser. i. tom. v. p. 440) that a grass (Nostus Borbonicus) is so eminently variable in its floral organisation, that the varieties might serve to make a family with sufficiently numerous genera and tribes—a remark which shows that important organs must be here variable."

The preceding statements, as to the great amount of variation occurring in animals and plants, do not prove that all species vary to the same extent, or even vary at all, but, merely, that a considerable number of species in every class, order, and family do so vary. It will have been observed that the examples of great variability have all been taken from common species, or species which have a wide range and are abundant in individuals. Now Mr. Darwin concludes, from an elaborate examination of the floras and faunas of several distinct regions, that common, wide ranging species, as a rule, vary most, while those that are confined to special districts and are therefore comparatively limited in number of individuals vary least. By a similar comparison it is shown that species of large genera vary more than species of small genera. These facts explain, to some extent, why the opinion has been so prevalent that variation is very limited in amount and exceptional in character. For


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III naturalists of the old school, and all mere collectors, were interested in species in proportion to their rarity, and would often have in their collections a larger number of specimens of a rare species than of a species that was very common. Now as these rare species do really vary much less than the common species, and in many cases hardly vary at all, it was very natural that a belief in the fixity of species should prevail. It is not, however, as we shall see presently, the rare, but the common and widespread species which become the parents of new forms, and thus the non-variability of any number of rare or local species offers no difficulty whatever in the way of the theory of evolution.

We have now shown in some detail, at the risk of being tedious, that individual variability is a general character of all common and widespread species of animals or plants; and, further, that this variability extends, so far as we know, to every part and organ, whether external or internal, as well as to every mental faculty. Yet more important is the fact that each part or organ varies to a considerable extent independently of other parts. Again, we have shown, by abundant evidence, that the variation that occurs is very large in amount—usually reaching 10 or 20, and sometimes even 25 per cent of the average size of the varying part; while not one or two only, but from 5 to 10 per cent of the specimens examined exhibit nearly as large an amount of variation. These facts have been brought clearly before the reader by means of numerous diagrams, drawn to scale and exhibiting the actual variations in inches, so that there can be no possibility of denying either their generality or their amount. The importance of this full exposition of the subject will be seen in future chapters, when we shall frequently have to refer to the facts here set forth, especially when we deal with the various theories of recent writers and the criticisms that have been made of the Darwinian theory.

A full exposition of the facts of variation among wild animals and plants is the more necessary, because comparatively few of them were published in Mr. Darwin's works, while the more important have only been made known since


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82 last edition of The Origin of Species was prepared; and it is clear that Mr. Darwin himself did not fully recognise the enormous amount of variability that actually exists. This is indicated by his frequent reference to the extreme slowness of the changes for which variation furnishes the materials, and also by his use of such expressions as the following: "A variety when once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, vary or present individual differences of the same favourable nature as before" (Origin, p. 66). And again, after speaking of changed conditions "affording a better chance of the occurrence of favourable variations," he adds: "Unless such occur natural selection can do nothing" (Origin, p. 64). These expressions are hardly consistent with the fact of the constant and large amount of variation, of every part, in all directions, which evidently occurs in each generation of all the more abundant species, and which must afford an ample supply of favourable variations whenever required; and they have been seized upon and exaggerated by some writers as proofs of the extreme difficulties in the way of the theory. It is to show that such difficulties do not exist, and in the full conviction that an adequate knowledge of the facts of variation affords the only sure foundation for the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, that this chapter has been written.


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ANDROS, SIR EDMUND (1637–1714), English colonial governor in America, was born in London on the 6th of December 1637, son of Amice Andros, an adherent of Charles I., and the royal bailiff of the island of Guernsey. He served for a short time in the army of Prince Henry of Nassau, and in 1660–1662 was gentleman in ordinary to the queen of Bohemia (Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I. of England). He then served against the Dutch, and in 1672 was commissioned major in what is said to have been the first English regiment armed with the bayonet. In 1674 he became, by the appointment of the duke of York (later James II.), governor of New York and the Jerseys, though his jurisdiction over the Jerseys was disputed, and until his recall in 1681 to meet an unfounded charge of dishonesty and favouritism in the collection of the revenues, he proved himself to be a capable administrator, whose imperious disposition, however, rendered him somewhat unpopular among the colonists. During a visit to England in 1678 he was knighted. In 1686 he became governor, with Boston as his capital, of the “Dominion of New England,” into which Massachusetts (including Maine), Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire were consolidated, and in 1688 his jurisdiction was extended over New York and the Jerseys. But his vexatious interference with colonial rights and customs aroused the keenest resentment, and on the 18th of April 1689, soon after news of the arrival of William, prince of Orange, in England reached Boston, the colonists deposed and arrested him. In New York his deputy, Francis Nicholson, was soon afterwards deposed by (q.v.); and the inter-colonial union was dissolved. Andros was sent to England for trial in 1690, but was immediately released without trial, and from 1692 until 1698 he was governor of Virginia, but was recalled through the agency of Commissary (q.v.), with whom he quarrelled. In 1693–1694 he was also governor of Maryland. From 1704 to 1706 he was governor of Guernsey. He died in London in February 1714 and was buried at St Anne’s, Soho.

ANDROS, or, an island of the Greek archipelago, the most northerly of the Cyclades, 6 m. S.E. of Euboea, and about 2 m. N. of Tenos; it forms an eparchy in the modern kingdom of Greece. It is nearly 25 m. long, and its greatest breadth is 10 m. Its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. Andros, the capital, on the east coast, contains about 2000 inhabitants. The ruins of Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, are on the west coast; the town possessed a famous temple, dedicated to Bacchus. The island has about 18,000 inhabitants.

The island in ancient times contained an Ionian population, perhaps with an admixture of Thracian blood. Though originally dependent on Eretria, by the 7th century it had become sufficiently prosperous to send out several colonies to Chalcidice (Acanthus, Stageirus, Argilus, Sane). In 480 it supplied ships to Xerxes and was subsequently harried by the Greek fleet. Though enrolled in the Delian League it remained disaffected towards Athens, and in 447 had to be coerced by the settlement of a cleruchy. In 411 Andros proclaimed its freedom and in 408 withstood an Athenian attack. As a member of the second Delian League it was again controlled by a garrison and an archon. In the Hellenistic period Andros was contended for as a frontier-post by the two naval powers of the Aegean Sea, Macedonia and Egypt. In 333 it received a Macedonian garrison from Antipater; in 308 it was freed by Ptolemy I. In the Chremonidean War (266–263) it passed again to Macedonia after a battle fought off its shores. In 200 it was captured by a combined Roman, Pergamene and Rhodian fleet, and remained a possession of Pergamum until the dissolution of that kingdom in 133 Before falling under Turkish rule, Andros was from  1207 till 1566 governed by the families Zeno and Sommariva under Venetian protection. ANDROTION (c. 350 ), Greek orator, and one of the leading politicians of his time, was a pupil of Isocrates and a contemporary of Demosthenes. He is known to us chiefly from the speech of Demosthenes, in which he was accused of illegality in proposing the usual honour of a crown to the Council of Five Hundred at the expiration of its term of office. Androtion filled several important posts, and during the Social War was appointed extraordinary commissioner to recover certain arrears of taxes. Both Demosthenes and Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 4) speak favourably of his powers as an orator. He is said to have gone into exile at Megara, and to have composed an Atthis, or annalistic account of Attica from the earliest times to his own days (Pausanias vi. 7; x. 8). It is disputed whether the annalist and orator are identical, but an Androtion who wrote on agriculture is certainly a different person. Professor Gaetano de Sanctis (in L’Attide di Androzione e un papiro di Oxyrhynchos, Turin, 1908) attributes to Androtion, the atthidographer, a 4th-century historical fragment, discovered by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt (Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. v.). Strong arguments against this view are set forth by E. M. Walker in the Classical Review, May 1908.

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/12


text: The New International Encyclopædia/Mugger


text: The New International Encyclopædia/Muggletonians


text: The New International Encyclopædia/Mugwort


text: The New International Encyclopædia/Mugwump


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6 Ruiz should desert. His people were in too humble a station to feel much the disadvantages of any form of government. There was no reason why Gaspar Ruiz should wish to uphold in his own person the rule of the King of Spain. Neither had he been anxious to exert himself for its subversion. He had joined the side of Independence in an extremely reasonable and natural manner. A band of patriots appeared one morning early, surrounding his father's ranche, spearing the watch-dogs and hamstringing a fat cow all in the twinkling of an eye, to the cries of "Viva la Libertad!" Their officer discoursed of Liberty with enthusiasm and eloquence after a long and refreshing sleep. When they left in the evening, taking with them some of Ruiz, the father's, best horses to replace their own lamed animals, Gaspar Ruiz went away with them, having been invited pressingly to do so by the eloquent officer.

Shortly afterwards a detachment of Royalist troops coming to pacify the district, burnt the ranche, carried off the remaining horses and cattle, and having thus deprived the old people of all their worldly possessions, left them sitting under a bush in the enjoyment of the inestimable boon of life.   II

, condemned to death as a deserter, was not thinking either of his native place or of his parents, to whom he had been a good son on account of the mildness of his character and the great strength of his limbs. The practical advantage of this last was made still more valuable to his father by his obedient disposition. Gaspar Ruiz had an acquiescent soul.

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4 General Santierra began his service as lieutenant in the patriot army raised and commanded by the famous San Martin, afterwards conqueror of Lima and liberator of Peru. A great battle had just been fought on the banks of the river Bio-Bio. Amongst the prisoners made upon the routed Royalist troops there was a soldier called Gaspar Ruiz. His powerful build and his big head rendered him remarkable amongst his fellow-captives. The personality of the man was unmistakable. Some months before he had been missed from the ranks of Republican troops after one of the many skirmishes which preceded the great battle. And now, having been captured arms in hand amongst Royalists, he could expect no other fate but to be shot as a deserter.

Gaspar Ruiz, however, was not a deserter; his mind was hardly active enough to take a discriminating view of the advantages or perils of treachery. Why should he change sides? He had really been made a prisoner, had suffered ill-usage and many privations. Neither side showed tenderness to its adversaries. There came a day when he was ordered, together with some other captured rebels, to march in the front rank of the Royal troops. A musket had been thrust into his hands. He had taken it. He had marched. He did not want to be killed with circumstances of peculiar atrocity for refusing to march. He did not understand heroism but it was his intention to throw his musket away at the first opportunity. Meantime he had gone on loading and firing, from fear of having his brains blown out at the first sign of unwillingness, by some non-commissioned officer of the King of Spain. He tried to set forth these elementary considerations before the sergeant of the guard set over him and some twenty other such deserters, who had been condemned summarily to be shot.

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Rh But it was stirred now to a sort of dim revolt by his dislike to die the death of a traitor. He was not a traitor. He said again to the sergeant: "You know I did not desert, Estaban. You know I remained behind amongst the trees with three others to keep the enemy back while the detachment was running away!"

Lieutenant Santierra, little more than a boy at the time, and unused as yet to the sanguinary imbecilities of a state of war, had lingered near by, as if fascinated by the sight of these men who were to be shot presently—"for an example"—as the Commandante had said.

The sergeant, without deigning to look at the prisoner, addressed himself to the young officer with a superior smile.

"Ten men would not have been enough to make him a prisoner, mi teniente. Moreover, the other three rejoined the detachment after dark. Why should he, unwounded and the strongest of them all, have failed to do so?"

"My strength is as nothing against a mounted man with a lasso," Gaspar Ruiz protested, eagerly. "He dragged me behind his horse for half a mile."

At this excellent reason the sergeant only laughed contemptuously. The young officer hurried away after the Commandante.

Presently the adjutant of the castle came by. He was a truculent, raw-boned man in a ragged uniform. His spluttering voice issued out of a flat yellow face. The sergeant learned from him that the condemned men would not be shot till sunset. He begged then to know what he was to do with them meantime.

The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard and, pointing to the door of a small dungeon-like

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/27


text: The New International Encyclopædia/Muharram


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Harry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, James Snowden


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Leonard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Michael


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Thomas (1606-1679)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Thomas (1775-1840)


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text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cambell, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cambridge, Richard Owen


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Alan


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Alexander (1747-1828)


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Rh brink of actual starvation. During the two weary years of suffering and distress Mohammed had of course made no converts amongst the people of Mecca, and few, if any, members of his own clan had joined him during their seclusion, so that his prospects were gloomier than ever.

To add to his troubles, he lost his faithful wife ʿHadîgah not long after this. Shortly afterwards he married a widow named Sâudâ; and later on he was betrothed to ʿÂyeshah, daughter of Abu Bekr, then a mere child, but whom he married in three years time. This woman gained a wonderful ascendancy over the prophet, and exercised considerable influence on Islâm, both during and after his lifetime. On one occasion, when the party were on the move, ʿÂyeshah was left behind with a young Arab under circumstances which gave rise to some very unpleasant rumours affecting her, and a special revelation was necessary to clear her character. Two other women were presently added to his harîm, ʿHafza, daughter of ʿOmar, and Zâinab, widow of a Muslim who had been slain at Bedr.

Another marriage that he contracted gave great scandal to the faithful, namely, that with the wife, also called Zâinab, of his adopted son Zâid, whom her husband divorced and offered to surrender to Mohammed on finding that the latter admired her. This also required a revelation to sanction it.

His uncle and protector Abu Tâlib died not long after ʿHadîgah.

This last loss left him without a protector, and his life would certainly have been in imminent danger had it not been that his uncle Abu Laheb, although one of the most determined opponents of the new religion, accorded him his formal protection for the sake of the family honour. This, however, was shortly afterwards withdrawn, and Mohammed was left more alone and more exposed to danger than ever.

In the desperate hope of finding help elsewhere he set


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ⅹⅹⅹ out for Tâʼif, accompanied by his freedman and adopted son Zâid.

From Tâʼif he was driven forth by the populace, who stoned him as he fled away. Wounded and exhausted, he lay down to rest in an orchard, the proprietor of which refreshed him with some grapes, and as he retraced his steps to Mecca he had a vision by the way. It appeared to him that the hosts of the ginn crowded round him, adoring God, and eager to learn from him the truths of Islâm. Ten years had rolled by and the number of the believers was still very few and the prospects of Islâm darker than they were at first, when the prophet found an unexpected support in the two tribes of El ʼAus and El ʿHazrag, who had towards the end of the fifth century wrested the city of Yarib from the Jewish tribes who held it.

Some of these Arabs had embraced the Jewish religion, and many of the former masters of the city still dwelt there in the position of clients of one or other of the conquering tribes, so that it contained in Mohammed’s time a considerable Jewish population.

Between the inhabitants of Yarib and those of Mecca there existed a strong feeling of animosity; but Mohammed, though sharing the prejudices of his compatriots, was not in a position to refuse help from whatever quarter it presented itself.

The Arab inhabitants of Yarib had on their part a good reason for looking with a more favourable eye upon the new prophet.

Imbued with the superstition of the Jews amongst whom they lived, they looked for the coming of a Messiah with no small apprehension of his restoring the Jewish supremacy and of their own consequent downfall.

Mohammed, after all, might be the expected Messiah; he was of their own race and it was at any rate prudent to treat with him before he should cast in his lot, as he possibly might, with their disaffected Jewish subjects.

Lastly, Yarib was a prey to incessant agitations and internal discords, and anything that was likely to bind the


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Rh conflicting parties together by a tie of common interest could not but prove a boon to the city.

The inhabitants of Yarib then were, for many reasons, inclined to acknowledge the mission of Mohammed; and after sundry negotiations between the prophet and the chiefs of the city, he agreed to meet them at a part of the road between Mecca and Yarib, where the valley suddenly makes an abrupt descent, from which the spot was known as Akabeh.

A deputation, consisting of twelve men of the Aus and ʿHazrag tribes, accordingly met him at the appointed spot and pledged him their word to obey his teaching.

The twelve men returned to their native city and preached the doctrine of Islâm, which was eagerly accepted by the majority of the pagan inhabitants. The Jews of Yarib, struck by this sudden renunciation of idolatry by their fellow-citizens, sent to beg Mohammed to send them a teacher who should instruct them in the new creed that had worked so wonderful a change.

At Mecca things were stationary, and Mohammed could do little more than wait until the time for pilgrimage should again come round and he should get fresh news from Yarib.

It was during this year of waiting that the celebrated night journey occurred, which has been the occasion of so much dispute to Mohammedan theologians, and has afforded such a handle to the hostile criticism of European historians. It was, as Mohammed himself persistently asserted, a vision in which he saw himself transported to heaven and brought face to face with that God who had always filled his thoughts. The story is so overlaid with spurious traditional details as to have lost, to a great extent, its real significance. It is referred to obscurely in the Qurʼân in the following passages:

'Celebrated be the praises of Him who took His servant a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Mosque, the precinct of which we have blessed, to show him of our signs!' (ⅩⅦ, ver. 1.)


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ⅹⅹⅻ 'And we made the vision which we showed thee only a cause of sedition unto men.' (ⅩⅦ, ver. 62.)

By the star when it falls, your comrade errs not, nor is he deluded! nor speaks he out of lust! It is but an inspiration inspired! One mighty in power taught him, endowed with sound understanding, and appeared, he being in the loftiest tract.

Then drew he near and hovered o’er! until he was two bows’ length off or nigher still! Then he inspired his servant what he inspired him; the heart belies not what it saw! What, will ye dispute with him on what he saw?

'And he saw him another time, by the lote tree none may pass; near which is the garden of the Abode! When there covered the lote tree what did cover it! The sight swerved not nor wandered. He saw then the greatest of the signs of his Lord.' (ⅬⅢ, vers. 1-18.)

At length the wished-for time arrived and Mohammed, who had been told by his envoy Muzʼhab of the success of his mission, repaired once more to the Akabeh. Here he was met at night by seventy men from Yarib, who had come to the rendezvous clandestinely by twos and threes, so as not to attract attention and incur the hostility of the Qurâis.

His uncle ʿAbbâs, though an unbeliever accompanied him, explained to them his nephew’s position, and asked them seriously to consider the proposition which it was understood they were about to make. They declared that they were quite earnest in their desire to have Mohammed amongst them, and swore that they would defend him and his cause with their very lives. Mohammed then addressed them, recited to them some portions of the Qurʼân in which the most essential points of his doctrine were set forth, and asked them for a pledge of their good faith. This they gave in simple Bedawi fashion, one after another placing his palm in that of the prophet and taking the oath of fealty. So enthusiastic were their protestations that ʿAbbâs himself was obliged to bid them be silent and urge upon them the danger and imprudence of their noisy


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Alexander (1781-1850)


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


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Rh . The treaty being thus ratified, Mohammed chose twelve naqîbs or leaders, after the number of the disciples of Jesus, and the voice of some stranger being heard close by the assembly hastily but quietly dispersed.

The Meccans, who had got a hint of the affair, taxed the Yarib pilgrims with having conspired with Mohammed against them, but being unable to prove the accusation, the new band of Muslims was enabled to return home in safety.

So hostile was now the attitude of the Qurâis that the believers of Mecca prepared for flight, and at last there were only left in Mecca three members of the community, Mohammed himself, Abu Bekr, and Ali.

The Qurâis now held a solemn council of war, at which, on the suggestion of Abu Gahl, it was determined that eleven men, each a prominent member of one of the noble families of the town, should simultaneously attack and murder Mohammed, and by thus dividing the responsibility should avoid the consequences of the blood feud; for, as they rightly judged, the Hâsimîs, not being sufficiently powerful to take the blood revenge on so many families, would be obliged to accept the blood money instead.

Mohammed had timely warning of this design, and giving Ali his mantle bade him pretend to sleep on the couch usually occupied by himself, and so divert the attention of the would-be murderers who were watching around his house. In the meantime Mohammed and Abu Bekr escaped by a back window in the house of the latter, and the two hid themselves in a cavern on Mount aur, an hour and a half distant from Mecca, before the Qurâis had discovered the ruse and heard of their flight. A hot pursuit was immediately organized.

For three days they lay concealed, their enemies once coming so near that Abu Bekr, trembling, said, 'We are but two.' 'Nay,' said Mohammed, 'we are three; for God is with us.' The legend tells us that a spider had woven its web across the mouth of the cave, so that the Qurâis, thinking that no one had entered in, passed it over in their search. [6]


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Donald


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Ewen


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Hugh


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Rh that came in certain stately measures. Those sounds were in the room, but they came from far away; only by straining my sense of sound to the utmost could I hear anything.

Slippers on my feet, flashlight in my hand and the key In the pocket of my dressing-gown, I slowly descended the stairs. Loud snores from the servants' room told, or seemed to tell, of their deep slumbers. Down into the cellar I went and put the key into the hole of the lock. The key turned easily—no rust there-the springs and the tumblers had been well oiled, like the hinges. It was evident that the door had been used often. Turning the light on the hinges, I saw what had made my hand black with oil. Earnestly I damned the servants. They knew about the door. They knew what was on the other side!

Just as I was about to open the door I heard a woman's voice singing in Italian; it sounded like a selection from an opera. It was followed by applause, and then a moaning, and one shrill cry, as though someone had been hurt. There was no doubt now as to where the sounds that I heard in my room had come from; they had come from the other side of the door. There was a mystery there for me to solve. But I was not ready to solve it; so I turned the key noiselessly, and with the door locked, tiptoed back to my bed.

There I tried to put two and two together. They made five, seven, a million vague admixtures of impossible results, all filled with weird forebodings. But never did they make four, and till they did, I knew the answers to be wrong, for two and two had to make four.

Many changes of masters! One after another they came and bought and disappeared. A whitewashed wall. What secrets were covered with that whitewash? A door in a cellar. And what deviltry went on behind it? A key; and a well-oiled lock, and servants that knew everything. In vain the question came to me. What is back of the door? There was no ready answer. But, Donna Marchesi knew! Was it her voice that I had heard? She knew almost everything about it, but there was one thing that I knew and she did not. She did not know that I could pass through the door and find out what was on the other side. She did not know that I had a key.

The next day I pleaded indisposition and spent most of the hours idling and drowsing in my chamber. Not till nearly midnight did I venture down. The servants were certainly asleep that time. A dose of chloral in their wine had attended to the certainty of their slumbers. Fully dressed, with an automatic in my pocket, I reached the cellar and opened the door. It swung noiselessly on its well-greased hinges. The darkness on the other side was the blackness of hell. An indescribable odor came to me, a prison smell and with it the soft half sob, half laugh of sleeping children, dreaming in their sleep, and not happy.

I flashed the light around the room. It was not a room but a cavern, a cave that extended far into the distance, the roof supported by stone pillars, set at regular intervals. As far as my light would carry I saw the long rows of white columns.

And to each pillar was bound a man, by chains. They were resting on the stone floor, twenty or more of them, and all asleep. Snores, grunts and weary sighs came from them, but not a single eyelid opened. Even when I flashed the light in their faces their eyes were shut.

And those faces sickened me; white and drawn and filled with the lines of deep suffering. All were covered with scars; long, narrow, deep scars, some fresh and red, others old and dead-white. At last, the sunken eyelids and the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, John (d.1446)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, John (1579?-1625)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, John (1724-1799)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, John (1771-1815)


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392 to see my flashlight and respond told me the nauseating truth. Those men were all blind.

A pleasant sight! One blind man, looking eternally into the blackness of his life, and chained to a pillar of stone—that was bad enough; but multiply that by twenty! Was it worse? Could it be worse? Could twenty men surfer more than one man? And then a thought came to me, a terrible, impossible thought, so horrible that I doubted my logic. But now two and two were beginning to make four. Could those men be the masters? They came and bought and left—to go to the cellar and stay there!

"Oh! Donna Marchesi!" I whispered. "How about those cat-eyes? If you had a hand in this, you are not a woman. You are a tiger."

that I understood part of it. The latest master came to her for the key to the cellar, and then, when he once passed through the door he never left. She and her servants were not there to welcome me that night, because she did not know that I had a key.

The thought came to me that perhaps one of those sleeping men was George Seabrook. He and I used to play tennis together and we knew each other like brothers. He had a large scar on the back of his right hand; a livid star-shaped scar. "With that in mind, I walked carefully from sleeping man to sleeping man, looking at their right hands. And I found a right hand with a scar that was shaped like the one I knew so well. But that blind man, only a skin-covered skeleton, chained to a bed of stone! That could not be my gay young tennis player, George!

The discovery nauseated me. What did it mean? What could it mean? If the Donna Marchesi was back of all that misery, what was her motive?

Down the long cave-like room I went. There seemed to be no end to it, though many of the columns were surrounded with empty chains. Only those near the door had their human flies in the trap. In the opposite direction the rows of pillars stretched into a far oblivion. I thought that at the end there was the black mouth of a tunnel, but I could not be sure and dared not go that far to explore the truth. Then, out of that tunnel, I heard a voice come, a singing voice. Slipping my shoes off, I ran back near the door and hid as best I could in a dark recess, back of a far piece of stone. I stood there in the darkness, my torch out, the handle of the revolver in my hand.

The singing grew louder and louder, and then the singer came into view. It was none other than Donna Marchesi! She carried a lantern in one hand and a basket in the other. Hanging the lantern on a nail, she took the basket and went from one sleeping man to another. With each her performance was the same; she awakened them with a kick in the face, and then, when they sat up crying with pain, she placed a hard roll of bread in their blind, trembling, outstretched hand. With all fed, there was silence save for gnawing teeth breaking through the hard crusts. The poor devils were hungry, starving slowly to death, and how they wolfed the bread! She laughed with animal delight as they cried for more. Standing under the lamp, a lovely devil in her decolletédécolleté [sic] dress, she laughed at them. I swear I saw her yellow eyes, dilated in the semi-darkness!

Suddenly she gave the command,

"Up! you dogs, up!"

well-trained animals they rose to their feet, clumsily, but as fast as they could under the handicap of trembling limbs and heavy chains. Two were slow in obeying, and those she struck across


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


text: Index:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, Lucy Lyttelton


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Note Books

Copied and Annotated by

Junius Henderson.

with index.


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


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camidge, John (1735-1803)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camidge, John (1790-1859)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camidge, Matthew


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Rh That Captain Meade and his able corps of assistants, who are surveying the lakes, should be already provided with barometers, psychrometers, thermometers, and wind and rain gauges, is a fresh and striking illustration of the fact to which I called the attention of the lake people with so much emphasis, viz., that the means and appliances for such a system of meteorological co-operation and research as I proposed for the lakes are already at hand, and that what remains to be done is to engraft upon them the telegraphic feature with the plan of instantaneous discussion.

Now, suppose that Captain Meade's observers, in addition to the observations they are already making and entering on their journals for his examination at some future day, were required daily also to transmit certain of them by telegraph to his office; that he had force enough there to take them up on the instant and to discuss them at once, that he might detect the storm while it is yet gathering, and then to send out by telegraph again warnings to the lake shipping of its approach.

If he had the means of doing this, he would then be doing the very thing I advocate, and there would be no necessity for future action on your part. But, unfortunately, Congress has not placed in his hands the means for carrying out any such system—at least, I am not aware that it has—and that Congress should place means for such a purpose in his hands, or the hands of some of his brother officers on lake duty who are equally accomplished, is what I imagine the good people of the lake country desire.

You recollect that when among you, some time ago, I called attention to the fact that all the observers, instruments, and appliances needed to make the observations required, were at hand willing and ready for the work. Here is a fresh proof of this fact, for I am delighted to learn from the slip you send me that Captain Meade is preparing to establish the meteorological observing stations from the east end of Lake Ontario to the west end of Lake Superior. No doubt the Canadian authorities would, if invited, most heartily co-operate in this system by establishing similar posts, if need be, along the northern shores. And then, as I


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Rh the face with a small whip, till they whined with pain.

They stood there in silence, twenty odd blind men, chained against as many pillars of stone; and then the woman, standing in the middle of them, started to sing. It was a well-trained voice, but metallic, and her high notes had in them the cry of a wild animal. No feminine softness there. She sang from an Italian opera, and I knew that I had heard that song before. While she sang, her audience waited silently. At last she finished, and they started to applaud. Shrunken hands beat noisily against shrunken hands.

She seemed to watch them carefully, as though she were measuring the degree of their appreciation. One man did not satisfy her. She went over and dug into his face with long strokes of those long red nails until his face was red and her fingers bloody. And when she finished her second song that man clapped louder than any of them. He had learned his lesson.

She ended by giving them each another roll and a dipper of water. Then, lantern and basket in her hands, she walked away and disappeared down the tunnel. The blind men, crying and cursing in their impotent rage, sank down on their stone beds.

I went to any friend, and took his hand. "George! George Seabrook!" I whispered.

He sat up and cried, "Who calls me? Who is there?"

I told him, and he started to cry. At last he became quiet enough to talk to me. What he told me, with slight variants, was the story of all the men there and all the men who had been there but who had died. Each man had been master for a day or a week. Each had found the cellar door and had come to the Donna Marchesi for the key. Some had been suspicious and had written their thoughts on the wall of their bedroom. But one and all had, in the end, found their curiosity more than they could resist and had opened the door. On the other side they had been overpowered and chained to a pillar, and there they had remained till they died. Some of them lived longer than the rest. Smith of Boston had been there over two years, though he was coughing badly and did not think that he could last much longer. Seabrook told me their names. They were the best blood of America, with three Englishmen and one Frenchman.

"And are you all blind?" I whispered, dreading the answer.

"Yes. That happens the first night we are here. She does it with her nails."

"And she comes every night?"

"Every night. She feeds us and sings to us and we applaud. When one of us dies, she unchains the body, and throws it down a hole somewhere. She talks to us about that hole sometimes and brags that she is going to fill it up before she stops."

"But who is helping her?"

"I think it is the real-estate man. Of course, the old devils upstairs help. I think that they must drug us. Some of the men say that they went to sleep in their beds and woke, chained to their posts."

My voice trembled as I bent over and whispered in his ear, What would you do, George, if she came and sang, and you found that you were not chained? You and the other men not chained? What would you men do, George?"

"Ask them," he snarled. "Ask them, one at a time. But I knew what I would do. I know!"

And he started to cry, because he could not do it the next second; cried from rage and helplessness till the tears ran from his empty sockets.


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92 said, it would cost nothing additional to have certain of observations reported by telegraph daily to some central office for instantaneous discussion and promulgation.

In addition to Captain Meade's corps, and the Canadians, it was held, when advocating the subject among you, that other army officers, also employed on the lakes—that the lighthouse keepers there, that the agents of the Lake Board of Underwriters, that the colleges, the hospitals, the public institutions and amateur meteorologists on and about the lakes, might without the cost of one additional cent to the public treasury be, in furtherance of this plan, organized into the most effectual and effective corps of observers that was ever engaged in carrying on any plan of physical research; and that all that was required of Congress in the premises was a simple enactment authorizing such an organization, and appropriating a sufficient sum of money to defray the office expenses of treating the observations after they are made, and of announcing the results after they are obtained.

The system of observations which I propose for the lakes should not be confounded with that admirable system which has been so long conducted by the army, and to which alone we are indebted for almost all we know concerning the climatology of the country. The system I propose is an extension to the lakes of that system of co-operation and research which has proved so beneficial for commerce and navigation at sea, with this difference, viz., that certain of the observations be reported daily to a central office by telegraph, and this telegraphic feature is a great improvement upon the sea plan. The army system is not telegraphic; it was established long before the electro magnetic telegraph had any existence; and it originated in this way. When Mr. Calhoun left college—and Yale, I think, was his alma mater—he was in delicate health, and it was thought advisable that he should return to Carolina on horseback. He did so, and for the sake of the mountain air and scenery he skirted along the Alleghenies and Blue Ridge. On that journey he was struck with the difference in the weather that he often observed on opposite sides of the mountains. His youthful mind was impressed with the importance which a properly


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394 "Does she always come at the same time?"

"As far as I know. But time is nothing to us. We just wait for death."

"Are the chains locked?"

"Yes. And she must have die key. But we could file the links if only we had files. If only each of us had a file, we could get free, Perhaps the man upstairs has a key, but I hardly think so."

"Did you write on that pretty wall upstairs, the whitewashed wall?"

"I did; I think we all did. One man wrote a sonnet to the woman, verses in her honor, telling about her beautiful eyes. He raved about that poem for hours while he was dying. Did you ever see it on the wall?"

"I did not see it. The old people whitewash the walls before each new master comes."

"I thought so."

"Are you sure you would know what to do, George, if she sang to you and you were loose?"

"Yes, we would know."

So I left him, promising an end to the matter as soon as I could arrange it.

next day saw me calling on the Donna Marchesi. I took her flowers that time, a corsage of vivid purple and scarlet orchids. She entertained me in her music room and I, taking the hint, asked her to sing. Shyly, almost with reluctance, she did as I asked. She sang the selection from the Italian opera that I knew so well. I was generous in my applause.

She smiled.

"You like to hear me sing?"

"Indeed! I want to hear you again. I could hear you daily without growing tired."

"You're nice," she purred. "Perhaps it could be arranged."

"You are too modest. You have a wonderful voice. Why not give it to the world?"

"I sang once in public," she sighed. "It was in New York, at a private musical. There were many men there. Perhaps it was stage fright; my voice broke badly, and the audience, especially the men, were not kind. I am not sure, but I thought that I heard some of them hiss me."

"Surely not!" I protested.

"Indeed, so. But no man has hissed my singing since then."

"I hope not!" I replied indignantly. "You have a wonderful voice, and, when I applauded you, I was sincere. By the way, may I change my mind and ask for the key to the door in the cellar?"

"Do you want it, really want it, my friend?"

"I am sure I do. I may never use it, but it will please me to have it. Little things in life make me happy, and this key is a little thing."

"Then you shall have it. Will you do me a favor? Wait till Sunday to use it. Today is Friday, and you will not have to wait many hours."

"It will be a pleasure to do as you desire," I replied, kissing her hand. "And shall I hear you sing again? May I come often to hear you sing?"

"I promise you that," she sighed. "I am sure that you will hear me sing often in the future. I feel that in some way our fates approach the same star."

I looked into her eyes, her yellow cat-eyes, and I was sure that she spoke the truth. Destiny had certainly brought me to find her in Sorona.

two dozen rat-tailed files, and dashed across the mountains to Milan. There I was closeted with the consuls of three nations: England, France and my own. They did not want to believe my story. I gave them names, and


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Rh conducted system of meteorological observations over the whole country would prove to be.

Accordingly, when he became Secretary of War he bore these circumstances in mind, and in 1819 that system of meteorological observations which has proved so beneficial to the whole country was inaugurated in the army, and from that day to this it has been carried on without interruption, and the results have been published from time to time in the Surgeon General's Office. In these observations the telegraph is not used at all, and the results, instead of being proclaimed on the instant, and announced so as to give warning of the coming of the storm, are frequently not published until years have elapsed. In short, by the army plan, the observations are made one year and discussed the next. The results, so far as the state of the weather on any particular day is concerned, are consequently retrospective, so to speak. They will tell on the 1st of January, for instance, what sort of weather you had on the lakes on the 1st day of December previous. But my lake plan proposes to warn you from observations made today as to the weather you may expect to-morrow, and then for the further investigation, of any particular phenomenon that may present itself, the lake plan proposes to refer to and consult the monthly records after they have been made and returned to Captain Meade, or elsewhere, from the observing stations. You observe, therefore, that the two plans, so far from superseding the one the other, or interfering with each other, are cooperative; and the fact that Captain Meade and those engaged with him on the survey of the lakes are so well provided with instruments, instead of being a reason for inaction on your part, is an additional reason why you should put your shoulder to the wheel with so much the more energy; for the assistance which such a corps of observers as he will bring into the field may render, will be of the greatest importance to the telegraphic plan.

I therefore hope, that so far from reading, in what Captain Meade is reported to have said in the Detroit papers, anything to discourage further action on your part, you will gather encouragement, and look upon him and his assistants


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94 as fellow labourers, and most valuable ones too, in the great cause. I do not (allow me again to say) read in the accounts you send me of what Captain Meade is represented to have said concerning the system of meteorological observations which he is about to inaugurate on the lakes, anything which was intended, or that is calculated to damp, your efforts in behalf of a system of daily weather reports by telegraph to some central office on the lakes. In that account no allusion is made to the telegraph. If, however, Captain Meade should wish to engraft any such feature upon his plan, I hope you will lend him a hearty co-operation, for I should consider it most fortunate if the telegraphic plan should fall into the hands of gentlemen so capable of taking charge of it, and of bringing it into satisfactory operation, as are those of either Captain Meade or of his brother-in-law, Colonel Graham. Respectfully, &c.,

A letter from E. P. Dorr, written to a relative after Maury's death, enclosed the above letter for publication; and deserves insertion here, because it gives the illustrious hydrographer the credit that is so justly due to him:—

2em . . . . I send you a copy of an original letter written to me by the late M. F. Maury on December 28th, 1858. The circumstances calling it out were these. He came here and lectured during that month and year, and called on the writer, who was then President of the Lake Board of Underwriters, having, at all the principal cities around the lakes, marine inspectors or surveyors subject to my orders. Maury unfolded to me his plan in substance as set forth in this letter, and asked me to aid him. He wanted to "discuss" the observations daily at Washington, as they now are. . . . His intelligent, original mind invented and suggested the present system of meteorological observations; and the writer wishes this in some way to be put upon record, to do justice


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Rh they had to admit that there had been inquiries, but they felt that the main details were nightmares, resulting from an over-use of Italian wines. But I insisted that I was not drunk with new wine. At last, they called in the chief of the detective bureau. He knew Franco, the real-estate agent; also the lady in question. And he had heard something of the villa; not much, but vague whisperings.

"We will be there Saturday night," he promised. "That leaves you tonight. The lady will not try to trap you till Sunday. Can you attend to the old people?"

"They will be harmless. See that Franco does not have a chance to escape. Here is the extra key to the door. I will go through before twelve. When I am ready, I will open the door. If I am not out by one in the morning, you come through with your police. Do we all understand?"

"I understand," said the American consul. "But I still think you are dreaming."

Back at the villa, I again drugged the old people, not much, but enough to insure their sleep that night. They liked me. I was liberal with my gold, and I carelessly showed them where I kept my reserve.

Then I went through the door. Again I heard the Donna Marchesi sing to an audience that would never hiss her. She left, and I started to distribute the files. From one blind wretch to the next I went, whispering words of cheer and instruction for the next night. They were to cut through a link in the chain, but in such a way that the Tiger Cat would not suspect that they had gained their liberty. Were they pleased to have a hope of freedom? I am not sure, but they were delighted at another prospect.

The next night I doubled the tips to the old servants. With tears of gratitude in their eyes, they thanked me as they called me their dear master. I put them to sleep as though they were babies. In fact, I wondered at the time if they would ever recover from the dose of chloral I gave them. I did not even bother to tie them, but just tossed them on their beds.

At half past ten, automobiles began to arrive with darkened lights. We had a lengthy conference, and soon after eleven I went through the door. I lost no time in making sure that each of the blind mice was a free man, but I insisted that they act as though bound till the proper time. They were trembling, but it was not from fear, not that time.

Back in my hiding-place I waited, and soon I heard the singing voice. Ten minutes later the Donna Marchesi had her lantern hung on the nail. Ah! She was more beautiful that night than I had ever seen her. Dressed in filmy white, her beautiful body, lovely hair, long lithe limbs would have bound any man to her through eternity. She seemed to sense that beauty, for, after giving out the first supply of rolls, she varied her program. She told her audience how she had dressed that evening for their special pleasure. She described her jewels and her costume. She almost became grandiose as she told of her beauty, and, driving in the dagger, she twisted it as she reminded them that never would they be able to see her, never touch her or kiss her hand. All they could do was to hear her sing, applaud and at last die.

Of all the terrible things in her life that little talk to those blind men was the climax.

And then she sang. I watched her closely, and I saw what I suspected. She sang with her eyes closed. Was she in fancy seeming that she was in an opera-house before thousands of spellbound admirers? Who knows? But ever as she


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395 sang that night her eyes were closed, and even as she came to a close, waiting for the usual applause, her eyes were closed.

waited in the silence for the clap of hands. It did not come. With terrific anger, she whirled to her basket and reached for her whip.

"Dogs!" she cried. "Have you so soon forgot your lesson?"

And then she realized that the twenty blind men were closing in on her. They were silent, but their outstretched hands were feeling for something that they wanted very much. Even when her whip started to cut, they were silent. Then one man touched her. To her credit, there was no sign of fear. She knew what had happened. She must have known, but she was not afraid. Her single scream was nothing but the battle-cry of the tiger cat going into action.

There was a single cry, and that was all. The men reached for what they wanted in silence. For a while they were all in a struggling group on their feet, but soon they were all on the ground. It was simply a mass, and under that mass was a biting, scratching, fighting, dying animal.

I couldn't stand it. I had planned it all, I wanted it all to happen, but when it came, I just couldn't stand it. Covered with the sweat of fear, I ran to the door and unlocked it. I swung it open, went through the doorway, closed it and locked it again. The men, waiting for me in the cellar, looked on with doubt. It seemed that they were right in thinking that my tale was an alcoholic one.

"Give me whisky!" I gasped, as I dropped on the floor.

In a few minutes I had recovered.

"Open the door," I ordered. "And bring the blind men out."

One at a time they were brought to the kitchen, and identified. Some were terribly mutilated in the face, long deep scratches, and even pieces bitten out, and one had the corner of his mouth torn. Most of them were sobbing hysterically, but, in some way, though none said so, I judged that they were all happy.

We went back to the cellar and through the door. On the stone floor was a clotted mass of red and white.

"What's that?" asked the American consul.

"I think that is the Donna Marchesi," I replied. "She must have met with an accident."


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412 oculos that the forgetting in dreams is in great part due to the activity of resistance. A patient tells me that he has dreamed, but that the dream has vanished without leaving a trace, as if nothing had happened. We continue to work, however; I strike a resistance which I make plain to the patient; by encouraging and urging I help him to become reconciled to some disagreeable thought; and as soon as I have succeeded he exclaims, "Now, I can recall what I have dreamed." The same resistance which that day disturbed him in the work caused him also to forget the dream. By overcoming this resistance, I brought the dream to memory.

In the same way the patient may, on reaching a certain part of the work, recall a dream which took place three, four, or more days before, and which has rested in oblivion throughout all this time.

Psychoanalytic experience has furnished us with another proof of the fact that the forgetting of dreams depends more on the resistance than on the strangeness existing between the waking and sleeping states, as the authorities have believed. It often happens to me, as well as to the other analysts and to patients under treatment, that we are awakened from sleep by a dream, as we would say, and immediately thereafter, while in full possession of our mental activity, we begin to interpret the dream. In such cases I have often not rested until I gained a full understanding of the dream, and still it would happen that after the awakening I have just as completely forgotten the interpretation work as the dream content itself, though I was aware that I had dreamed and that I had interpreted the dream. The dream has more frequently taken along into forgetfulness the result of the interpretation work than it was possible for the mental activity to retain the dream in memory. But between this interpretation work and the waking thoughts there is not that psychic gap through which alone the authorities wish to explain the forgetting of dreams. Morton Prince objects to my explanation of the forgetting of dreams on the ground that it is only a particular example of amnesia for dissociated states, and that the impossibility of harmonising my theory with other types of amnesia makes it also valueless for other purposes. He thus makes the reader suspect that in all his description of such


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Rh between his teeth. If he had an ounce of pep about him, he'd get out and work the flowers. Sleeps too much anyway. Not good for him."

She stamped out of the room and down the hall, and Letty heard her open the door of the study and scream at her husband.

"Hector DeBrugh! Wake up!"

There was a silence, during which Letty wondered what was going on. Then she heard the noisy clop-clop of Mrs. DeBrugh's slippers on the hardwood floor of the study, and she knew the woman was going to shake the daylights out of Mr. DeBrugh and frighten him into wakefulness. She could even imagine she heard Mrs. DeBrugh grasp the lapels of her husband's coat and shake him back and forth against the chair.

Then she heard the scream. It came quite abruptly from Mrs. DeBrugh in the study, and it frightened Letty out of her wits momentarily. After that there was the thud of a falling body and the clatter of an upset piece of furniture.

Letty hurried out of the room into the hall and through the open door of the study. She saw Mrs. DeBrugh slumped on the floor in a faint, and beside her an upset ash-tray. But her eyes did not linger on the woman, nor the tray. Instead, they focussed on the still form of Mr. DeBrugh in the sofa.

He was slumped down, his head twisted to one side and his mouth hanging open from the shaking Mrs. DeBrugh had given him. The meerschaum had slipped from between his teeth, and the cold ashes were scattered on his trousers.

Even then, before the sea of tears began to flow from her eyes, Letty knew the old man was dead. She knew what he had meant by the speech he had said to her only a few minutes before.

heart," was the comment of the doctor who arrived a short time later and pronounced the old man dead. "He had to go. Today, tomorrow. Soon."

After that, he put Mrs. DeBrugh to bed and turned to Letty.

"Mrs. DeBrugh is merely suffering from a slight shock. There is nothing more that I can do. When she awakens, see that she stays in bed. For the rest of the day."

He left then, and Letty felt a strange coldness about the place, something that had not been there while Mr. DeBrugh was alive.

She went downstairs and made several telephone calls which she knew would be necessary. Later, when Mrs. DeBrugh was feeling better, other arrangements could be made.

She straightened the furniture in the study, pushing the familiar sofa back in place, from where Mr. DeBrugh invariably moved it. Then she knocked the ashes from the meerschaum, wiped it off, and placed it carefully in the little glass cabinet on the wall where he always kept it.

Times would be different now, she knew. She remembered what he had said. "You will be well taken care of." But there had been something else. "After Mrs. DeBrugh and I are gone."

Letty could no longer hold back the tears. She fell into a chair and they poured forth.

But time always passes, and with it goes a healing balm for most all sorrows. First there was the funeral. Then came other arrangements. And there was the will, which Mrs. DeBrugh never mentioned.

His things would have fallen into decay but for the hands of Letty. Always her dust-cloth made his study immaculate. Always the sofa was in place and


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Rh dissociated states he has never made the attempt to find the dynamic explanation for these phenomena. For, had he done so, he surely would have discovered that the repression and the resistance produced thereby "is quite as well the cause of this dissociation as of the amnesia for its psychic content."

That the dream is as little forgotten as the other psychic acts, and that it clings to memory just as firmly as the other psychic activities was demonstrated to me by an experiment which I was able to make while compiling this manuscript. I have kept in my notes many dreams of my own which, for some reason at the time I could analyse only imperfectly or not at all. In order to get material to illustrate my assertions, I attempted to subject some of them to analysis from one to two years later. I succeeded in this attempt without any exception. Indeed, I may even state that the interpretation went more easily at this later time than at the time when the dreams were recent occurrences. As a possible explanation for this fact, I would say that I had gotten over some of the resistances which disturbed me at the time of dreaming. In such subsequent interpretations I have compared the past results in dream thoughts with the present, which have usually been more abundant, and have invariably found the past results falling under the present without change. I have, however, soon put an end to my surprise by recalling that I have long been accustomed to interpret dreams from former years which have occasionally been related to me by patients as if they were dreams of the night before, with the same method and the same success. I shall report two examples of such delayed dream interpretations in the discussion of anxiety dreams. When I instituted this experiment for the first time, I justly expected that the dream would behave in this respect like a neurotic symptom. For when I treat a neurotic, perhaps an hysteric, by psychoanalysis, I am compelled to find explanations for the first symptoms of the disease which have long been forgotten, just as for those still existing which have brought the patient to me; and I find the former problem easier to solve than the more exigent one of to-day. In the Studien über Hysterie, published as early as 1895, I was able to report the explanation of a first


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414 hysterical attack of anxiety which the patient, a woman over forty years of age, had experienced in her fifteenth year.

I may now proceed in an informal way to some further observations on the interpretation of dreams, which will perhaps be of service to the reader who wishes to test my assertion by the analysis of his own dreams.

No one must expect that the interpretations of his dreams will come to him overnight without any exertion. Practice is required even for the perception of endoptic phenomena and other sensations usually withdrawn from attention, although this group of perceptions is not opposed by any psychic motive. It is considerably more difficult to become master of the "undesirable presentations." He who wishes to do this will have to fulfil the requirements laid down in this treatise. Obeying the rules here given, he will strive during the work to curb in himself every critique, every prejudice, and every affective or intellectual one-sidedness. We will always be mindful of the precept of Claude Bernard for the experimenter in the physiological laboratory—"Travailler comme une bête"—meaning he should be just as persistent, but also just as unconcerned about the results. He who will follow these counsels will surely no longer find the task difficult. The interpretation of a dream cannot always be accomplished in one session; you often feel, after following up a concatenation of thoughts, that your working capacity is exhausted; the dream will not tell you anything more on that day; it is then best to break off, and return to the work the following day. Another portion of the dream content then solicits your attention, and you thus find an opening to a new stratum of the dream thoughts. We may call this the "fractionary" interpretation of dreams.

It is most difficult to induce the beginner in the interpretation of dreams to recognise the fact that his task is not finished though he is in possession of a complete interpretation of the dream which is ingenious and connected, and which explains all the elements of the dream. Besides this another superimposed interpretation of the same dream may be possible which has escaped him. It is really not simple to form


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Rh an idea of the abundant unconscious streams of thought striving for expression in our minds, and to believe in the skilfulness displayed by the dream-work in hitting, so to speak, with its ambiguous manner of expression, seven flies with one stroke, like the journeyman tailor in the fairy tale. The reader will constantly be inclined to reproach the author for uselessly squandering his ingenuity, but anyone who has had experience of his own will learn to know better.

The question whether every dream can be interpreted may be answered in the negative. One must not forget that in the work of interpretation one must cope with the psychic forces which are responsible for the distortion of the dream. Whether one can become master of the inner resistances through his intellectual interest, his capacity for self-control, his psychological knowledge, and his practice in dream interpretation becomes a question of the preponderance of forces. It is always possible to make some progress. One can at least go far enough to become convinced that the dream is an ingenious construction, generally far enough to gain an idea of its meaning. It happens very often that a second dream confirms and continues the interpretation assumed for the first. A whole series of dreams running for weeks or months rests on a common basis, and is therefore to be interpreted in connection. In dreams following each other, it may be often observed how one takes as its central point what is indicated only as the periphery of the next, or it is just the other way, so that the two supplement each other in interpretation. That the different dreams of the same night are quite regularly in the interpretation to be treated as a whole I have already shown by examples.

In the best interpreted dreams we must often leave one portion in obscurity because we observe in the interpretation that it represents the beginning of a tangle of dream thoughts which cannot be unravelled but which has furnished no new contribution to the dream content. This, then, is the keystone of the dream, the place at which it mounts into the unknown. For the dream thoughts which we come upon in the interpretation must generally remain without a termination, and merge in all directions into the net-like entanglement of our world of thoughts. It is from some denser portion of this texture


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416 that the dream-wish then arises like the mushroom from its mycelium.

Let us now return to the facts of dream-forgetting, as we have really neglected to draw an important conclusion from them. If the waking life shows an unmistakable intention to forget the dream formed at night, either as a whole, immediately after awakening, or in fragments during the course of the day, and if we recognise as the chief participator in this forgetting the psychic resistance against the dream which has already performed its part in opposing the dream at night—then the question arises, What has the dream formation actually accomplished against this resistance? Let us consider the most striking case in which the waking life has done away with the dream as though it had never happened. If we take into consideration the play of the psychic forces, we are forced to assert that the dream would have never come into existence had the resistance held sway during the night as during the day. We conclude then, that the resistance loses a part of its force during the night; we know that it has not been extinguished, as we have demonstrated its interest in the dream formation in the production of the distortion. We have, then, forced upon us the possibility that it abates at night, that the dream formation has become possible with this diminution of the resistance, and we thus readily understand that, having regained its full power with the awakening, it immediately sets aside what it was forced to admit as long as it was in abeyance. Descriptive psychology teaches us that the chief determinant in dream formation is the dormant state of the mind. We may now add the following elucidation: The sleeping state makes dream formation possible by diminishing the endopsychic censor.

We are certainly tempted to look upon this conclusion as the only one possible from the facts of dream-forgetting, and to develop from it further deductions concerning the proportions of energy in the sleeping and waking states. But we shall stop here for the present. When we have penetrated somewhat deeper into the psychology of the dream we shall find that the origin of the dream formation may be differently conceived. The resistance operating to prevent the dream thoughts coming to consciousness may perhaps be eluded


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Rh without suffering diminution per se. It is also plausible that both the factors favourable to dream formation, the diminution as well as the eluding of the resistance, may be made possible simultaneously through the sleeping state. But we shall pause here, and continue this line of thought later.

There is another series of objections against our procedure in the dream interpretation which we must now consider. In this interpretation we proceed by dropping all the end-presentations which otherwise control reflection, we direct our attention to an individual element of the dream, and then note the unwished-for thoughts that occur to us in this connection. We then take up the next component of the dream content, and repeat the operation with it; and, without caring in what direction the thoughts take us, we allow ourselves to be led on by them until we end by rambling from one subject to another. At the same time, we harbour the confident hope that we may in the end, without effort, come upon the dream thoughts from which our dream originated. Against this the critic brings the following objection: That one can arrive somewhere, starting from a single element in the dream is nothing wonderful. Something can be associatively connected with every idea. It is remarkable only that one should succeed in hitting the dream thoughts in this aimless and arbitrary excursion of thought. It is probably a self-deception; the investigator follows the chain of association from one element until for some reason it is seen to break, when a second element is taken up; it is thus but natural that the association, originally unbounded, should now experience a narrowing. He keeps in mind the former chain of associations, and he will therefore in analysis more easily hit upon certain thoughts which have something in common with the thoughts from the first chain. He then imagines that he has found a thought which represents a point of junction between two elements of the dream. As he, moreover, allows himself every freedom of thought connection, excepting only the transitions from one idea to another which are made in normal thinking, it is not finally difficult for him to concoct something which he calls the dream thought out of a series of "intermediary thoughts"; and without any guarantee, as they are otherwise unknown, he palms these off as the psychic 2 D


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418 equivalent of the dream. But all this is accompanied by arbitrary procedure and over-ingenious exploitation of coincidence. Anyone who will go to this useless trouble can in this way work out any desired interpretation for any dream whatever.

If such objections are really advanced against us, we may refer in our defence to the agreement of our dream interpretations, to the surprising connections with other dream elements which appear in following out the different particular presentations, and to the improbability that anything which so perfectly covers and explains the dream as our dream interpretations do could be gained otherwise than by following psychic connections previously established. We can also justify ourselves by the fact that the method of dream analysis is identical with the method used in the solution of hysterical symptoms, where the correctness of the method is attested through the emergence and fading away of the symptoms—that is, where the elucidation of the text by the interposed illustrations finds corroboration. But we have no object in avoiding this problem—how one can reach to a pre-established aim by following a chain of thoughts spun out thus arbitrarily and aimlessly—for, though we are unable to solve the problem, we can get rid of it entirely.

It is in fact demonstrably incorrect to state that we abandon ourselves to an aimless course of thought when, as in the interpretation of dreams, we relinquish our reflection and allow the unwished-for idea to come to the surface. It can be shown that we can reject only those end-presentations that are familiar to us, and that as soon as these stop the unknown, or, as we say more precisely, the unconscious end-presentations, immediately come into play, which now determined the course of the unwished-for presentations. A mode of thinking without end-idea can surely not be brought about through any influence we can exert on our own mental life; nor do I know either of any state of psychic derangement in which such mode of thought establishes itself. The psychiatrists have in this field much too early rejected the solidity of the psychic structure. I have ascertained that an unregulated stream of thoughts, devoid of the end-presentation, occurs as little in the realm of hysteria and paranoia as in the formation


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Rh or solution of dreams. Perhaps it does not appear at all in the endogenous psychic affections, but even the deliria of confused states are senseful according to the ingenious theory of Leuret and become incomprehensible to us only through omissions. I have come to the same conviction wherever I have found opportunity for observation. The deliria are the work of a censor which no longer makes any effort to conceal its sway, which, instead of lending its support to a revision no longer obnoxious to it, cancels regardlessly that which it raises objections against, thus causing the remnant to appear disconnected. This censor behaves analogously to the Russian newspaper censor on the frontier, who allows to fall into the hands of his protected readers only those foreign journals that have passed under the black pencil.

The free play of the presentations following any associative concatenation perhaps makes its appearance in destructive organic brain lesions. What, however, is taken as such in the psychoneuroses can always be explained as the influence of the censor on a series of thoughts which have been pushed into the foreground by the concealed end-presentation. It has been considered an unmistakable sign of association free from the end-presentations when the emerging presentations (or pictures) were connected with one another by means of the so-called superficial associations—that is, by assonance, word ambiguity, and causal connection without inner sense relationship; in other words, when they were connected through all those associations which we allow ourselves to make use of in wit and play upon words. This distinguishing mark proves true for the connections of thought which lead us from the elements of the dream content to the collaterals, and from these to the thoughts of the dream proper; of this we have in our dream analysis found many surprising examples. No connection was there too loose and no wit too objectionable to serve as a bridge from one thought to another. But the correct understanding of such tolerance is not remote. Whenever one psychic element is connected with another through an obnoxious or superficial association, there also exists a correct


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420 and more profound connection between the two which succumbs to the resistance of the censor.

The correct explanation for the predominance of the superficial associations is the pressure of the censor, and not the suppression of the end-presentations. The superficial associations supplant the deep ones in the presentation whenever the censor renders the normal connective paths impassable. It is as if in a mountainous region a general interruption of traffic, e.g., an inundation, should render impassable the long and broad thoroughfares; traffic would then have to be maintained through inconvenient and steep footpaths otherwise used only by the hunter.

We can here distinguish two cases which, however, are essentially one. In the first case the censor is directed only against the connection of the two thoughts, which, having been detached from each other, escape the opposition. The two thoughts then enter successively into consciousness; their connection remains concealed; but in its place there occurs to us a superficial connection between the two which we would not otherwise have thought of, and which as a rule connects with another angle of the presentation complex instead of with the one giving rise to the suppressed but essential connection. Or, in the second case, both thoughts on account of their content succumb to the censor; both then appear not in their correct but in a modified substituted form; and both substituted thoughts are so selected that they represent, through a superficial association, the essential relation which existed between those which have been replaced by them. Under the pressure of the censor the displacement of a normal and vital association by a superficial and apparently absurd one has thus occurred in both cases.

Because we know of this displacement we unhesitatingly place reliance even upon superficial associations in the dream analysis.

The psychoanalysis of neurotics makes prolific use of the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, John (1780-1863)


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Rh two axioms, first that with the abandonment of the conscious end-presentation the domination of the train of presentation is transferred to the concealed end-presentations; and, secondly, that superficial associations are only a substitutive displacement for suppressed and more profound ones; indeed, psychoanalysis raises these two axioms to pillars of its technique. When I request a patient to dismiss all reflection, and to report to me whatever comes into his mind, I firmly cling to the presupposition that he will not be able to drop the end-idea of the treatment, and I feel justified in concluding that what he reports, even though seemingly most harmless and arbitrary, has connection with this morbid state. My own personality is another end-presentation concerning which the patient has no inkling. The full appreciation, as well as the detailed proof of both these explanations, belongs accordingly to the description of the psychoanalytic technique as a therapeutic method. We have here reached one of the allied subjects with which we propose to leave the subject of the interpretation of dreams.

Of all the objections only one is correct, and still remains, namely, that we ought not to ascribe all mental occurrences of the interpretation work to the nocturnal dream-work. In the interpretation in the waking state we are making a road running from the dream elements back to the dream thoughts. The dream-work has made its way in the opposite direction, and it is not at all probable that these roads are equally passable in the opposite directions. It has, on the contrary, been shown that during the day, by means of new thought connections we make paths which strike the intermediate thoughts and the dream thoughts in different places. We can see how the recent thought material of the day takes its place in the groups of the interpretation, and probably also forces the additional resistance appearing through the night to make new and further detours. But the number and form of the collaterals which we thus spin during the day is psychologically perfectly negligible if it only leads the way to the desired dream thoughts.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, John (1794-1867)


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422 (b) Regression.

Now that we have guarded against objection, or at least indicated where our weapons for defence rest, we need no longer delay entering upon the psychological investigations for which we have so long prepared. Let us bring together the main results of our investigations up to this point. The dream is a momentous psychic act; its motive power is at all times to fulfil a wish; its indiscernibleness as a wish and its many peculiarities and absurdities are due to the influence of the psychic censor to which it has been subjected during its formation. Apart from the pressure to withdraw itself from this censor, the following have played a part in its formation: a strong tendency to the condensation of psychic material, a consideration for dramatisation into mental pictures, and (though not regularly) a consideration for a rational and intelligible exterior in the dream structure. From every one of these propositions the road leads further to psychological postulates and assumptions. Thus the reciprocal relation of the wish motives and the four conditions, as well as the relations of these conditions to one another will have to be investigated; and the dream will have to be brought into association with the psychic life.

At the beginning of this chapter we cited a dream in order to remind us of the riddles that are still unsolved. The interpretation of this dream of the burning child afforded us no difficulties, although it was not perfectly given in our present sense. We asked ourselves why it was necessary, after all, that the father should dream instead of awakening, and we recognised the wish to represent the child as living as the single motive of the dream. That there was still another wish playing a part in this connection, we shall be able to show after later discussions. For the present, therefore, we may say that for the sake of the wish-fulfilment the mental process of sleep was transformed into a dream.

If the wish realisation is made retrogressive, only one quality still remains which separates the two forms of psychic occurrences from each other. The dream thought might have read: "I see a glimmer coming from the room in which the corpse reposes. Perhaps a candle has been upset, and the child


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Rh is burning!" The dream reports the result of this reflection unchanged, but represents it in a situation which takes place in the present, and which is conceivable by the senses like an experience in the waking state. This, however, is the most common and the most striking psychological character of the dream; a thought, usually the one wished for, is in the dream made objective and represented as a scene, or, according to our belief, as experienced.

But how are we now to explain this characteristic peculiarity of the dream-work, or, to speak more modestly, how are we to bring it into relation with the psychic processes?

On closer examination, it is plainly seen that there are two pronounced characters in the manifestations of the dream which are almost independent of each other. The one is the representation as a present situation with the omission of the "perhaps"; the other is the transformation of the thought into visual pictures and into speech.

The transformation in the dream thoughts, which shifts into the present the expectation expressed in them, is perhaps in this particular dream not so very striking. This is probably in consonance with the special or rather subsidiary rôle of the wish-fulfilment in this dream. Let us take another dream in which the dream-wish does not separate itself in sleep from a continuation of the waking thoughts, e.g., the dream of Irma's injection. Here the dream thought reaching representation is in the optative, "If Otto could only be blamed for Irma's sickness!" The dream suppresses the optative, and replaces it by a simple present, "Yes, Otto is to blame for Irma's sickness." This is therefore the first of the changes which even the undistorted dream undertakes with the dream thought. But we shall not stop long at this first peculiarity of the dream. We elucidate it by a reference to the conscious phantasy, the day dream, which behaves similarly with its presentation content. When Daudet's Mr. Joyeuse wanders through the streets of Paris unemployed while his daughter is led to believe that he has a position and is in his office, he likewise dreams in the present of circumstances that might help him to obtain protection and a position. The dream therefore employs the present in the same manner and with the same


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, John (1802-1877)


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424 right as the day dream. The present is the tense in which the wish is represented as fulfilled.

The second quality, however, is peculiar to the dream as distinguished from the day dream, namely, that the presentation content is not thought, but changed into perceptible images to which we give credence and which we believe we experience. Let us add, however, that not all dreams show this transformation of presentation into perceptible images. There are dreams which consist solely of thoughts to which we cannot, however, on that account deny the substantiality of dreams. My dream "Autodidasker—the waking phantasy with Professor N."—is of that nature; it contains hardly more perceptible elements than if I had thought its content during the day. Moreover, every long dream contains elements which have not experienced the transformation into the perceptible, and which are simply thought or known as we are wont to think or know in our waking state. We may also recall here that such transformation of ideas into perceptible images does not occur in dreams only but also in hallucinations and visions which perhaps appear spontaneously in health or as symptoms in the psychoneuroses. In brief, the relation which we are investigating here is in no way an exclusive one; the fact remains, however, that where this character of the dream occurs, it appears to us as the most noteworthy, so that we cannot think of it apart from the dream life. Its explanation, however, requires a very detailed discussion.

Among all the observations on the theory of dreams to be found in authorities on the subject, I should like to lay stress upon one as being worth mentioning. The great G. T. Fechner expresses his belief (Psychophysik, Part II., p. 520), in connection with some discussion devoted to the dream, that the seat of the dream is elsewhere than in the waking ideation. No other theory enables us to conceive the special qualities of the dream life.

The idea which is placed at our disposal is one of psychic locality. We shall entirely ignore the fact that the psychic apparatus with which we are here dealing is also familiar to us as an anatomical specimen, and we shall carefully avoid the temptation to determine the psychic locality