text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/40

4 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. short of felony. "And," reasoned Ralph with himself, "if no good came of my uncle's money when he was alive, a great deal of good came of it after he was dead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving it up for me, which is a highly virtuous purpose; and, going back to the old gentleman, good did come of it to him too, for he had the pleasure of thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted by all his family besides." And Ralph always wound up these mental soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing like money.

Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties to rust, even at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, this promising lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; putting out at good interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles, and gradually extending his operations until they aspired to the copper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated to considerable advantage. Nor did he trouble his borrowers with abstract calculations of figures, or references to ready-reckoners; his simple rule of interest being all comprised in the one golden sentence, "two-pence for every half-penny," which greatly simplified the accounts, and which, as a familiar precept, more easily acquired and retained in the memory than any known rule of arithmetic, cannot be too strongly recommended to the notice of capitalists, both large and small, and more especially of money-brokers and bill-discounters. Indeed, to do these gentlemen justice, many of them are to this day in the frequent habit of adopting it, with eminent success.

In like manner, did young Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute and intricate calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sums in simple-interest can fail to have found most embarrassing, by establishing the one general rule that all sums of principal and interest should be paid on pocket-money day, that is to say, on Saturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday, or on the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, the


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hosmer, Harriet

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


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/41

PURSUIT OF MONEY-GETTING. 5 same. Indeed he argued, and with great show of reason, that it ought to be rather more for one day than for five, inasmuch as the borrower might in the former case be very fairly presumed to be in great extremity, otherwise he would not borrow at all with such odds against him. This fact is interesting, as illustrating the secret connection and sympathy which always exists between great minds. Though master Ralph Nickleby was not at that time aware of it, the class of gentlemen before alluded to, proceed on just the same principle in all their transactions.

From what we have said of this young gentleman, and the natural admiration the reader will immediately conceive of his character, it may perhaps be inferred that he is to be the hero of the work which we shall presently begin. To set this point at rest, for once and for ever, we hasten to undeceive them, and stride to its commencement.

On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, who had been some time before placed in a mercantile house in London, applied himself passionately to his old pursuit of money-getting, in which he speedily became so buried and absorbed, that he quite forgot his brother for many years; and if, at times, a recollection of his old playfellow broke upon him through the haze in which he lived—for gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal—it brought along with it a companion thought, that if they were intimate he would want to borrow money of him. So, Mr. Ralph Nickleby shrugged his shoulders, and said things were better as they were. As for Nicholas, he lived a single man on the patrimonial estate until he grew tired of living alone, and then he took to wife the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman with a dower of one thousand pounds. This good lady bore him two children, a son and a daughter, and when the son was about nineteen, and the daughter fourteen, as near as we can guess—impartial records of young ladies' ages being,


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/42

6  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. before the passing of the new act, nowhere preserved in the registries of this country—Mr. Nickleby looked about him for the means of repairing his capital, now sadly reduced by this increase in his family, and the expenses of their education.

"Speculate with it," said Mrs. Nickleby.

"Spec—u—late, my dear?" said Mr. Nickleby, as though in doubt.

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Nickleby.

"Because, my dear, if we should lose it," rejoined Mr. Nickleby, who was a slow and time-taking speaker, "if we should lose it, we shall no longer be able to live, my dear."

"Fiddle," said Mrs. Nickleby.

"I am not altogether sure of that, my dear," said Mr. Nickleby.

"There's Nicholas," pursued the lady, " quite a young man—it's time he was in the way of doing something for himself; and Kate too, poor girl, without a penny in the world. Think of your brother! Would he be what he is, if he hadn't speculated?"

"That's true," replied Mr. Nickleby. "Very good, my dear. Yes. I will speculate, my dear."

Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of their cards at first starting; gains may be great and so may losses. The run of luck went against Mr. Nickleby. A mania prevailed, a bubble burst, four stock brokers took villa residences at Florence, four hundred nobodies were ruined, and among them Mr. Nickleby.

"The very house I live in," sighed the poor gentleman, "may be taken from me to-morrow. Not an article of my old furniture, but will be sold to strangers!" The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his bed; apparently resolved to keep that, at all events.

"Cheer up, sir! " said the apothecary.

"You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir," said the nurse.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/43

FINANCIAL RUIN. 7 "Such things happen every day," remarked the lawyer.

"And it is very sinful to rebel against them," whispered the clergyman.

"And what no man with a family ought to do," added the neighbours.

Mr. Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room, embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns to his languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow. They were concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for he babbled, for a long time, about the generosity and goodness of his brother, and the merry old times when they were at school together. This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them to One who never deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and, smiling gently on them, turned upon his face, and observed, that he thought he could fall asleep.


text: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/164

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/164


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/44

 CHAPTER II.

OF MR. RALPH NICKLEBY, AND HIS ESTABLISHMENT, AND HIS UNDERTAKINGS. AND OF A GREAT JOINT STOCK COMPANY OF VAST NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

MR. RALPH NICKLEBY was not, strictly speaking, what you would call a merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special pleader, nor a notary. He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less could he lay any claim to the title of a professional gentleman; for it would have been impossible to mention any recognised profession to which he belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in Golden Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door, had another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left hand door-post, surmounting a brass model of an infant's fist grasping a fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word "Office," it was clear that Mr. Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was abundantly demonstrated, by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of half-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the end of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he answered the bell.

Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. It is one of the squares that have been;


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/45

MR. RALPH NICKLEBY AT HOME. 9 a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when they give away the orders, all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera band reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer's night, windows are thrown open, and groups of swarthy mustachioed men are seen by the passer-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence; and the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.

This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of business; but Mr. Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for many years, and uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody round about, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the reputation of being immensely rich. The tradesmen held that he was a sort of lawyer, and the other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; both of which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about other people's affairs usually are, or need to be.

Mr. Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning,


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/46

10  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. ready dressed to walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue coat; a white waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn over them. The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as if insisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button of his spencer; and the latter garment was not made low enough to conceal a long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which had its beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr. Nickleby's pocket, and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the watch itself, and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his countenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, and in his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would announce itself in spite of him. However this might be, there he was; and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then, and are consequently no business of ours just now.

Mr. Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the dirty window. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps if the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards "gardens;" it is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/4

3

1.1 General Mission
The subject of this report is the design of an unmanned probe to Alpha Centauri. This mission is called for in the report by the National Commission on Space, Pioneering the Space Frontier. On pages 38 through 40 the commission outlines a program for the period "beyond the initial operation of the space station," and includes "a long life high-velocity spacecraft to be sent out of the Solar System on a trajectory to the nearest star." Our probe will be a completely autonomous design based upon a combination of current technology and technological advances which can be reasonably expected to be developed over the next 20 to 30 years. The expected launch date is in the beginning of the next century with a transit time of 100 years.

The mission profile will be as follows:

 * 1) Assembly of modular components on the ground.
 * 2) Launch of components to LEO.
 * 3) Assembly of components at Space Station.
 * 4) Boost assembled and fueled spacecraft to injection point for interstellar trajectory using chemical upper stage.
 * 5) Start main fusion drive and begin interstellar flight which will last approximately 100 years.
 * 6) During this period data will be returned on the interstellar medium and magnetic fields.
 * 7) Enter elliptical orbit around Beta Centauri and begin transmission of data.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blundeville, Thomas (fl.1561)


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/5

4

1.2 Technology
Using purely current technologies, a mission to another star system would be impossible to complete. There are basically three main areas where advances are needed: propulsion, data processing for command and control functions, and reliability.

In order to reduce transit time to an acceptable length, specific impulses on the order of 10E6 seconds are required. This represents an increase of several orders of magnitude over chemical rockets and nuclear rocket models which can be implemented using only present technology. To achieve the required levels of impulse, a pulsed fusion reactor based rocket engine is proposed. Based on the current level of technology in the field of microbomb fusion it is reasonable to assume that in 20 to 30 years such a system will be possible.

Due to the great distance at which the probe will operate, positive control from earth will be impossible due to the great time delays involved. This fact necessitates that the probe be able to think for itself. In order to accomplish this, advances will be required in two related but separate fields, artificial intelligence and computer hardware. AI research is advancing at a tremendous rate. Progress during the last decade has been phenomenal and there is no reason to expect it to slow any time soon. Therefore, it should be possible to design a system with the required intelligence by the time that this mission


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blundeville, Thomas de (d.1236)


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/47

IN A MEDITATIVE MOOD. 11 brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again: the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about—a prey to "blacks" and dirt.

It was into a place of this kind that Mr. Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat with his hands in his pockets looking out at window. He had fixed his eyes upon a distorted fir-tree, planted by some former tenant in a tub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rot away piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but Mr. Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with far greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have deigned to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to a little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerk was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to attend.

In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented himself in Mr. Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of middle-age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.

"Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?" said Mr. Nickleby, in a sharp and grating voice.

"Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the—" Noggs was going to add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted "regular time."


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hosmer, Jean


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blunt, Henry


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hosmer, Margaret


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/6

5 is expected to be launched. The problem with basing the design on current hardware is one of weight and speed. Producing a system with the required intelligence and speed, while including the needed redundancy using current technology, would result in a huge unit requiring a cooling system as large as a nuclear power plant's. Current advances have shrunk a Cray 2 from a room sized system needing a huge cooling plant to two chips, and with the advent of high temperature super-conductor technology there is every reason to assume that many more such quantum leaps in computer technology may be expected in the next 20 to 30 years.

Since no one has ever designed a dynamic system to last for more than a century, it is impossible to guess just how much the reliability of current systems will have to be improved. However, many satellites which were designed with mission lives of only a few years have operated for much longer periods of time, often failing merely because they ran out of expendables. The Transit family is a good example: they were designed to last for only 18 months and there are some still operating after 18 years or more. Other examples include Pioneer, Mariner, Voyager, and Viking. With successes in reliability such as these, and the improvements in simulation technology which will come with the improvements in computer technology (discussed in the previous paragraph), there should be no difficulty in designing in the required reliability.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/48

12  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. "My watch has stopped," said Mr. Nickleby; "I don't know from what cause."

"Not wound up," said Noggs.

"Yes it is," said Mr. Nickleby.

"Over-wound then," rejoined Noggs.

"That can't very well be," observed Mr. Nickleby.

"Must be," said Noggs.

"Well!" said Mr. Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket; "perhaps it is."

Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as he rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grim silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other: cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all possible distortions. The incessant performance of this routine on every occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look to his unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody to determine where or at what he was looking, were two among the numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight.

"I am going to the London Tavern this morning," said Mr. Nickleby.

"Public meeting?" inquired Noggs.

Mr. Nickleby nodded. "I expect a letter from the solicitor respecting that mortgage of Ruddle's. If it comes at all, it will be here by the two o'clock delivery. I shall leave the city about that time and walk to Charing-Cross on the left-hand side of the way; if there are any letters, come and meet me, and bring them with you."

Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office bell. The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly remained in a stationary position.

"The bell," said Noggs, as though in explanation. "At home?"


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/7

6

1.3 Infrastructure
A very strong effort towards space exploration will be required to complete this mission and this commitment will have to begin in order to ensure that those systems essential for the production of the probe and its initial boost phase will be in place when the enabling technologies are realized. These systems include a heavy-lift launch vehicle, a large space station and an advanced, high energy upper stage. These requirements represent merely the technological infrastructure; also required is a very large initial human infrastructure, as well as a long term human commitment.

The heavy-lift launcher is needed since current weight estimates for the spacecraft are in excess of 350 metric tons. Even after taking into account the assumption that the ship will be launched into LEO as a series of modular components, the size of many of the modules precludes their launch on the Shuttle. Additionally, some units will be too massive and complex to be launched by available launch vehicles.

Since a basic assumption in this analysis is that the probe will be launched in a modular form and assembled in orbit, it is necessary to provide an orbiting base of operations for the personnel assembling the components of the spacecraft. This base will be Space Station. Requirements for the station will include:


text: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/162

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/162


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


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/8

 * Capability to house a large work force to include assembly technicians and test engineers.
 * A number of large manipulator arms and sufficient mechanical support structure to allow attachment of all required assembly jigs.
 * Adequate data processing capability to perform systems checks during assembly and the final system check-out following assembly.

Due to the nature of the main drive, it is both inadvisable and impossible to complete the mission by igniting the fusion drive in LEO. This fact leads to the requirement for the advanced upper stage. The planned in-solar system mission profile calls for a series of three burns using these upper stages to escape the solar system from which the interstellar injection may be made. This report will assume that the upper stage will have twice the impulse and similar weight characteristics to the Space Shuttle SRB.

The human side of the infrastructure will be a much greater challenge than the technical side because the required commitment spans such a long period of time. The time between the initial authorization for the mission until the return of the first data from Alpha Centauri system will be well in excess of one century. In fact it will probably be on the order of two centuries when the time needed for hardware design, procurement, in-orbit assembly, and transit are considered. The effort required to design, build and launch the probe would be on the order of the Apollo project or much larger. The commitment at the other end of the mission should be an easy one to fulfill since scientists will be eager to analyze the incoming data. Thus, the greatest challenge comes


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/9

8 with the caretaker portion of the mission - the century of travel time when very little data will be transmitted. The problem here is not the number of people required, since it will be small, but rather the time involved. There has never been a similar project in modern history carried out over such a long time scale. However, there have been organizations which have lasted for such a time. In fact, some have lasted longer! Some examples include: the militaries of nations such as the U.S. and U.K., various research institutions like the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institute, and private organizations such as the Red Cross and the Explorer's Club. The precedent exists for organizations continuing for the required time frame. Therefore it can be assumed that the required support structure can be established.


text: Project Longshot/Mission Model

title: Project Longshot/Mission Model


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/49

"PROMOTING" A COMPANY. 13 "Yes."

"To anybody?"

"Yes."

"To the tax-gatherer?"

"No! Let him call again."

Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say "I thought so!" and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he presently returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr. Bonney, a pale gentleman in a violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed himself since.

"My dear Nickleby," said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which was so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head, "there's not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker takes the chair, and three members of Parliament are positively coming. I have seen two of them safely out of bed. The third, who was at Crockford's all night, has just gone home to put a clean shirt on, and take a bottle or two of soda water, and will certainly be with us, in time to address the meeting. He is a little excited by last night, but never mind that; he always speaks the stronger for it."

"It seems to promise pretty well," said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, whose deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other man of business.

"Pretty well!" echoed Mr. Bonney. "It's the finest idea that was ever started. 'United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.' Why the very name will get the shares up to a premium in ten days."

"And when they are at a premium," said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, smiling.

"When they are, you know what to do with them as well


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/10

9

2.1 Objective Star System
The star system chosen as our objective system for this mission is the Alpha Centauri trinary star system. There are three main reasons for choosing this system as the destination of the probe: (1) the system's proximity to our solar system; (2) the scientific interest of a trinary system; (3) sending a probe to this star system provides an opportunity to make great advances in the field of astrometry.

One of the main concerns regarding the success of the mission is the ability of the probe to be in good working order when it reaches the objective system. While any interstellar mission will require transit time in excess of a century, the Alpha Centauri system is the closest to our own, and thus provides the best opportunity to deliver a functional probe to another star system.

While it would be a great achievement to do a close-up study of any other star system, the Alpha Centauri system promises to be a a particularly interesting objective. Alpha and Beta Centauri, which are type G2V and dK1 stars, respectively, orbit each other with a separation of 11 to 35 AU. The third star of the system, Proxima Centauri, orbits the other pair


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/11

10 at a distance of about 1/6 of a light year. Proxima Centauri is a type dM5e red dwarf, which exhibits sudden changes in magnitude. It is also one of the smallest known stellar masses. Proxima's position should provide and opportunity for the probe to pass relatively close by on its way to its final destination, a close orbit about Beta Centauri. There is also the possibility that this star system contains planets. Advances in astronomy before the probe is launched should provide much more information about the system to help plan the probe's exploration.

Perhaps the greatest contribution that the mission will make to the scientific community will be in the field of astrometry. Sending a spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system provides an opportunity to make parallax measurements with a baseline of 4.34 light years (see Fig 2.1a). This is over 63,000 times longer than the present method, which uses the semimajor axis of Earth's orbit as a baseline (see Fig 2.1b). At this time, parallax measurements are only accurate to about 20 parsecs from the Sun. The longer the baseline would allow accurate measurements of stellar distances of more than 1.2 million parsecs. If the probe lasts long enough, it has the potential to accurately determine the distance to hundreds of trillions of stars. Knowing the distance to a star is vital in determining its properties. Such an accomplishment would keep astronomers busy for quite some time.


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/50

14  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. as any man alive, and how to back quietly out at the right time," said Mr. Bonney, slapping the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. "By the bye, what a very remarkable man that clerk of yours is."

"Yes, poor devil!" replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. "Though Newman Noggs kept his horses and hounds once."

"Aye, aye?" said the other carelessly.

"Yes," continued Ralph, "and not many years ago either; but he squandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and in short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar. He took to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came here to borrow a pound, as in his better days I had—"

"Done business with him," said Mr. Bonney with a meaning look.

"Just so," replied Ralph; "I couldn't lend it, you know."

"Oh, of course not."

"But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, I took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since. He is a little mad, I think," said Mr. Nickleby, calling up a charitable look, "but he is useful enough, poor creature—useful enough."

The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, being utterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages of a boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle, that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially valuable person in a place where much business was done, of which it was desirable no mention should be made out of doors. The other gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as they hurried into the hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr. Nickleby forgot to mention circumstances so unimportant.

There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew up, and (it being a windy day) half a dozen men were tacking across the road under a press of paper, bearing


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


text: Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/12


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


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


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/49

( 43 )

Put butter in my Donald's brose, For weel does Donald fa' that; I lo'e my Donald's tartan hose, His naked a—e, and a' that.

For a' that and a' that. And twice as mickle's a' that, The lassie gat a skelpit doup, But wan the day for a' that.

For Donald swore a solemn aith, By his first hairy gravat, That he would fecht the battle there, And stick the lass and a' that.

For a' that, etc.

His hairy b—l—ks side and wide, Hung like a beggar's wallet; His p—k stood like a rollin' pin. She nicher'd when she saw that.

For a' that, etc.

Then she turned up her h—ry c—t, And she bade Donald claw that; The devil's dizzen Donald drew, And Donald gied her a' that.

For a' that, etc.

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/49


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


text: Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/13


text: The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science/Volume 01/January 1845/Introductory


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boase, Henry Samuel


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/14

2.2 Operations
Assembly of the probe will occur in two phases: major components and subsystem will be assembled and tested on the ground, and then sent to LEO for final assembly and integration into the spacecraft. Transfer to orbit will require multiple launches with initial estimates indicating that launches will be carried out in the following manner, (based on current projections):

 * Fusion engine - one launch on an ALS-class vehicle.
 * Main structure - one launch on a Shuttle-class vehicle.
 * Fuel tanks - one launch on an ALS-class vehicle.
 * Fuel - one launch on a Growth ALS-class vehicle.
 * Payload - one launch on an ALS-class vehicle.
 * Upper stages for the initial phase of the mission will be launched as required based upon advances in upper stage technology.

The fusion drive will be launched as a finished unit due to its complexity. It will be equipped with a plug-in type interface for integration with the remainder of the ship. The main structure will be a collapsible space frame, which will be erected from its stored configuration by personnel at the space station. Additional structure will also be orbited in collapsed form for erection at Space Station. The fuel tanks will be built of sheet aluminum with formed end caps. The end caps will be launched in a completed and stacked configuration and the sheeting for the bodies will be rolled into a solid cylinder for launch. Assembly will occur in orbit using advanced adhesives technology. The fuel for the fusion engine


text:
Page:The American review - a Whig journal of politics, literature, art, and science (1845).djvu/266

248* If thou be not a mockery of the mind!

Nay! look not so upon me, with those eyes

Wherein a heaven of conscious purity

Lies calmly pitying, suffused with dew:

I know that I have sinned!

By evil power

Thou hast obtained my presence: what is there

Between thy soul and me?

Have I not loved thee,

And with a love that knew no change through years

Of suffering and sin? Have I not scorned

The loves of kindred and the hopes of fame,

The common sympathies of social life.

And smiles and tears of maidens eyeing me

With trembling tenderness—through darkening days

Still clinging to the worship of thine image,

The pale remembrance of a vanished dream?

Art thou so sinful, yet thou darest to love?

Has thy dark life borne thee to so great light?

—Heaven gave thee many gifts, the greatest this,

To feel in beauty an undying joy.

iSo could the spirit of the universe

Thy boyhood thrill, and Nature's lessons wise

Were stored in golden chambers of thy mind.

But when with growing years it had become

The passion of thy being, and thou could'st

Forget or scorn that nobler beauty. Virtue's,

And the bright forms of uncreated Truth,

The aims of all existence were o'erlooked.

And Heaven commended to thy parching lips

The ashy cup of bitterest discontent.

Turning from these in wretchedness of heart

To satisfy the cravings of the soul,

With beauty more sublime, ethereal.

Of knowledge and the mind; but this alone,

The farther thou from highest excellence,

And darker paths around thee. It was then

To punish thy perverseness, I was sent

To lead thy folly on and torture thee

With a vain vision. In that transient dream

I did appear, and by that shady fountain

In this created loveliness I gazed

In sadness on thee—that thou couldst so miss

What was most truly beautiful, and stir

Thy soul's pure springs to blackness with vain toil

After that happiness which hidden lay

In thine own breast; would'st thou its fount unseal

I would have spoken, but thy God had left thee

To the wild workings of thine own dark soul.

And would not have thee warned. And from that hour

In wretched constancy thou hast adored

My semblance mirrored in thy restless mind—

A phantom loveliness. But now return

To the green earth, and open all thy heart

To fairest Virtue and immortal Truth,

And the large charities of human love,

And through thy being thou shalt thrice enjoy

All loveliness beside; but otherwise

Created beauty shall forever be

A madness and a torture to thy spirit:

The conquering sun shall seem to thee a blot.


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/15

 will consist of He3 and deuteruimdeuterium [sic]. The He3 will probably be manufactured on earth using particle accelerators, and then both components of the fuel will be launched in liquid form to orbit for processing into pelletized reactor fuel. The payload, like the fusion drive, will be launched fully-assembled, and have a simple plug-in interface to the rest of the system.

By the time that this mission will be flown, the experience gained through the assembly of Space Station, and the ongoing orbital operations which it is expected to support, will provide an adequate base of technology for personnel to assemble the probe. During assembly, systems checks will be run as each component is integrated into the spacecraft, to prevent failures which would necessitate disassembly of components assembled in orbit. Following assembly, a comprehensive system check-out will be made prior to ignition of the upper stages.

The fission reactor will be used to provide the initial power required to start the fusion reactor. Once the drive is ignited it will become self-sustaining and provide enough excess power to operate the systems in use during the transit. During this phase, fuel will be drawn from symmetrically located pairs of fuel tanks to avoid instability caused by non-homogeneous mass distribution. As each pair of tanks is emptied, they will be discarded. Tank volume has been calculated so that four of the ship's six tanks will have been jettisoned by the time it reaches the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boate, Arnold


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/16

 (see Figs 2.2a and 2.2b). This point has been chosen so that reversal of the spacecraft and reignition of the main drive will result in arrival at the target at proper insertion speed. When the turn around point is reached, the drive will be shut down, and the probe rotated 180 degrees with respect to its velocity vector using the attitude control system. Following the turn around maneuver, the fission reactor will again be used to provide power to restart the drive. These activities will occur at the 71.27 year point in the mission (see Figs. 2.2c and 2.2d for graphs and appendix for calculations).

Throughout this phase of the flight, data from experiments on interstellar space will be returned to earth at low data rates. This will serve two purposes, providing scientific data, and ensuring that contact will be maintained with the probe. Since the probe will be fully autonomous, any problems with the communications system, due to degradation of the transmitting equipment or faulty link analysis will have to be corrected by making improvements to the receiving equipment. Maintaining constant contact will allow the required lead time to implement any necessary corrective measures in the receiving equipment.

After deceleration is completed, the two remaining fuel tanks and the fusion drive will be discarded and the instruments deployed. The attitude control system which was used to rotate the entire spacecraft will be used as necessary to place the


text:
Page:The American review - a Whig journal of politics, literature, art, and science (1845).djvu/267

1845.] The stars shall pain thee, and the pallid moon

Shall haunt thee like a ghost; the skies, the sea,

And mighty forests shall oppress thy soul

With deep self-scorn; no common plant or flower

Shall move sweet tears in thee, and thou shalt wish

All happy birds and innocent finny tribes

Might from the face of Nature quickly perish:

Yea! evermore, instead of radiant shapes

That can withdraw thee hourly into Heaven,

From out the gloomy places of the mind

Skeleton Horror shall surprise and scare thee.

(Spirit of Beauty retiring.)

Oh! one word more! Say that thou hat'st me not!

How should I hate whom Heaven hath borne so long?

Yet now, farewell I

Oh! linger yet a moment!

Is it a sin that I have loved thee so,

And worshipped thy bright image? If it be,

Let grief and suffering atone for that,

Long as this heart can know the power of pain.

But let me gaze on thee and hear thee still.

How can I linger? for my errand is

To beautify the universe of God,

Where'er fresh worlds encroach upon the vo

Of outer darkness. Yet my presence still

Shall be around thee, and with upright soul

Thou may'st behold and hear me in the face

And voice of Nature—in the whisperings

And sweet affections of the human breast.

And in the aspirings of the human mind

Be they but pure.

I hear the journeying stars,

The circling suns, and angel's song proclaim

The birth of a new world, and I must haste

To bathe it in the gladdening smile of God!


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


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


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


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hosmer, Titus


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bodley, Josias


text: Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/17


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bodley, Laurence


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/18

17


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boece, Hector


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


text: The Statutes at Large (Ruffhead)

title: The Statutes at Large (Ruffhead)


text:
Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/163

Rh

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/163


text: Beowulf (Wyatt)/The Fight at Finnsburg

title: Beowulf (Wyatt)/The Fight at Finnsburg


text: The Statutes at Large (Ruffhead)/Volume 1


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


text: United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/4th Congress/2nd Session/Chapter 11


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bogue, David


text: Category:1460 works

title: Category:1460 works


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bohemus, Mauritius


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bohun, Humphrey III de


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bohun, Humphrey V de


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bohun, Humphrey VII de


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bohun, Humphrey VIII de


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


text: The Statutes at Large (Ruffhead)/Volume 1/Table of the Publick and Private Statutes


text: The Statutes at Large (Ruffhead)/Volume 1/Preface


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Oberlin, Jean Frédéric

OBERLIN, Jean Frédéric, ō-bĕr-lăṅ, Alsatian clergyman and philanthropist: b. Strassburg, 31 Aug. 1740; d. Ban-de-la-Roche, 1 June 1826. He was educated at Strassburg and in 1767 became pastor at Ban-de-la-Roche. There he spent the rest of his long life in labor for the material and spiritual improvement of his degraded parishioners. He practised medicine among them, founded a loan and savings bank, introduced cotton manufacture, helped the people build better roads, and brought in modern agricultural methods. His orphan asylums were the beginning of the many “Oberlinvereine” for the protection of children. Beside all this he was a man of rare spirituality, being frequently styled “a saint of the Protestant church,” and an excellent pastor, who preached each month three sermons in French and one in German. ../Oberlin College/ (q.v.), Ohio, was named in his honor. Consult the biographies by Butler (English, 1882); Lutteroth (French, 1826; a German version, 1890); and Hackenschmidt (German, 1902); and the life and works of Oberlin as edited by Hilpert and Stoeber (German, 1843).


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/58

(　52　)

Green grow the rashes, O, Green grow the rashes, O, The lassies they hae wimble-bores, The widows they hae gashes, O.

O wat ye ought o' fisher Meg, And how she trow'd the wabster, O, She loot me see her carrot c—t, And sell'd it for a labster, O. Mistress Mary cow'd her thing, Because she wad be gentle, O, And span the fleece upon a rock. To waft a Highland mantle, O.

An' heard ye o' the coat o' arms The Lyon brought our lady, O, The crest was couchant, sable c— t, The motto, " Ready, Ready," O.

An' ken ye Leezie Lundie, O, The godly Leezie Lundie, O; She m—s like reek thro' a' the week, But finger fr—gs on Sunday, O.

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/58


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/51

AN ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING. 15 gigantic announcements that a Public Meeting would be holden at one o'clock precisely, to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in fat black figures of considerable size. Mr. Bonney elbowed his way briskly up stairs, receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on the landings to show the way, and, followed by Mr. Nickleby, dived into a suite of apartments behind the great public-room: in the second of which was a business-looking table, and several business-looking people.

"Hear!" cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr. Bonney presented himself. "Chair, gentlemen, chair!"

The new comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr. Bonney bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman's knock on the table with a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried "Hear!" and nodded slightly to each other, as much as to say what spirited conduct that was. Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish with agitation, tore into the room, and throwing the door open with a crash, shouted "Sir Matthew Pupker!"

The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy; and while they were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two live members of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling and bowing, and looking so pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel how any man could have the heart to vote against them. Sir Matthew Pupker especially, who had a little round head with a flaxen wig on the top of it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the wig threatened to be jerked off, every instant. When these symptoms had in some degree subsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker, or the two other members, crowded round them in three little


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/59

(　53　)

Green grow the rashes, O, Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest bed that e'er I got, Was the bellies o' the lassies, O. 'Twas late yestreen I met wi' ane And wow but she was gentle, O; Ae han' she pat to my gravat, The tither to my p—t—e, O.

I dought na speak, yet was na fly'd. My heart play'd duntie, duntie, 0, A' ceremonie laid aside, I fairly faund her c—t—ie, O.

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/59


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/52

16  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. groups, near one or other of which the gentlemen who were not on speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stood lingering, and smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope of something turning up which might bring them into notice. All this time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other members were relating to their separate circles what the intentions of government were, about taking up the bill; with a full account of what the government had said in a whisper the last time they dined with it, and how the government had been observed to wink when it said so; from which premises they were at no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had one object more at heart than another, that one object was the welfare and advantage of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.

Meanwhile, and pending the arrangements of the proceedings, and a fair division of the speechifying, the public in the large room were eyeing, by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music Gallery. In these amusements the greater portion of them had been occupied for a couple of hours before, and as the most agreeable diversions pall upon the taste on a too protracted enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now began to hammer the floor with their boot-heels, and to express their dissatisfaction by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions, emanating from the people who had been there longest, naturally proceeded from those who were nearest to the platform and furthest from the policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight their way through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desire to do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began to drag forth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near the door; at the same time dealing out various smart and tingling blows with their truncheons, after the manner of that ingenious actor, Mr. Punch: whose brilliant example, both in the fashion of


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/53

STATE OF THE MUFFIN TRADE. 17 his weapons and their use, this branch of the executive occasionally follows.

Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shout attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there poured on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of gentlemen with their hats off, all looking behind them, and uttering vociferous cheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently explained when Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other real members of Parliament came to the front, amidst deafening shouts, and testified to each other in dumb motions that they had never seen such a glorious sight as that, in the whole course of their public career.

At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir Matthew Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse which lasted five minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must be his feelings on that great occasion, and what must be that occasion in the eyes of the world, and what must be the intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be the wealth and respectability of his honorable friends behind him, and lastly, what must be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort, the liberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such an Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company!

Mr. Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; and having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of the gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species of bottle-holder to the orators generally), and said he would read to them the first resolution—"That this meeting views with alarm and apprehension, the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and its neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys, as at present constituted, wholly undeserving the confidence of the public; and that it deems the whole Muffin system alike


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/54

18  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. prejudicial to the health and morals of the people, and subversive of the best interests of a great commercial and mercantile community." The honorable gentleman made a speech which drew tears from the eyes of the ladies, and awakened the liveliest emotions in every individual present. He had visited the houses of the poor in the various districts of London, and had found them destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which there appeared too much reason to believe some of these indigent persons did not taste from year's end to year's end. He had found that among muffin-sellers there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he attributed to the debasing nature of their employment as at present exercised; he had found the same vices among the poorer class of people who ought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to the despair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of that nutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant in intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a committee of the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it by bellmen at the bar of that house; and he would also prove, that these men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs, as "Snooks," "Walker," " Ferguson," " Is Murphy right?" and many others.

It was this melancholy state of things that the Company proposed to correct; firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffin trading of every description; secondly, by themselves supplying the public generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first quality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill had been introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir Matthew Pupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it was the supporters of this bill who would confer undying brightness and splendour upon England, under the name of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company; he would


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


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/55

CASE OF A MUFFIN BOY. 19 add, with a capital of Five Millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.

Mr. Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman having moved that it be amended by the insertion of the words "and crumpet" after the word "muffin," whenever it occurred, it was carried triumphantly. Only one man in the crowd cried "No!" and he was promptly taken into custody, and straightway borne off.

The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of immediately abolishing "all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders in muffins (or crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or female, boys or men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise," was moved by a grievous gentleman of semi-clerical appearance, who went at once into such deep pathetics, that he knocked the first speaker clean out of the course in no time. You might have heard a pin fall—a pin! a feather—as he described the cruelties inflicted on muffin boys by their masters, which he very wisely urged were in themselves a sufficient reason for the establishment of that inestimable company. It seemed that the unhappy youths were nightly turned out into the wet streets at the most inclement periods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain—or it might be hail or snow—for hours together, without shelter, food, or warmth; and let the public never forget upon the latter point, that while the muffins were provided with warm clothing and blankets, the boys were wholly unprovided for, and left to their own miserable resources. (Shame!) The honorable gentleman related one case of a muffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous system for no less than five years, at length fell a victim to a cold in the head, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into a perspiration and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but he had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more heart-rending and appalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of an orphan muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blundell, Henry


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/56

20  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. carriage, had been removed to the hospital, had undergone the amputation of his leg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing his occupation on crutches. Fountain of justice, were these things to last!

This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and this was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The men shouted; the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they were moist, and waved them till they were dry; the excitement was tremendous; and Mr. Nickleby whispered his friend that the shares were thenceforth at a premium of five-and-twenty per cent.

The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasm have held up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplished it. This done, the draft of the proposed petition was read at length; and the petition said, as all petitions do say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the petitioned very honorable, and the object very virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill ought to be passed into a law at once, to the everlasting honor and glory of that most honorable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.

Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford's all night, and who looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour of that petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he meant to taunt the Parliament if they rejected the bill; and to inform them also, that he regretted his honorable friends had not inserted a clause rendering the purchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon all classes of the community, which he—opposing all half measures, and preferring to go the extreme animal—pledged himself to propose and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, the honorable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-colored kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/60

( 54 )

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/60


text:
Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 4.djvu/57

ADOPTION OF THE PETITION. 21 materially, there was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman quite into the shade.

And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, there came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can make, breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth with such fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the course whereof, he told them how he would demand the extension of that great boon to his native country; how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffin laws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day when crumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells should ring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member, with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and established in the hearers' minds that there was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.

So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meeting adjourned with acclamations, and Mr. Nickleby and the other directors went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past one o'clock; and to remunerate themselves for which trouble (as the company was yet in its infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man for every such attendance.


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blundell, Peter


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


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/61

( 55 )

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/61


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


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/69

Rh oaks whose magnificent branches afford habitation to sundry friendly colonies of squirrels and woodpeckers.

This time-honored mansion was the residence of the family of Hazards. But in the present generation the spells of love and mortgage have translated the possession to Frank Meriwether, who, having married Lucretia, the eldest daughter of my late Uncle Walter Hazard, and lifted some gentlemanlike encumbrances which had been sleeping for years upon the domain, was thus inducted into the proprietary rights. The adjacency of his own estate gave a territorial feature to this alliance, of which the fruits were no less discernible in the multiplication of negroes, cattle, and poultry than in a flourishing clan of Meriwethers.

The main building is more than a century old. It is built with thick brick walls, but one story in height, and surmounted by a double-faced or hipped roof, which gives the idea of a ship bottom upwards. Later buildings have been added to this as the wants or ambition of the family have expanded. These are all constructed of wood, and seem to have been built in defiance of all laws of congruity, just as convenience required. But they form altogether an agreeable picture of habitation, suggesting the idea of comfort in the ample space they fill and in their conspicuous adaptation to domestic uses.

The hall door is an ancient piece of walnut, which has grown


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


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


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boitard, Louis Peter


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/91

Rh "It is more like a deer stalking through the bushes, Galbraith."

"No," exclaimed the sergeant, "that's the gallop of a horse making down the road ahead of us, as sure as you are alive; I heard the shoe strike a stone. You must have hearn it, too."

"I would n't be sure," answered Butler.

"Look to your pistols, major, and prime afresh."

"We seem to have ridden a great way," said Butler, as he concluded the inspection of his pistols and now held one of


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bokenham, Osbern


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


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/50

(　44　)

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/50


text:
Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/51

(　45　)

title: Page:Merry Muses of Caledonia.djvu/51


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Huxley, Thomas Henry


text: Template:DNB EO

title: Template:DNB EO


text: Index:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu


text: User:TheJJJunk

title: User:TheJJJunk


text: Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/2


text: Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/4


text: Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/44


text: Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/43


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/42

 of that cause; they know that many of the things written about the cause and conduct of the North, and its leaders, and especially about Mr. Lincoln, are false. Are we so debased and cowed by the results of the conflict that we must remain silent about these for the sake of political expediency or material gain, and not tell our children the truth, when our quondam enemies have furnished us the evidences of that truth? If we do, then, in our opinion, we are unworthy of our Confederate uniforms, and to have been the followers of Lee and Jackson and their compeers. If we remain silent, can we expect those who come after us to speak? Nay, will they not rather interpret our silence as a confession of guilt, and that we deemed our cause an unholy one? So that, it seems to us, this address not only finds its justification on the low plea of "retaliation in kind," but that its justification rests upon the impregnable foundations of truth and necessity, as well as that of a duty we owe alike to the memories of our dead comrades, to ourselves, our children and our children's children.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/123

Rh criticism, biography, history, and other forms of writing. The result of this literary endeavor is summed up in the words of Professor W. P. Trent: "Although he left behind little that is permanent, he did write half a dozen or more romances of colonial and Revolutionary Carolina that are interesting and valuble for the light they throw upon an important period of Southern history."]

[The incidents are supposed to take place in the region of Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1715, when the Yemassee Indians, who had been friendly to the English of South Carolina, joined with the Spaniards in making war upon them. The story opens with Captain Gabriel Harrison (who is really Governor Craven of South Carolina in disguise) learning of the plans of the Indians and endeavoring to succor the white people from the impending general massacre. Captain Harrison is particularly interested in saving his sweetheart, Bess Matthews, and her father, a Puritan preacher. He urges them either to go to Charleston or to go to the neighboring blockhouse for safety, but the preacher declines to do so, insisting that the Indians intend no mischief. Captain Harrison urges the other frontiersmen


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/147

Rh its throng of lookers-on, scarcely shed any light upon her anxious and fearful heart; she only felt that to-night the crowd at the theater would be noisier and more dense, her duty only more repulsive to her—finally, that all this bustle and confusion was to terminate in a ball, at which she was to pass

through a fiery ordeal of frowns and comments, even through worse, perhaps more dreadful, trials. She had not dared that morning, when her father told her he should expect her to keep her promise and accompany the young man after the theater to the ball—the poor girl had not dared to speak of her secret,


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/5

C L C, L G

By a resolution adopted by the unanimous vote of this Camp, I have been asked to deliver an address on the life and character of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United States. Believing the request a reasonable one to be preferred by the Camp, and that such a request from the Camp to one of its members is equivalent to a command, I have, with some hesitation, and with greater distrust of my ability to meet the expectations of the Camp, undertaken the fulfilment of the uncongenial and perhaps unprofitable task thus imposed upon me. I wish to state in the outset that what I shall say on this occasion will be 'said in no spirit of carping criticism, with no desire to do injustice to my remarkable subject, and will be as free from sectional prejudice and passion as one who has suffered as I have, by the conduct of Mr. Lincoln and his followers, can make it; and I shall also strive to say what I do say solely in the interest of the truth of history.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," is a maxim of the Divine Teacher, and it embodies a principle which should be the "guiding star" of every writer of history. The truth about the cause, the character and conduct of the leaders in the great conflict from '61 to '65 is all that we of the South ask, or have a right to ask, and we should be satisfied with nothing less than the truth about these.

Whenever the good character of a person is put in issue, the party avouching that good character challenges the opposite side to show, by all legitimate means, the contrary of the fact thus put in issue. In the war between the States the character and conduct of the leaders on both sides were necessarily involved, and especially was this true of the character and conduct of the official heads of the respective sides. Last year was the centennial of the birth of Jefferson Davis, the civic leader and official head of the Southern Confederacy; the South duly celebrated that centennial


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/204

186 unfortunately fixed him for visiting his mother on crutches the balance of his life.

One thing I will say for the Virginians—I never knew one of them, under any pressure, to extemporize a profession. The

sentiment of reverence for the mysteries of medicine and law was too large for deliberate quackery; as to the pulpit, a man might as well do his starving without the hypocrisy. But others were not so nice. I have known them to rush, when the wolf


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/6

 and avouched to the world the conduct and the character of their representative head and his leadership, and ye think every one who loves the memory of the Confederacy, and of our great struggle to maintain it, ought to feel gratified and satisfied with the result.

This year is the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the civic leader and official head of the United States during the existence of the Confederacy, and the North has with singular temerity, as it seems to us, thrust his character and conduct before the world, some of them even claiming that he was the "greatest, wisest and godliest man that has appeared on the earth since Christ." (See Facts and Falsehoods, 4.)

This being true, and since some Southern writers have united in these, it seems to us, unmerited adulations of this man, no apology would seem to be necessary for enquiring as to the real basis of the claims of these eulogists of Mr. Lincoln to the admiration, veneration and alleged greatness now attempted to be heaped upon him.

In this discussion we would, if we could do so and speak the truth, gladly adopt the Roman maxim, to speak nothing but good of the dead. But since some of Mr. Lincoln's nearest and dearest friends (?) have not seen fit, or been able to do this, surely a Southern writer should not be criticized or judged harshly for repeating what some of these friends, who apparently knew him best and loved him most, and who tell us they are only telling what they know to be true of this remarkable man, have to say about him, his character and his conduct.

That the career of Mr. Lincoln was one of the most remarkable recorded in history, and that he must have had some element of character which made that career possible, no one will deny. But that he was the pious and exemplary Christian, the great and good man, "the prophet, priest and king," the "Washington," the "Moses," the "Second to Christ," now being portrayed to the world by some of his prejudiced and intemperate admirers, we unhesitatingly deny, and we think it our duty, both to ourselves and to our children, to correct some of the false impressions attempted to be made about this man's character and career, let the criticisms or consequences be what they may.

We have no right to do so, and we do not object, in the least, that Mr. Lincoln shall be put forward as the representative man


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/7

 and ideal of the North; but we do object to, and protest against, his being proclaimed to the world as the exemplar and representative of the South and its people. We proclaim Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. and Albert Sydney Johnston, Wade Hampton, Jeb Stuart, and such like men, as our heroes and ideals and as the exemplars for our children and our children's children.

There are three reasons which we think in great measure account for the erroneous conceptions and extravagant portrayals now being made of Mr. Lincoln, viz:

(1) The cause of which he was the official head has, temporarily at least, been deemed a success.

(2) The manner of his death was such as to shock all right-thinking people and to create sympathy in his behalf; for, like the great Roman Germanicus, it may well be said, he was most fortunate in the circumstances of his death.

(3) He was the first President of the Republican party—the party which has practically dominated this country ever since Mr. Lincoln's first election.

The acts and doings of that party during the time he was its official head, many of which were illegal, unconstitutional, tyrannical and oppressive, will be judged, to a degree at least, by the character and conduct of the man who held that official position; and the representatives of that party have, therefore, hesitated at nothing to try to make it appear that their official leader was a great and good man, and that, therefore, they were justified in following his leadership.

In the course of this address we shall say but little of Mr. Lincoln's private life, and shall refer to it only to show that much of it was utterly at variance with the life of the man now being portrayed to us; and we shall certainly not criticise his humble and obscure birth and origin, but, on the contrary, we extol him for being able to rise so far as he did above these, believing, as we do, with Pope, that


text:
Author:William Kinnaird Rose

Works

 * The Modern Bayard: a Life of General Skobeleff
 * A History of Agriculture in Scotland
 * Political Ethnology
 * A Popular Handbook on Forestry

title: Author:William Kinnaird Rose


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/8

As to the cause of which he was the official head being successful, we will only remark that it was certainly successful in preventing the establishment of the Southern Confederacy within certain territorial limits; but whether successful in any other sense, remains yet to be determined. The Washington Post of August 14, 1906, said:

"Let us be frank about it. The day the people of the North responded to Abraham Lincoln's call for troops to coerce sovereign States, the Republic died and the Nation was born."

And a Massachusetts man has written of the Confederates that—

"Such character and achievement were not all in vain; that though the Confederacy fell as an actual physical power, it lives eternally in its just cause—the cause of constitutional liberty."

As to the manner of Mr. Lincoln's death, aside from the abhorrence with which we regard and denounce every form of assassination, we have to remark: (1) That it really exalted his name and fame as nothing before it happened had done, or, in our opinion, could have done; and (2) as dastardly, as cowardly and cruel as that deed was, it was, in our opinion, not so dastardly, cowardly or cruel, and no more criminal in the eye of the law, than the murder of Mrs. Surratt, an nnocent woman, by Andrew Johnson, Edwin M. Stanton, Joseph Holt, David Hunter and their wicked and cowardly associates. The act of Booth was that of a frenzied fanatic, taking his life in his own hands, and attempting to avenge his people's wrongs by ridding the world of the man he believed to be the author of those wrongs; the act of Johnson, Stanton and others in murdering Mrs. Surratt was the deliberate and criminal act of cruel, cowardly men, perpetrated on a helpless, harmless and innocent woman, through instrumentalities and forms as cruel as any that were ever devised in the darkest ages of the world, but by methods and at a time when the perpetrators knew that their cowardly bodies were safe from all harm. (See DeWitt's Assassination of Lincoln, p. 92, et seq.) This woman was tried and convicted by a military commission, of which General David Hunter was the president. It was pointed out to the so-called court, by that


text:
Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/208

190

[Francis Scott Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1780. After being educated at St. John's College, Annapolis, he began the practice of law in Washington, where he died in 1843. After his death a volume of his poems was published, but as it consists largely of occasional pieces not originally intended for publication, it has added little to his fame, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" remains his best-known production.]

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?


text:
Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/28

And it should never be forgotten that in the election held in November, 1864, between Lincoln and McClellan, in which the platform of McClellan's party charged that the war had been a failure; that the Constitution had been disregarded in every part; that justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demanded that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with the ultimate convention of all the States that these may be restored on the basis of a federal union of all the States; * * * that they considered the administration's "usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution" as "calculated to prevent a restoration of the union"; and which further charged that administration with "woeful disregard of its duty to prisoners of war"; that during this canvass Lincoln was denounced as a "remorseless tyrant," and his administration as the "Rebellion of Abraham Lincoln." That out of a vote of four millions of the Northern people cast in that election, nearly one-half, viz., 1,800,000 voted for McClellan and in condemnation of Mr. Lincoln on the foregoing platform and charges. So with this evidence of the condemnation of Mr. Lincoln and his administration, just five months before his death, by so many of his own people, we must be excused if we decline to accept the portraiture of his character and conduct as now so persistently presented to us by these same people, and we must be excused too for being skeptical about their sincerity in believing in the truthfulness of that portraiture themselves.

We charge, and without the fear of successful contradiction, that Mr. Lincoln, as the head of the Federal Government, and the Commander-in-chief of its armies, was ''directly responsible for the outrages committed by his subordinates; and that the future and un-prejudiced historian will so hold him responsible, we verily believe. ''

But this is not all. Mr. Lincoln was directly responsible for all the sorrows, sufferings and deaths of prisoners on both sides during the war. At the beginning of the war, the Confederate Government enacted that "rations furnished prisoners of war shall be the same in quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men in the


text: Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/239


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/19

18


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/20

19


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/21

20 probe into an elliptical orbit around Beta Centauri and to maintain this orbit. Once in orbit, high data rate collection and transfer will begin based on both a preprogrammed series of studies and a set of prioritized experiments (determined by what is found in the system). This will continue until the spacecraft's nuclear plant ceases to produce enough power to operate the communications lasers, which will constitute the end of the mission.


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/22

2.3 Orbits
Once the probe is assembled in orbit at the space station, it will be nudged into an independent but similar orbit to prevent damage to the station due to the exhaust from the first upper-stage burn (see Fig. 2.3a). This burn will be made to increase the inclination of the probe orbit from 28.5 degrees to 37.5 degrees so that it will sum with the obliquity and result in an orbit inclined 61 degrees relative to the ecliptic. This stage will be jettisoned, and the spacecraft will then escape Earth with a second burn which occurs at the ascending node of the probe's orbit about the earth (see Fig. 2.3b). This point then becomes the ascending node of the probe's heliocentric orbit, which is a circular orbit at 1 AU and at an inclination of 61 degrees. The second stage will then separate, and three months (i.e. one-fourth of an orbit) later, the third and final upper-stage will burn. This will send the spacecraft on an escape trajectory toward the Centauri system (see Fig. 2.3c), which is located at a declination of −61 degrees to the ecliptic. Upon completion of the interstellar phase of the mission the probe will be inserted into an eccentric orbit about Beta (see Figs. 2.3d and 2.3e).

Assuming a space station orbit of 300 kilometers at an inclination of 28.5 degrees, the following values were determined for required velocity changes for the probe. The Alpha Centauri star system is at a


text: Southern Historical Society Papers/Volume 23


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oberammergau


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/23

23


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/24

Rh


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/25

Rh


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/26

Rh


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/27

Rh

ALPHA-BETA SEPARATION: 11-35 A.U. Rp ABOUT BETA: 1 A.U. RA ABOUT BETA: 2.5 A.U. SEMI-MAJOR AXIS: 1.75 A.U. ECCENTRICITY: 0.429 PERIOD: 2.5 EARTH YEARS VELOCITY AT APOGEE: 13.1 km/sec VELOCITY AT PERIGEE: 32.9 km/sec


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/28

Rh declination of −61 degrees relative to the ecliptic of our solar system. At the optimum launch position, the obliquity (23.5 degrees from the ecliptic) will sum with the inclination angle of the spacecraft's orbit (28.5 degrees from the equator). This will make the probe's orbit 52 degrees from the ecliptic. Thus, a 9 degree plane change is required to put the probe into a 61 degree orbit around the earth (relative to the ecliptic). From this orbit, another velocity change is necessary to escape the earth's gravity and inject the probe into a circular orbit about the sun at 1 AU and a 61 degree inclination. At this point, there are two options to be considered, depending on the fuel source, Earth or Jupiter. For the first option, the probe will leave from this orbit directly for Alpha Centauri, in which case it will change velocity at the perihelion of the transfer orbit between our solar system and Alpha Centauri. For the second option the spacecraft will transfer to a Jupiter-distanced heliocentric orbit, using a velocity change at the perihelion of the Earth to Jupiter transfer orbit, and inject into an orbit around Jupiter at a 61 degree inclination (to take on fuel). The probe will then escape back into a Jupiter-distanced heliocentric orbit at 61 degrees relative to the ecliptic. Finally, it will escape the solar system and head for Alpha Centauri, with a burn at perihelion of the Sol-Centauri transfer orbit.

(see appendix for actual number calculations)


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oberhausen

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oberhausen


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/29

Rh For Option #2, the first two numbers are the same.

Obviously, the option of picking up fuel mined from the atmosphere of Jupiter would be impractical because of high cost and complication.

For the objective orbit within the Centauri system, Beta was chosen as the target star because it is a dK-type star, about which we have very little data, while Alpha is a G2 type star like our own, which we have studied extensively. the orbit chosen is based on an assumption that Alpha and Beta (which vary in distance between 11 and 35 AU) will be at the lesser of the two distances. The orbit chosen is an elliptical orbit around Beta for which the aphelion lies on the line between Alpha and Beta. The perihelion radius was set at 1 AU. The aphelion was determined based on a requirement that the gravitational effect of Alpha would not exceed 5% of the gravitational effect of Beta. Accordingly, an aphelion of 2.5 AU was chosen. At this aphelion the gravitational force on the probe due to


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oberlahnstein


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/30

 Alpha will be equal to 3.3% of the gravitational force due to Beta. Based on the chosen perihelion and aphelion radii, the orbital parameters were determined:

a = 1.75 AU e = 0.428572 E = −216.95 kmE2/secE2 T = 2.4977 Earth years Va = 13.1 km/s Vp = 32.935 km/s

The perihelion velocity will be the velocity to which the probe must be slowed for proper insertion into this orbit.


text: Project Longshot/Mission Profile

title: Project Longshot/Mission Profile


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oberlin, Jean Frédéric


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/31

Rh

3.1 Power
Power for the instruments, computer, communication lasers, and star trackers will be supplied by a 300 kilowatt nuclear reactor. This reactor will be compact-sized, have a low specific mass, long life, high reliability, and a variable power output. Different systems were compared, and a design published by Jones, MacPherson, and Nichols, of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was chosen and scaled down to suit the needs of the Centauri mission.

This power system concept defines a nuclear reactor with ceramic fuel, clad with refractory metal, and cooled by liquid potassium (1365 K). Also described is a direct, closed Rankine power conversion cycle, and a large tetraxial flywheel energy storage system featuring graphite composite materials and magnetic bearings. The fuel is is [sic] enriched uranium nitride pellets. The reactor and flywheel systems will be constructed as separate modules designed to fit in the shuttle cargo bay.

The reactor will boil potassium which will then be piped through a turbine that will convert the thermal


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/32

Rh energy to mechanical energy. The potassium is further cooled by flowing through the heat radiators and is then recycled back into the reactor.

The electrical current produced by the spinning turbine is directed to the two (for redundancy) energy storage systems located at either end of the main structural truss. The modules contain flywheels which store the energy in their spin rate, and also provide attitude control by absorbing external torques.

Power output is variable but will need to be a minimum of 250 kW during the in-system phase of the mission to power the communication lasers and computer.


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/33

Rh

3.2.1 In Solar System
Since it will not be practical (or safe!) to ignite the fusion drive while in earth orbit, another propulsion system will need to be used for the plane change and to escape the Earth and the solar system (see Orbits). Advanced solid rockets will be employed to accomplish these velocity changes. it is assumed that they will be similar in size and fuel to the Space Shuttle's SRB's with twice the specific impulse (near 600 seconds). Based on this assumption, the following parameters for the various upper stages were calculated:

(see appendix for calculations)


text:
Page:Project Longshot - Advanced Design Program Project Report.pdf/34

3.2.2 Interstellar Transit
Developing a Propulsion system capable of meeting the 100-year interstellar travel time is the most difficult part of the mission design. 4.3 light years is an easily misinterpreted distance. It is equivalent to 41,000 terra meters (41E15 km) which would take the space shuttle just over 190,000 years (assuming it had escaped the solar system at the speed of Low Earth Orbit). Although 100 years is a long time, this requirement expects a three-order-of-magnitude leap over current propulsion technology.

3.2.2.1 Choosing the System
After the initial inspection of potential Interstellar Drive candidates, it was decided that chemical fuels would not be able to produce a three order of magnitude leap over current systems in the near future. Five alternate technologies were compared for their potential as Interstellar Drive candidates: Pulsed Fusion Microexplosions, Laser-pumped Light Sails, Ion Drive, High Temperature Thermal Expansion of Gas, and Matter Anti-matter Annihilation (see Fig. 3.2a for a summary table). After a thorough inspection of each of the five candidates it was decided that only the Pulsed Fusion Microexplosion was adequately capable of carrying out the mission requirements.


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/115

 of the town. It was at Lord Kingston's seat, Holme-Pierrepointy near Nottingham, that Oldham died of the small-pox, 9 Dec. 1683. One of the monuments in the fine church of the village commemorates the admiration cherished for him hy ' his patron ' (see the epitaph in Wood). The graceful tribute paid to his memory by Waller (which mentions Burnet among his admirers), and still more the noble lines of Dryden, show that his loss was felt in the contemporary world of letters. The imputation of malignity to Dryden, on the ground of a perfectly just criticism frankly offered in his lines, is properly rejected by Sir Walter Scott (Dryden's Works, 1808, XI. 99 seq.) Tom Brown addressed a eulogistic poem 'to the memory of John Oldham' (Works, iv. 244, ed. 1744).

According to Oldham's biographer, Thompson, 'his person was tall and thin, which was much owing to a consumptive complaint, but was greatly increased by study ; his face was long, his nose prominent, his aspect unpromising, but satire was in his eye.' Bliss mentions a portrait of him, in flowing locks and a long loose handkerchief round his head, engraved by Vandergucht, which was prefixed to the 1704 edition of his ' Works '. Another portrait, painted by W. Dobson and engraved by Scheneker, is in Harding's 'Biographical Mirrour,' 1792.

Oldham's productions deserve more notice than they have received. Their own original power is notable. Pope, and perhaps other of our chief eighteentn-century poets, were under important literary obligations to their author. The chief of them are here grouped according to form and species.

Whether or no the Pindaric dedicated by Oldham 'to the memory of my dear friend, Mr. Charles Morwent,' in date of composition preceded his most celebrated 'Satires,' it must be described as the most finished product of his genius, and as entitled to no mean place in English 'In Memoriam' poetry. Cowley is evidently the master followed in this ode. Oldham's other Pindaric, in remembrance of 'Mr. Harman Atwood,' is a less ambitious and less successful effort of the same kind. Among his other lyrical pieces may be mentioned his ode 'The Praise of Homer,' uninteresting except that one passage in it conveys a suggestion of Gray ; that 'Upon the Works of Ben Jonson,' an early piece, but neither inadequate nor hackneyed in its appreciation of Jonson's cardinal qualities ; and, by way of a comparison not favourable to Oldham, the ode for an 'Anniversary of Music on St. Cecilia's Day,' set to music by Dr. John Blow [q. v.] Some of his paraphrases of classical and Biblical poetry were likewise composed, without particular effectiveness, in the same metre, for which the ode ' Upon the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Lady Mary ' likewise shows him to have been lacking in natural impulse. The notoriety of the lyric first known as 'A Satire against Virtue' was chiefly due to the density of a public not accustomed to think for itself. Its irony, of which the vein is not peculiarly fine, was so imperfectly understood that he found himself obliged first to explain his 'diff'rent taste of wit' in an 'Apology' (in heroic couplets), and then to indite a 'Counterpart' ode to the 'Satire against Virtue,' commonplace in itself but for the daring άπαζ λεγόμενον in its contemptuous reference to 'all the Under-sheriff-alities of Life.' Less mistakable is the lyric irony of the 'Dithyrambic' (written in August 1677) in praise of drink, purporting to be 'A Drunkard's Speech in a Masque.'

From Oldham's avowal in the 'Apology' for the so-called 'Satire against Virtue' that, Had he a Genius, and Poetic Rage Great as the Vices of this guilty Age, he would turn to 'noble Satire,' it may be concluded that up to this time (1679 or 1680) his only attempt in this direction had been 'Garnet's Ghost,' surreptitiously published as a broadsheet in 1679. The 'Satires upon the Jesuits,' of which this was in 1681 reprinted as the first, together with the prologue, stated to have been written in 1679, 'upon Occasion of the Plot,' are the best known among his works. The unrestrained violence of these diatribes may find some sort of palliation in the frenzv which they flattered. But Pope was well within the mark when he spoke of Oldliam as ' a very indelicate writer ; he has strong rage, but it is too much like Billingsgate ' (, Anecdotes, Singer's edit. 1820, p. 19 ; cf. ib. p. 136). 'Satire IV,' which Pope singled out from the rest as one of its author's most notable productions, is a clover adaptation of Horace's 'Satires,' i. viii. ('Olim truncus eram,' &c.)

In his biting 'Satire upon a Woman, who by her Falsehood and Scorn was the Death of my Friend,' where full play is given both to his feverish energy and to his prurient fancy, the abruptness of the opening — a favourite device of the author's — should be noticed. But his gift of simulating wrath is perhaps best exemplified in his 'Satire upon a Printer.' Horace, rather than Juvenal, was his model in the 'Letter from the Country to a Friend in Town, giving an Account of the Author's Inclination to Poetry,' one of the pleasantest as well as