text:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XVIII

KAMINOYAMA.

A severe day of mountain travelling brought us into another region. We left Ichinono early on a fine morning, with three pack-cows, one of which I rode [and their calves], very comely kine, with small noses, short horns, straight spines, and deep bodies. I thought that I might get some fresh milk, but the idea of anything but a calf milking a cow was so new to the people that there was a universal laugh, and Ito told me that they thought it "most disgusting," and that the Japanese think it "most disgusting" in foreigners to put anything "with such a strong smell and taste" into their tea! All the cows had cotton cloths, printed with blue dragons, suspended under their bodies to keep them from mud and insects, and they wear straw shoes and cords through the cartilages of their noses. The day being fine, a great deal of rice and sake was on the move, and we met hundreds of pack-cows, all of the same comely breed, in strings of four.

We crossed the Sakuratoge, from which the view is beautiful, got horses at the mountain village of Shirakasawa, crossed more passes, and in the afternoon reached the village of Tenoko. There, as usual, I sat under the verandah of the Transport Office, and waited for the one horse which was available. It was a large shop, but contained not a single article of European make. In the one room a group of women and children sat round the fire, and the agent sat as usual with a number of ledgers at a table a foot high, on which his grandchild was lying on a cushion. Here Ito dined on seven dishes of horrors, and they brought me sake, tea, rice, and black beans. The last are very good. We had some talk about the country, and the man asked me to write his name in English characters, and to write my own in a book. Meanwhile a crowd assembled, and the front row sat on the ground that the others might see over their heads. They were dirty and pressed very close, and when the women of the house saw that I felt the heat they gracefully produced fans and fanned me for a whole hour. On asking the charge they refused to make any, and would not receive anything. They had not seen a foreigner before, they said, they would despise themselves for taking anything, they had my "honourable name" in their book. Not only that, but they put up a parcel of sweetmeats, and the man wrote his name on a fan and insisted on my accepting it. I was grieved to have nothing to give them but some English pins, but they had never seen such before, and soon circulated them among the crowd. I told them truly that I should remember them as long as I remember Japan, and went on, much touched by their kindness.

The lofty pass of Utsu, which is ascended and descended by a number of stone slabs, is the last of the passes of these choked-up ranges. From its summit in the welcome sunlight I joyfully looked down upon the noble plain of Yonezawa, about 30 miles long and from 10 to 18 broad, one of the gardens of Japan, wooded and watered, covered with prosperous towns and villages, surrounded by magnificent mountains not altogether timbered, and bounded at its southern extremity by ranges white with snow even in the middle of July.

In the long street of the farming village of Matsuhara a man amazed me by running in front of me and speaking to me, and on Ito coming up, he assailed him vociferously, and it turned out that he took me for an Aino, one of the subjugated aborigines of Yezo. I have before now been taken for a Chinese!

Throughout the province of Echigo I have occasionally seen a piece of cotton cloth suspended by its four corners from four bamboo poles just above a quiet stream. Behind it there is usually a long narrow tablet, notched at the top, similar to those seen in cemeteries, with characters upon it. Sometimes bouquets of flowers are placed in the hollow top of each bamboo, and usually there are characters on the cloth itself. Within it always lies a wooden dipper. In coming down from Tenoko I passed one of these close to the road, and a Buddhist priest was at the time pouring a dipper full of water into it, which strained slowly through. As he was going our way we joined him, and he explained its meaning.

According to him the tablet bears on it the kaimiyo, or posthumous name of a woman. The flowers have the same significance as those which loving hands place on the graves of kindred. If there are characters on the cloth, they represent the well-known invocation of the Nichiren sect, Namu mio ho ren ge kio. The pouring of the water into the cloth, often accompanied by telling the beads on a rosary, is a prayer. The whole is called "The Flowing Invocation." I have seldom seen anything more plaintively affecting, for it denotes that a mother in the first joy of maternity has passed away to suffer (according to popular belief) in the Lake of Blood, one of the Buddhist hells, for a sin committed in a former state of being, and it appeals to every passer-by to shorten the penalties of a woman in anguish, for in that lake she must remain until the cloth is so utterly worn out that the water falls through it at once.

Where the mountains come down upon the plain of Yonezawa there are several raised banks, and you can take one step from the hillside to a dead level. The soil is dry and gravelly at the junction, ridges of pines appeared, and the look of the houses suggested increased cleanliness and comfort. A walk of six miles took us from Tenoko to Komatsu, a beautifully situated town of 3000 people, with a large trade in cotton goods, silk, and sake.

As I entered Komatsu the first man whom I met turned back hastily, called into the first house the words which mean "Quick, here's a foreigner;" the three carpenters who were at work there flung down their tools and, without waiting to put on their kimonos, sped down the street calling out the news, so that by the time I reached the yadoya a large crowd was pressing upon me. The front was mean and unpromising-looking, but, on reaching the back by a stone bridge over a stream which ran through the house, I found a room 40 feet long by 15 high, entirely open along one side to a garden with a large fish-pond with goldfish, a pagoda, dwarf trees, and all the usual miniature adornments. Fusuma of wrinkled blue paper splashed with gold turned this "gallery" into two rooms; but there was no privacy, for the crowds climbed upon the roofs at the back, and sat there patiently until night.

These were daimiyo's rooms. The posts and ceilings were ebony and gold, the mats very fine, the polished alcoves decorated with inlaid writing-tables and sword-racks; spears nine feet long, with handles of lacquer inlaid with Venus' ear, hung in the verandah, the washing bowl was fine inlaid black lacquer, and the rice-bowls and their covers were gold lacquer.

In this, as in many other yadoyas, there were kakemonos with large Chinese characters representing the names of the Prime Minister, Provincial Governor, or distinguished General, who had honoured it by halting there, and lines of poetry were hung up, as is usual, in the same fashion. I have several times been asked to write something to be thus displayed. I spent Sunday at Komatsu, but not restfully, owing to the nocturnal croaking of the frogs in the pond. In it, as in most towns, there were shops which sell nothing but white, frothy-looking cakes, which are used for the goldfish which are so much prized, and three times daily the women and children of the household came into the garden to feed them.

When I left Komatsu there were fully sixty people inside the house and 1500 outside—walls, verandahs, and even roofs being packed. From Nikko to Komatsu mares had been exclusively used, but there I encountered for the first time the terrible Japanese pack-horse. Two horridly fierce-looking creatures were at the door, with their heads tied down till their necks were completely arched. When I mounted the crowd followed, gathering as it went, frightening the horse with the clatter of clogs and the sound of a multitude, till he broke his head-rope, and, the frightened mago letting him go, he proceeded down the street mainly on his hind feet, squealing, and striking savagely with his fore feet, the crowd scattering to the right and left, till, as it surged past the police station, four policemen came out and arrested it; only to gather again, however, for there was a longer street, down which my horse proceeded in the same fashion, and, looking round, I saw Ito's horse on his hind legs and Ito on the ground. My beast jumped over all ditches, attacked all foot-passengers with his teeth, and behaved so like a wild animal that not all my previous acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of horses enabled me to cope with him. On reaching Akayu we found a horse fair, and, as all the horses had their heads tightly tied down to posts, they could only squeal and lash out with their hind feet, which so provoked our animals that the baggage horse, by a series of jerks and rearings, divested himself of Ito and most of the baggage, and, as I dismounted from mine, he stood upright, and my foot catching I fell on the ground, when he made several vicious dashes at me with his teeth and fore feet, which were happily frustrated by the dexterity of some mago. These beasts forcibly remind me of the words, "Whose mouth must be held with bit and bridle, lest they turn and fall upon thee."

It was a lovely summer day, though very hot, and the snowy peaks of Aidzu scarcely looked cool as they glittered in the sunlight. The plain of Yonezawa, with the prosperous town of Yonezawa in the south, and the frequented watering-place of Akayu in the north, is a perfect garden of Eden, "tilled with a pencil instead of a plough," growing in rich profusion rice, cotton, maize, tobacco, hemp, indigo, beans, egg-plants, walnuts, melons, cucumbers, persimmons, apricots, pomegranates; a smiling and plenteous land, an Asiatic Arcadia, prosperous and independent, all its bounteous acres belonging to those who cultivate them, who live under their vines, figs, and pomegranates, free from oppression—a remarkable spectacle under an Asiatic despotism. Yet still Daikoku is the chief deity, and material good is the one object of desire.

It is an enchanting region of beauty, industry, and comfort, mountain girdled, and watered by the bright Matsuka. Everywhere there are prosperous and beautiful farming villages, with large houses with carved beams and ponderous tiled roofs, each standing in its own grounds, buried among persimmons and pomegranates, with flower-gardens under trellised vines, and privacy secured by high, closely-clipped screens of pomegranate and cryptomeria. Besides the villages of Yoshida, Semoshima, Kurokawa, Takayama, and Takataki, through or near which we passed, I counted over fifty on the plain with their brown, sweeping barn roofs looking out from the woodland. I cannot see any differences in the style of cultivation. Yoshida is rich and prosperous-looking, Numa poor and wretched-looking; but the scanty acres of Numa, rescued from the mountain-sides, are as exquisitely trim and neat, as perfectly cultivated, and yield as abundantly of the crops which suit the climate, as the broad acres of the sunny plain of Yonezawa, and this is the case everywhere. "The field of the sluggard" has no existence in Japan.

We rode for four hours through these beautiful villages on a road four feet wide, and then, to my surprise, after ferrying a river, emerged at Tsukuno upon what appears on the map as a secondary road, but which is in reality a main road 25 feet wide, well kept, trenched on both sides, and with a line of telegraph poles along it. It was a new world at once. The road for many miles was thronged with well-dressed foot-passengers, kurumas, pack-horses, and waggons either with solid wheels, or wheels with spokes but no tires. It is a capital carriage-road, but without carriages. In such civilised circumstances it was curious to see two or four brown skinned men pulling the carts, and quite often a man and his wife—the man unclothed, and the woman unclothed to her waist— doing the same. Also it struck me as incongruous to see telegraph wires above, and below, men whose only clothing consisted of a sun- hat and fan; while children with books and slates were returning from school, conning their lessons.

At Akayu, a town of hot sulphur springs, I hoped to sleep, but it was one of the noisiest places I have seen. In the most crowded part, where four streets meet, there are bathing sheds, which were full of people of both sexes, splashing loudly, and the yadoya close to it had about forty rooms, in nearly all of which several rheumatic people were lying on the mats, samisens were twanging, and kotos screeching, and the hubbub was so unbearable that I came on here, ten miles farther, by a fine new road, up an uninteresting strath of rice-fields and low hills, which opens out upon a small plain surrounded by elevated gravelly hills, on the slope of one of which Kaminoyama, a watering-place of over 3000 people, is pleasantly situated. It is keeping festival; there are lanterns and flags on every house, and crowds are thronging the temple grounds, of which there are several on the hills above. It is a clean, dry place, with beautiful yadoyas on the heights, and pleasant houses with gardens, and plenty of walks over the hills. The people say that it is one of the driest places in Japan. If it were within reach of foreigners, they would find it a wholesome health resort, with picturesque excursions in many directions.

This is one of the great routes of Japanese travel, and it is interesting to see watering-places with their habits, amusements, and civilisation quite complete, but borrowing nothing from Europe. The hot springs here contain iron, and are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. I tried the temperature of three, and found them 100 degrees, 105 degrees, and 107 degrees. They are supposed to be very valuable in rheumatism, and they attract visitors from great distances. The police, who are my frequent informants, tell me that there are nearly 600 people now staying here for the benefit of the baths, of which six daily are usually taken. I think that in rheumatism, as in some other maladies, the old-fashioned Japanese doctors pay little attention to diet and habits, and much to drugs and external applications. The benefit of these and other medicinal waters would be much increased if vigorous friction replaced the dabbing with soft towels.

This is a large yadoya, very full of strangers, and the house- mistress, a buxom and most prepossessing widow, has a truly exquisite hotel for bathers higher up the hill. She has eleven children, two or three of whom are tall, handsome, and graceful girls. One blushed deeply at my evident admiration, but was not displeased, and took me up the hill to see the temples, baths, and yadoyas of this very attractive place. I am much delighted with her grace and savoir faire. I asked the widow how long she had kept the inn, and she proudly answered, "Three hundred years," not an uncommon instance of the heredity of occupations.

My accommodation is unique—a kura, or godown, in a large conventional garden, in which is a bath-house, which receives a hot spring at a temperature of 105 degrees, in which I luxuriate. Last night the mosquitoes were awful. If the widow and her handsome girls had not fanned me perseveringly for an hour, I should not have been able to write a line. My new mosquito net succeeds admirably, and, when I am once within it, I rather enjoy the disappointment of the hundreds of drumming blood-thirsty wretches outside.

The widow tells me that house-masters pay 2 yen once for all for the sign, and an annual tax of 2 yen on a first-class yadoya, 1 yen for a second, and 50 cents for a third, with 5 yen for the license to sell sake.

These "godowns" (from the Malay word gadong), or fire-proof store- houses, are one of the most marked features of Japanese towns, both because they are white where all else is grey, and because they are solid where all else is perishable.

I am lodged in the lower part, but the iron doors are open, and in their place at night is a paper screen. A few things are kept in my room. Two handsome shrines from which the unemotional faces of two Buddhas looked out all night, a fine figure of the goddess Kwan-non, and a venerable one of the god of longevity, suggested curious dreams.

I. L. B.

title: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XVIII


text:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XIX

KANAYAMA, July 16.

Three days of travelling on the same excellent road have brought me nearly 60 miles. Yamagata ken impresses me as being singularly prosperous, progressive, and go-ahead; the plain of Yamagata, which I entered soon after leaving Kaminoyama, is populous and highly cultivated, and the broad road, with its enormous traffic, looks wealthy and civilised. It is being improved by convicts in dull red kimonos printed with Chinese characters, who correspond with our ticket-of-leave men, as they are working for wages in the employment of contractors and farmers, and are under no other restriction than that of always wearing the prison dress.

At the Sakamoki river I was delighted to come upon the only thoroughly solid piece of modern Japanese work that I have met with—a remarkably handsome stone bridge nearly finished—the first I have seen. I introduced myself to the engineer, Okuno Chiuzo, a very gentlemanly, agreeable Japanese, who showed me the plans, took a great deal of trouble to explain them, and courteously gave me tea and sweetmeats.

Yamagata, a thriving town of 21,000 people and the capital of the ken, is well situated on a slight eminence, and this and the dominant position of the kencho at the top of the main street give it an emphasis unusual in Japanese towns. The outskirts of all the cities are very mean, and the appearance of the lofty white buildings of the new Government Offices above the low grey houses was much of a surprise. The streets of Yamagata are broad and clean, and it has good shops, among which are long rows selling nothing but ornamental iron kettles and ornamental brasswork. So far in the interior I was annoyed to find several shops almost exclusively for the sale of villainous forgeries of European eatables and drinkables, specially the latter. The Japanese, from the Mikado downwards, have acquired a love of foreign intoxicants, which would be hurtful enough to them if the intoxicants were genuine, but is far worse when they are compounds of vitriol, fusel oil, bad vinegar, and I know not what. I saw two shops in Yamagata which sold champagne of the best brands, Martel's cognac, Bass' ale, Medoc, St. Julian, and Scotch whisky, at about one-fifth of their cost price—all poisonous compounds, the sale of which ought to be interdicted.

The Government Buildings, though in the usual confectionery style, are improved by the addition of verandahs; and the Kencho, Saibancho, or Court House, the Normal School with advanced schools attached, and the police buildings, are all in keeping with the good road and obvious prosperity. A large two-storied hospital, with a cupola, which will accommodate 150 patients, and is to be a medical school, is nearly finished. It is very well arranged and ventilated. I cannot say as much for the present hospital, which I went over. At the Court House I saw twenty officials doing nothing, and as many policemen, all in European dress, to which they had added an imitation of European manners, the total result being unmitigated vulgarity. They demanded my passport before they would tell me the population of the ken and city. Once or twice I have found fault with Ito's manners, and he has asked me twice since if I think them like the manners of the policemen at Yamagata!

North of Yamagata the plain widens, and fine longitudinal ranges capped with snow mountains on the one side, and broken ranges with lateral spurs on the other, enclose as cheerful and pleasant a region as one would wish to see, with many pleasant villages on the lower slopes of the hills. The mercury was only 70 degrees, and the wind north, so it was an especially pleasant journey, though I had to go three and a half ri beyond Tendo, a town of 5000 people, where I had intended to halt, because the only inns at Tendo which were not kashitsukeya were so occupied with silk-worms that they could not receive me.

The next day's journey was still along the same fine road, through a succession of farming villages and towns of 1500 and 2000 people, such as Tochiida and Obanasawa, were frequent. From both these there was a glorious view of Chokaizan, a grand, snow-covered dome, said to be 8000 feet high, which rises in an altogether unexpected manner from comparatively level country, and, as the great snow- fields of Udonosan are in sight at the same time, with most picturesque curtain ranges below, it may be considered one of the grandest views of Japan. After leaving Obanasawa the road passes along a valley watered by one of the affluents of the Mogami, and, after crossing it by a fine wooden bridge, ascends a pass from which the view is most magnificent. After a long ascent through a region of light, peaty soil, wooded with pine, cryptomeria, and scrub oak, a long descent and a fine avenue terminate in Shinjo, a wretched town of over 5000 people, situated in a plain of rice- fields.

The day's journey, of over twenty-three miles, was through villages of farms without yadoyas, and in many cases without even tea- houses. The style of building has quite changed. Wood has disappeared, and all the houses are now built with heavy beams and walls of laths and brown mud mixed with chopped straw, and very neat. Nearly all are great oblong barns, turned endwise to the road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long, with the end nearest the road the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have no paper windows, only amado, with a few panes of paper at the top. These are drawn back in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses, blinds, formed of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening. There are no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in the rafters, who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon a mosquito net.

Again I write that Shinjo is a wretched place. It is a daimiyo's town, and every daimiyo's town that I have seen has an air of decay, partly owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled down, or has been allowed to fall into decay. Shinjo has a large trade in rice, silk, and hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it looks. The mosquitoes were in thousands, and I had to go to bed, so as to be out of their reach, before I had finished my wretched meal of sago and condensed milk. There was a hot rain all night, my wretched room was dirty and stifling, and rats gnawed my boots and ran away with my cucumbers.

To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky. The good road has come to an end, and the old hardships have begun again. After leaving Shinjo this morning we crossed over a steep ridge into a singular basin of great beauty, with a semicircle of pyramidal hills, rendered more striking by being covered to their summits with pyramidal cryptomeria, and apparently blocking all northward progress. At their feet lies Kanayama in a romantic situation, and, though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying for a day or two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and pleasant, the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me, and Ito has secured a chicken for the first time since leaving Nikko!

I find it impossible in this damp climate, and in my present poor health, to travel with any comfort for more than two or three days at a time, and it is difficult to find pretty, quiet, and wholesome places for a halt of two nights. Freedom from fleas and mosquitoes one can never hope for, though the last vary in number, and I have found a way of "dodging" the first by laying down a piece of oiled paper six feet square upon the mat, dusting along its edges a band of Persian insect powder, and setting my chair in the middle. I am then insulated, and, though myriads of fleas jump on the paper, the powder stupefies them, and they are easily killed. I have been obliged to rest here at any rate, because I have been stung on my left hand both by a hornet and a gadfly, and it is badly inflamed. In some places the hornets are in hundreds, and make the horses wild. I am also suffering from inflammation produced by the bites of "horse ants," which attack one in walking. The Japanese suffer very much from these, and a neglected bite often produces an intractable ulcer. Besides these, there is a fly, as harmless in appearance as our house-fly, which bites as badly as a mosquito. These are some of the drawbacks of Japanese travelling in summer, but worse than these is the lack of such food as one can eat when one finishes a hard day's journey without appetite, in an exhausting atmosphere.

July 18.—I have had so much pain and fever from stings and bites that last night I was glad to consult a Japanese doctor from Shinjo. Ito, who looks twice as big as usual when he has to do any "grand" interpreting, and always puts on silk hakama in honour of it, came in with a middle-aged man dressed entirely in silk, who prostrated himself three times on the ground, and then sat down on his heels. Ito in many words explained my calamities, and Dr. Nosoki then asked to see my "honourable hand," which he examined carefully, and then my "honourable foot." He felt my pulse and looked at my eyes with a magnifying glass, and with much sucking in of his breath—a sign of good breeding and politeness—informed me that I had much fever, which I knew before; then that I must rest, which I also knew; then he lighted his pipe and contemplated me. Then he felt my pulse and looked at my eyes again, then felt the swelling from the hornet bite, and said it was much inflamed, of which I was painfully aware, and then clapped his hands three times. At this signal a coolie appeared, carrying a handsome black lacquer chest with the same crest in gold upon it as Dr. Nosoki wore in white on his haori. This contained a medicine chest of fine gold lacquer, fitted up with shelves, drawers, bottles, etc. He compounded a lotion first, with which he bandaged my hand and arm rather skilfully, telling me to pour the lotion over the bandage at intervals till the pain abated. The whole was covered with oiled paper, which answers the purpose of oiled silk. He then compounded a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable, I have not hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and to avoid sake for a day or two!

I asked him what his fee was, and, after many bows and much spluttering and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should think half a yen too much, and when I presented him with a yen, and told him with a good deal of profound bowing on my part that I was exceedingly glad to obtain his services, his gratitude quite abashed me by its immensity.

Dr. Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners, whose medical knowledge has been handed down from father to son, and who holds out, as probably most of his patients do, against European methods and drugs. A strong prejudice against surgical operations, specially amputations, exists throughout Japan. With regard to the latter, people think that, as they came into the world complete, so they are bound to go out of it, and in many places a surgeon would hardly be able to buy at any price the privilege of cutting off an arm.

Except from books these older men know nothing of the mechanism of the human body, as dissection is unknown to native science. Dr. Nosoki told me that he relies mainly on the application of the moxa and on acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in chronic maladies on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and vegetable medicines, and certain kinds of food. The use of leeches and blisters is unknown to him, and he regards mineral drugs with obvious suspicion. He has heard of chloroform, but has never seen it used, and considers that in maternity it must necessarily be fatal either to mother or child. He asked me (and I have twice before been asked the same question) whether it is not by its use that we endeavour to keep down our redundant population! He has great faith in ginseng, and in rhinoceros horn, and in the powdered liver of some animal, which, from the description, I understood to be a tiger—all specifics of the Chinese school of medicines. Dr. Nosoki showed me a small box of "unicorn's" horn, which he said was worth more than its weight in gold! As my arm improved coincidently with the application of his lotion, I am bound to give him the credit of the cure.

I invited him to dinner, and two tables were produced covered with different dishes, of which he ate heartily, showing most singular dexterity with his chopsticks in removing the flesh of small, bony fish. It is proper to show appreciation of a repast by noisy gulpings, and much gurgling and drawing in of the breath. Etiquette rigidly prescribes these performances, which are most distressing to a European, and my guest nearly upset my gravity by them.

The host and the kocho, or chief man of the village, paid me a formal visit in the evening, and Ito, en grande tenue, exerted himself immensely on the occasion. They were much surprised at my not smoking, and supposed me to be under a vow! They asked me many questions about our customs and Government, but frequently reverted to tobacco.

I. L. B.

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

title: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XIX


text: Notes and Queries/Series 2/Volume 8/Lennard Family


text:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-I

SHINGOJI, July 21.

Very early in the morning, after my long talk with the Kocho of Kanayama, Ito wakened me by saying, "You'll be able for a long day's journey to-day, as you had a chicken yesterday," and under this chicken's marvellous influence we got away at 6.45, only to verify the proverb, "The more haste the worse speed." Unsolicited by me the Kocho sent round the village to forbid the people from assembling, so I got away in peace with a pack-horse and one runner. It was a terrible road, with two severe mountain-passes to cross, and I not only had to walk nearly the whole way, but to help the man with the kuruma up some of the steepest places. Halting at the exquisitely situated village of Nosoki, we got one horse, and walked by a mountain road along the head-waters of the Omono to Innai. I wish I could convey to you any idea of the beauty and wildness of that mountain route, of the surprises on the way, of views, of the violent deluges of rain which turned rivulets into torrents, and of the hardships and difficulties of the day; the scanty fare of sun-dried rice dough and sour yellow rasps, and the depth of the mire through which we waded! We crossed the Shione and Sakatsu passes, and in twelve hours accomplished fifteen miles! Everywhere we were told that we should never get through the country by the way we are going.

The women still wear trousers, but with a long garment tucked into them instead of a short one, and the men wear a cotton combination of breastplate and apron, either without anything else, or over their kimonos. The descent to Innai under an avenue of cryptomeria, and the village itself, shut in with the rushing Omono, are very beautiful.

The yadoya at Innai was a remarkably cheerful one, but my room was entirely fusuma and shoji, and people were peeping in the whole time. It is not only a foreigner and his strange ways which attract attention in these remote districts, but, in my case, my india-rubber bath, air-pillow, and, above all, my white mosquito net. Their nets are all of a heavy green canvas, and they admire mine so much, that I can give no more acceptable present on leaving than a piece of it to twist in with the hair. There were six engineers in the next room who are surveying the passes which I had crossed, in order to see if they could be tunnelled, in which case kurumas might go all the way from Tokiyo to Kubota on the Sea of Japan, and, with a small additional outlay, carts also.

In the two villages of Upper and Lower Innai there has been an outbreak of a malady much dreaded by the Japanese, called kak'ke, which, in the last seven months, has carried off 100 persons out of a population of about 1500, and the local doctors have been aided by two sent from the Medical School at Kubota. I don't know a European name for it; the Japanese name signifies an affection of the legs. Its first symptoms are a loss of strength in the legs, "looseness in the knees," cramps in the calves, swelling, and numbness. This, Dr. Anderson, who has studied kak'ke in more than 1100 cases in Tokiyo, calls the sub-acute form. The chronic is a slow, numbing, and wasting malady, which, if unchecked, results in death from paralysis and exhaustion in from six months to three years. The third, or acute form, Dr. Anderson describes thus. After remarking that the grave symptoms set in quite unexpectedly, and go on rapidly increasing, he says:- "The patient now can lie down no longer; he sits up in bed and tosses restlessly from one position to another, and, with wrinkled brow, staring and anxious eyes, dusky skin, blue, parted lips, dilated nostrils, throbbing neck, and labouring chest, presents a picture of the most terrible distress that the worst of diseases can inflict. There is no intermission even for a moment, and the physician, here almost powerless, can do little more than note the failing pulse and falling temperature, and wait for the moment when the brain, paralysed by the carbonised blood, shall become insensible, and allow the dying man to pass his last moments in merciful unconsciousness." {15}

The next morning, after riding nine miles through a quagmire, under grand avenues of cryptomeria, and noticing with regret that the telegraph poles ceased, we reached Yusowa, a town of 7000 people, in which, had it not been for provoking delays, I should have slept instead of at Innai, and found that a fire a few hours previously had destroyed seventy houses, including the yadoya at which I should have lodged. We had to wait two hours for horses, as all were engaged in moving property and people. The ground where the houses had stood was absolutely bare of everything but fine black ash, among which the kuras stood blackened, and, in some instances, slightly cracked, but in all unharmed. Already skeletons of new houses were rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy man, but I should probably have lost everything but my money.

title: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-I


text:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-II

Yusowa is a specially objectionable-looking place. I took my lunch—a wretched meal of a tasteless white curd made from beans, with some condensed milk added to it—in a yard, and the people crowded in hundreds to the gate, and those behind, being unable to see me, got ladders and climbed on the adjacent roofs, where they remained till one of the roofs gave way with a loud crash, and precipitated about fifty men, women, and children into the room below, which fortunately was vacant. Nobody screamed—a noteworthy fact—and the casualties were only a few bruises. Four policemen then appeared and demanded my passport, as if I were responsible for the accident, and failing, like all others, to read a particular word upon it, they asked me what I was travelling for, and on being told "to learn about the country," they asked if I was making a map! Having satisfied their curiosity they disappeared, and the crowd surged up again in fuller force. The Transport Agent begged them to go away, but they said they might never see such a sight again! One old peasant said he would go away if he were told whether "the sight" were a man or a woman, and, on the agent asking if that were any business of his, he said he should like to tell at home what he had seen, which awoke my sympathy at once, and I told Ito to tell them that a Japanese horse galloping night and day without ceasing would take 5.5 weeks to reach my county—a statement which he is using lavishly as I go along. These are such queer crowds, so silent and gaping, and they remain motionless for hours, the wide-awake babies on the mothers' backs and in the fathers' arms never crying. I should be glad to hear a hearty aggregate laugh, even if I were its object. The great melancholy stare is depressing.

The road for ten miles was thronged with country people going in to see the fire. It was a good road and very pleasant country, with numerous road-side shrines and figures of the goddess of mercy. I had a wicked horse, thoroughly vicious. His head was doubly chained to the saddle-girth, but he never met man, woman, or child, without laying back his ears and running at them to bite them. I was so tired and in so much spinal pain that I got off and walked several times, and it was most difficult to get on again, for as soon as I put my hand on the saddle he swung his hind legs round to kick me, and it required some agility to avoid being hurt. Nor was this all. The evil beast made dashes with his tethered head at flies, threatening to twist or demolish my foot at each, flung his hind legs upwards, attempted to dislodge flies on his nose with his hind hoof, executed capers which involved a total disappearance of everything in front of the saddle, squealed, stumbled, kicked his old shoes off, and resented the feeble attempts which the mago made to replace them, and finally walked in to Yokote and down its long and dismal street mainly on his hind legs, shaking the rope out of his timid leader's hand, and shaking me into a sort of aching jelly! I used to think that horses were made vicious either by being teased or by violence in breaking; but this does not account for the malignity of the Japanese horses, for the people are so much afraid of them that they treat them with great respect: they are not beaten or kicked, are spoken to in soothing tones, and, on the whole, live better than their masters. Perhaps this is the secret of their villainy—"Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked."

Yokote, a town of 10,000 people, in which the best yadoyas are all non-respectable, is an ill-favoured, ill-smelling, forlorn, dirty, damp, miserable place, with a large trade in cottons. As I rode through on my temporary biped the people rushed out from the baths to see me, men and women alike without a particle of clothing. The house-master was very polite, but I had a dark and dirty room, up a bamboo ladder, and it swarmed with fleas and mosquitoes to an exasperating extent. On the way I heard that a bullock was killed every Thursday in Yokote, and had decided on having a broiled steak for supper and taking another with me, but when I arrived it was all sold, there were no eggs, and I made a miserable meal of rice and bean curd, feeling somewhat starved, as the condensed milk I bought at Yamagata had to be thrown away. I was somewhat wretched from fatigue and inflamed ant bites, but in the early morning, hot and misty as all the mornings have been, I went to see a Shinto temple, or miya, and, though I went alone, escaped a throng.

The entrance into the temple court was, as usual, by a torii, which consisted of two large posts 20 feet high, surmounted with cross beams, the upper one of which projects beyond the posts and frequently curves upwards at both ends. The whole, as is often the case, was painted a dull red. This torii, or "birds' rest," is said to be so called because the fowls, which were formerly offered but not sacrificed, were accustomed to perch upon it. A straw rope, with straw tassels and strips of paper hanging from it, the special emblem of Shinto, hung across the gateway. In the paved court there were several handsome granite lanterns on fine granite pedestals, such as are the nearly universal accompaniments of both Shinto and Buddhist temples.

After leaving Yakote we passed through very pretty country with mountain views and occasional glimpses of the snowy dome of Chokaizan, crossed the Omono (which has burst its banks and destroyed its bridges) by two troublesome ferries, and arrived at Rokugo, a town of 5000 people, with fine temples, exceptionally mean houses, and the most aggressive crowd by which I have yet been asphyxiated.

There, through the good offices of the police, I was enabled to attend a Buddhist funeral of a merchant of some wealth. It interested me very much from its solemnity and decorum, and Ito's explanations of what went before were remarkably distinctly given. I went in a Japanese woman's dress, borrowed at the tea-house, with a blue hood over my head, and thus escaped all notice, but I found the restraint of the scanty "tied forward" kimono very tiresome. Ito gave me many injunctions as to what I was to do and avoid, which I carried out faithfully, being nervously anxious to avoid jarring on the sensibilities of those who had kindly permitted a foreigner to be present.

The illness was a short one, and there had been no time either for prayers or pilgrimages on the sick man's behalf. When death occurs the body is laid with its head to the north (a position that the living Japanese scrupulously avoid), near a folding screen, between which and it a new zen is placed, on which are a saucer of oil with a lighted rush, cakes of uncooked rice dough, and a saucer of incense sticks. The priests directly after death choose the kaimiyo, or posthumous name, write it on a tablet of white wood, and seat themselves by the corpse; his zen, bowls, cups, etc., are filled with vegetable food and are placed by his side, the chopsticks being put on the wrong, i.e. the left, side of the zen. At the end of forty-eight hours the corpse is arranged for the coffin by being washed with warm water, and the priest, while saying certain prayers, shaves the head. In all cases, rich or poor, the dress is of the usual make, but of pure white linen or cotton.

At Omagori, a town near Rokugo, large earthenware jars are manufactured, which are much used for interment by the wealthy; but in this case there were two square boxes, the outer one being of finely planed wood of the Retinospora obtusa. The poor use what is called the "quick-tub," a covered tub of pine hooped with bamboo. Women are dressed for burial in the silk robe worn on the marriage day, tabi are placed beside them or on their feet, and their hair usually flows loosely behind them. The wealthiest people fill the coffin with vermilion and the poorest use chaff; but in this case I heard that only the mouth, nose, and ears were filled with vermilion, and that the coffin was filled up with coarse incense. The body is placed within the tub or box in the usual squatting position. It is impossible to understand how a human body, many hours after death, can be pressed into the limited space afforded by even the outermost of the boxes. It has been said that the rigidity of a corpse is overcome by the use of a powder called dosia, which is sold by the priests; but this idea has been exploded, and the process remains incomprehensible.

Bannerets of small size and ornamental staves were outside the house door. Two men in blue dresses, with pale blue over-garments resembling wings received each person, two more presented a lacquered bowl of water and a white silk crepe towel, and then we passed into a large room, round which were arranged a number of very handsome folding screens, on which lotuses, storks, and peonies were realistically painted on a dead gold ground. Near the end of the room the coffin, under a canopy of white silk, upon which there was a very beautiful arrangement of artificial white lotuses, rested upon trestles, the face of the corpse being turned towards the north. Six priests, very magnificently dressed, sat on each side of the coffin, and two more knelt in front of a small temporary altar.

The widow, an extremely pretty woman, squatted near the deceased, below the father and mother; and after her came the children, relatives, and friends, who sat in rows, dressed in winged garments of blue and white. The widow was painted white; her lips were reddened with vermilion; her hair was elaborately dressed and ornamented with carved shell pins; she wore a beautiful dress of sky-blue silk, with a haori of fine white crepe and a scarlet crepe girdle embroidered in gold, and looked like a bride on her marriage day rather than a widow.

Indeed, owing to the beauty of the dresses and the amount of blue and white silk, the room had a festal rather than a funereal look. When all the guests had arrived, tea and sweetmeats were passed round; incense was burned profusely; litanies were mumbled, and the bustle of moving to the grave began, during which I secured a place near the gate of the temple grounds.

The procession did not contain the father or mother of the deceased, but I understood that the mourners who composed it were all relatives. The oblong tablet with the "dead name" of the deceased was carried first by a priest, then the lotus blossom by another priest, then ten priests followed, two and two, chanting litanies from books, then came the coffin on a platform borne by four men and covered with white drapery, then the widow, and then the other relatives. The coffin was carried into the temple and laid upon trestles, while incense was burned and prayers were said, and was then carried to a shallow grave lined with cement, and prayers were said by the priests until the earth was raised to the proper level, when all dispersed, and the widow, in her gay attire, walked home unattended. There were no hired mourners or any signs of grief, but nothing could be more solemn, reverent, and decorous than the whole service. [I have since seen many funerals, chiefly of the poor, and, though shorn of much of the ceremony, and with only one officiating priest, the decorum was always most remarkable.] The fees to the priests are from 2 up to 40 or 50 yen. The graveyard, which surrounds the temple, was extremely beautiful, and the cryptomeria specially fine. It was very full of stone gravestones, and, like all Japanese cemeteries, exquisitely kept. As soon as the grave was filled in, a life-size pink lotus plant was placed upon it, and a lacquer tray, on which were lacquer bowls containing tea or sake, beans, and sweetmeats.

The temple at Rokugo was very beautiful, and, except that its ornaments were superior in solidity and good taste, differed little from a Romish church. The low altar, on which were lilies and lighted candles, was draped in blue and silver, and on the high altar, draped in crimson and cloth of gold, there was nothing but a closed shrine, an incense-burner, and a vase of lotuses.

title: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-II


text:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-III

At a wayside tea-house, soon after leaving Rokugo in kurumas, I met the same courteous and agreeable young doctor who was stationed at Innai during the prevalence of kak'ke, and he invited me to visit the hospital at Kubota, of which he is junior physician, and told Ito of a restaurant at which "foreign food" can be obtained—a pleasant prospect, of which he is always reminding me.

Travelling along a very narrow road, I as usual first, we met a man leading a prisoner by a rope, followed by a policeman. As soon as my runner saw the latter he fell down on his face so suddenly in the shafts as nearly to throw me out, at the same time trying to wriggle into a garment which he had carried on the crossbar, while the young men who were drawing the two kurumas behind, crouching behind my vehicle, tried to scuttle into their clothes. I never saw such a picture of abjectness as my man presented. He trembled from head to foot, and illustrated that queer phrase often heard in Scotch Presbyterian prayers, "Lay our hands on our mouths and our mouths in the dust." He literally grovelled in the dust, and with every sentence that the policeman spoke raised his head a little, to bow it yet more deeply than before. It was all because he had no clothes on. I interceded for him as the day was very hot, and the policeman said he would not arrest him, as he should otherwise have done, because of the inconvenience that it would cause to a foreigner. He was quite an elderly man, and never recovered his spirits, but, as soon as a turn of the road took us out of the policeman's sight, the two younger men threw their clothes into the air and gambolled in the shafts, shrieking with laughter!

On reaching Shingoji, being too tired to go farther, I was dismayed to find nothing but a low, dark, foul-smelling room, enclosed only by dirty shoji, in which to spend Sunday. One side looked into a little mildewed court, with a slimy growth of Protococcus viridis, and into which the people of another house constantly came to stare. The other side opened on the earthen passage into the street, where travellers wash their feet, the third into the kitchen, and the fourth into the front room. Even before dark it was alive with mosquitoes, and the fleas hopped on the mats like sand-flies. There were no eggs, nothing but rice and cucumbers. At five on Sunday morning I saw three faces pressed against the outer lattice, and before evening the shoji were riddled with finger-holes, at each of which a dark eye appeared. There was a still, fine rain all day, with the mercury at 82 degrees, and the heat, darkness, and smells were difficult to endure. In the afternoon a small procession passed the house, consisting of a decorated palanquin, carried and followed by priests, with capes and stoles over crimson chasubles and white cassocks. This ark, they said, contained papers inscribed with the names of people and the evils they feared, and the priests were carrying the papers to throw them into the river.

I went to bed early as a refuge from mosquitoes, with the andon, as usual, dimly lighting the room, and shut my eyes. About nine I heard a good deal of whispering and shuffling, which continued for some time, and, on looking up, saw opposite to me about 40 men, women, and children (Ito says 100), all staring at me, with the light upon their faces. They had silently removed three of the shoji next the passage! I called Ito loudly, and clapped my hands, but they did not stir till he came, and then they fled like a flock of sheep. I have patiently, and even smilingly, borne all out-of- doors crowding and curiosity, but this kind of intrusion is unbearable; and I sent Ito to the police station, much against his will, to beg the police to keep the people out of the house, as the house-master was unable to do so. This morning, as I was finishing dressing, a policeman appeared in my room, ostensibly to apologise for the behaviour of the people, but in reality to have a privileged stare at me, and, above all, at my stretcher and mosquito net, from which he hardly took his eyes. Ito says he could make a yen a day by showing them! The policeman said that the people had never seen a foreigner.

I. L. B.

title: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan/LETTER XX-III


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/64

34 With beings brighter than have been, and give

A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh

I would recall a vision which I dreamed

Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,

A slumbering thought, is capable of years,

And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,

Green and of mild declivity, the last

As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,

Save that there was no sea to lave its base,

But a most living landscape, and the wave

Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men

Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke

Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill

Was crowned with a peculiar diadem

Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,

Not by the sport of nature, but of man:

These two, a maiden and a youth, were there

Gazing—the one on all that was beneath

Fair as herself—but the Boy gazed on her;

And both were young, and one was beautiful:

And both were young—yet not alike in youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood;

The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart

Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye

There was but one belovéd face on earth,

And that was shining on him: he had looked

Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;

She was his voice; he did not speak to her,


text:
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Rh But trembled on her words; she was his sight,

For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,

Which coloured all his objects:—he had ceased

To live within himself; she was his life,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,

And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart

Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:

Her sighs were not for him; to her he was

Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,

For brotherless she was, save in the name

Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;

Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honoured race. —It was a name

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?

Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved

Another: even now she loved another,

And on the summit of that hill she stood

Looking afar if yet her lover's steed

Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.


text:
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36 III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

There was an ancient mansion, and before

Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:

Within an antique Oratory stood

The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,

And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced

Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned

His bowed head on his hands, and shook as 'twere

With a convulsion—then arose again,

And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear

What he had written, but he shed no tears.

And he did calm himself, and fix his brow

Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,

The Lady of his love re-entered there;

She was serene and smiling then, and yet

She knew she was by him beloved—she knew,

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart

Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw

That he was wretched, but she saw not all.

He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp

He took her hand; a moment o'er his face

A tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;

He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps

Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,

For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed

From out the massy gate of that old Hall,


text: Talk:Allan Quatermain

title: Talk:Allan Quatermain


text:
Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 2.djvu/29

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive  ::: continually pointed to its European defense posture in explanation. In at least one case, U.S. personnel were requested (., as aircraft mechanics), and 200 were provided, when a pool of suitable personnel existed in Metropolitan France.

 * (5) Statements to the contrary notwithstanding, the French did not ameliorate neo-mercantilism or other colonial policies, or provide "proper tutelage" to the Associated States; nor did it develop a command structure suitable to the United States.

 * (6) The U.S. "checks to satisfy itself that the conditions" imposed were being satisfied, were, by and large, few and far between, and were conducted at the pleasure and within the specifications of the French.

 * (7) The French chose not to refer Indochina to the United Nations. Certainly the U.S. assistance program bore on this decision; whether or not it was the deciding factor is unclear.

The effectiveness of the United States assistance program as an instrument of United States policy — quite aside from the outcome of the war — was thus quite low.

 * 8.

As earlier sections of this paper have suggested, the U.S. was persuaded to involve itself in the Indochina war by the perceived need, following the fall of Nationalist China, to hold a line against communists. This strategic drawing of the line at the Chinese–Indochina border was reinforced by the belief that the fall of Indochina would undoubtedly lead to the fall of the other mainland states of Southeast Asia, and that the fall of Southeast Asia would eventuate in the virtually complete denial to the United States of the Pacific Littoral of Asia. Prospects for a French victory in Indochina were assessed in contemporary U.S. intelligence documents as poor; nonetheless, the U.S. provided military and economic assistance to the French and the Associated States in the belief that a prompt, coordinated United States program of military, political, and economic aid offered some prospect that France might succeed in gaining the initiative in the struggle in that area. Six major points of critique of U.S. policy follow:

 * a.

U.S. policymakers apparently realized that the conditions they imposed upon the French were impracticable to some degree. Nonetheless, they believed that pre-conditions were necessary and could assist Rh


text: Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/18


text: Talk:In Answer to Banjo, and Otherwise

title: Talk:In Answer to Banjo, and Otherwise


text:
Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/19

 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH, MONAGHAN

to write my memoirs, not because I assume that the world is impatient to become acquainted with my adventures and misadventures, but because I have seen life under strange and varied conditions in two hemispheres, have encountered many notable men, and have something to tell of those protracted experiences which may prove worth hearing. In the language of Browning—

And why should I omit another and stronger motive? For a generation I was a factor in whatever was done or projected in the public affairs of Ireland, and if my countrymen in after times come to regard that era as the well-head


text:
Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 2.djvu/30

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive in convincing the French to mend their colonial ways and to pursue the war with American methods, diligence, and aggressiveness. The French, long noted for proficiency and precision in logic, required no Descartes to realize that the United States was thus asking France (1) to regain full responsibility for the Indochina War, and in particular for fighting and taking casualties in that war; (2) to follow the "guidance" and "advice" of the United States on the exercise of this French responsibility; and (3) having fought the war, presumably to a successful conclusion, to relinguishrelinquish [sic] control over Indochina. In view of the French willingness to retain responsibility for the war, it is not surprising that they were reluctant, at best, to accept propositions (2) and (3). Despite French pronouncements on their role in fighting communism, there is little reason to believe that they regarded the Indochina war in the same light as the U.S. viewed the Korean War. Rather, their behavior resembled that of other colonial powers who had fought to retain profitable colonies.

 * b.

Had U.S. policymakers recognized the slimness of the chance of persuading France to accept the three propositions specified above, they might have sought alternative courses of action in Indochina. As it was, the possibility (as opposed to the probability) of success was their prime consideration, and, overestimating U.S. leverage for influencing a favorable outcome, alternatives were not considered.

 * c.

Suppression of alternatives, both on the general and the particular level (see Note 48 for an example of the latter), led to a circularity in and reinforcement of existing policies — constant forced choices between "bad" and "worse."

 * d.

Having taken a hard policy line toward the French, the United States failed to bargain effectively. Thus, in circumstances not totally dissimilar from those prevailing in Vietnam in subsequent time periods, the U.S. continued to provide assistance disregarding infractions of preconditions; moreover, the pre-conditions for aid were not modified. Without modification, the conditions became worse than meaningless: standing testaments to U.S. impotence, to be recognized only when and how the French chose. The U.S. became virtually a prisoner of its own policy. Containment of communism, concern for the French in relation to the postwar Europe of NATO, EDC, and the Soviet threat in the West, combined with a fear, based on World War II strategy, that a French withdrawal from Indochina would leave exposed the U.S. flank in Korea, all compelled the U.S. to continue aid. Yet none of these considerations should have precluded modification of the U.S. bargaining strategy.

 * e.

The U.S. policymaking machinery was highly vulnerable to spoofing, on at least three counts: (1) the very strength of the U.S. Rh


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/67

Rh And mounting on his steed he went his way;

And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds

Of fiery climes he made himself a home,

And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt

With strange and dusky aspects; he was not

Himself like what he had been; on the sea

And on the shore he was a wanderer;

There was a mass of many images

Crowded like waves upon me, but he was

A part of all; and in the last he lay

Reposing from the noontide sultriness,

Couched among fallen columns, in the shade

Of ruined walls that had survived the names

Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side

Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds

Were fastened near a fountain; and a man

Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,

While many of his tribe slumbered around:

And they were canopied by the blue sky,

So cloucdless, clear, and purely beautiful,

That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.

V.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The Lady of his love was wed with One


text:
Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 2.djvu/31

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive position regarding communism must have been a constant temptation, not always resisted, for other parties to cry "red" and thus to manipulate the U.S.; (2) dependence on official French sources for intelligence and other information was potentially misleading; (3) reliance on the high-level mission technique for gathering information to be used as a direct input to policy decisions proved unsatisfactory.

 * f.

Finally, there is little indication that U.S. policymakers, their thoughts dominated by the objective of containing the monolithic communist bloc, faced up to the costs of winning the Indochina war, even while direct U.S. intervention was being considered, Nor does the evidence suggest that consideration was given to the tangible and intangible costs of providing U.S. military assistance to a power losing a war, including the potential impact on the U.S. position in Asia. And, finally, available documents fail to reveal any consideration given to the notion of sunk costs. There were, of course, voices in the wilderness. An unsigned, undated memorandum posed eight key questions to be answered by the NSC. Comment on the following four questions, in relation to the time at which they were raised, is unnecessary:

 * — Just how important is Southeast Asia to the security interests of the U.S.? Is the analysis in NSC 5405 still valid? Is the area important enough to fight for?

 * — How important is Indochina in the defense of Southeast Asia? Is the "domino theory" valid? Is Indochina important enough to fight for? If not, what are the strategic consequences of the loss of all or part of Indochina?

 * — If the U.S. intervenes in Indochina, can we count on the support of the natives? Can we fight as allies of the French and avoid the stigma of colonialism?

 * — Is there a strategic concept for the conduct of a war in Indochina which offers promise of early success...?

The decision of the United States to provide assistance to France and the Associated States during the Indochina War is usually treated lightly, if at all, in current histories. Yet, both the taking of the decision and its implementation were significant for and remarkably similar to subsequent U.S. experiences in Vietnam. Rh


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/68

38 Who did not love her better:—in her home,

A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,

She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,

Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!

Upon her face there was the tint of grief,

The settled shadow of an inward strife,

And an unquiet drooping of the eye,

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.

What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,

And he who had so loved her was not there

To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,

Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.

What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,

Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,

Nor could he be a part of that which preyed

Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand

Before an Altar—with a gentle bride;

Her face was fair, but was not that which made

The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood

Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came

The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock


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Rh That in the antique Oratory shook

His bosom in its solitude; and then—

As in that hour—a moment o'er his face

The tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced,—and then it faded as it came,

And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke

The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,

And all things reeled around him; he could see

Not that which was, nor that which should have been—

But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,

And the remembered chambers, and the place,

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,

All things pertaining to that place and hour

And her who was his destiny, came back

And thrust themselves between him and the light:

What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed

As by the sickness of the soul; her mind

Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes

They had not their own lustre, but the look

Which is not of the earth; she was become

The Queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts

Were combinations of disjointed things;


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/70

40 And forms, impalpable and unperceived

Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.

And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise

Have a far deeper madness—and the glance

Of melancholy is a fearful gift;

What is it but the telescope of truth?

Which strips the distance of its fantasies,

And brings life near in utter nakedness,

Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,

The beings which surrounded him were gone,

Or were at war with him; he was a mark

For blight and desolation, compassed round

With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed

In all which was served up to him, until,

Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,

He fed on poisons, and they had no power,


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/71

Rh But were a kind of nutriment; he lived

Through that which had been death to many men,

And made him friends of mountains: with the stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach

To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was opened wide,

And voices from the deep abyss revealed

A marvel and a secret—Be it so.

IX.

My dream was past; it had no further change.

It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out

Almost like a reality—the one

To end in madness—both in misery. July, 1816.

[First published, The Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]


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Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/43

Rh “Shall ter finish, Sorry?” cried Barker, his fellow butty.

“Finish? Niver while the world stands!” growled Morel.

And he went on striking. He was tired.

“It’s a heart-breaking job,” said Barker.

But Morel was too exasperated, at the end of his tether, to answer. Still he struck and hacked with all his might.

“Tha might as well leave it, Walter,” said Barker. “It’ll do to-morrow, without thee hackin’ thy guts out.”

“I’ll lay no b—— finger on this to-morrow, Isr’el!” cried Morel.

“Oh, well, if tha wunna, someb’dy else ’ll ha’e to,” said Israel.

Then Morel continued to strike.

“Hey-up there—loose-a’!” cried the men, leaving the next stall.

Morel continued to strike.

“Tha’ll happen catch me up,” said Barker, departing.

When he had gone, Morel, left alone, felt savage. He had not finished his job. He had overworked himself into a frenzy. Rising, wet with sweat, he threw his tool down, pulled on his coat, blew out his candle, took his lamp, and went. Down the main road the lights of the other men went swinging. There was a hollow sound of many voices. It was a long, heavy tramp underground.

He sat at the bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell plash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily. Morel gave his answers short and disagreeable.

“It’s rainin’, Sorry,” said old Giles, who had had the news from the top.

Morel found one comfort. He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the lamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top in a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he had bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of the pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was falling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the sides of the waggons, over the white “C. W. and Co.” Colliers, walking indifferent to the rain, were streaming down the line and up the field, a grey, dismal host. Morel put up his umbrella, and took pleasure from the peppering of the drops thereon.


text: Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/21


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Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/44

32 All along the road to Bestwood the miners tramped, wet and grey and dirty, but their red mouths talking with animation. Morel also walked with a gang, but he said nothing. He frowned peevishly as he went. Many men passed into the Prince of Wales or into Ellen’s. Morel, feeling sufficiently disagreeable to resist temptation, trudged along under the dripping trees that overhung the park wall, and down the mud of Greenhill Lane.

Mrs. Morel lay in bed, listening to the rain, and the feet of the colliers from Minton, their voices, and the bang, bang of the gates as they went through the stile up the field.

“There’s some herb beer behind the pantry-door,” she said. “Th’ master ’ll want a drink, if he doesn’t stop.”

But he was late, so she concluded he had called for a drink, since it was raining. What did he care about the child or her?

She was very ill when her children were born.

“What is it?” she asked, feeling sick to death.

“A boy.”

And she took consolation in that. The thought of being the mother of men was warming to her heart. She looked at the child. It had blue eyes, and a lot of fair hair, and was bonny. Her love came up hot, in spite of everything. She had it in bed with her.

Morel, thinking nothing, dragged his way up the garden path, wearily and angrily. He closed his umbrella, and stood it in the sink; then he sluthered his heavy boots into the kitchen. Mrs. Bower appeared in the inner doorway.

“Well,” she said, “she’s about as bad as she can be. It’s a boy childt.”

The miner grunted, put his empty snap-bag and his tin bottle on the dresser, went back into the scullery and hung up his coat, then came and dropped into his chair.

“Han yer got a drink?” he asked.

The woman went into the pantry. There was heard the pop of a cork. She set the mug, with a little, disgusted rap, on the table before Morel. He drank, gasped, wiped his big moustache on the end of his scarf, drank, gasped, and lay back in his chair. The woman would not speak to him again. She set his dinner before him, and went upstairs.

“Was that the master?” asked Mrs. Morel.

“I’ve gave him his dinner,” replied Mrs. Bower.

After he had sat with his arms on the table—he resented the fact that Mrs. Bower put no cloth on for him, and gave him


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 4/The Dream

Drømmen Sen (Byron)


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Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/45

Rh a little plate, instead of a full-sized dinner-plate—he began to eat. The fact that his wife was ill, that he had another boy, was nothing to him at that moment. He was too tired; he wanted his dinner; he wanted to sit with his arms lying on the board; he did not like having Mrs. Bower about. The fire was too small to please him.

After he had finished his meal, he sat for twenty minutes; then he stoked up a big fire. Then, in his stockinged feet, he went reluctantly upstairs. It was a struggle to face his wife at this moment, and he was tired. His face was black, and smeared with sweat. His singlet had dried again, soaking the dirt in. He had a dirty woollen scarf round his throat. So he stood at the foot of the bed.

“Well, how are ter, then?” he asked.

“I s’ll be all right,” she answered.

“H’m!”

He stood at a loss what to say next. He was tired, and this bother was rather a nuisance to him, and he didn’t quite know where he was.

“A lad, tha says,” he stammered.

She turned down the sheet and showed the child.

“Bless him!” he murmured. Which made her laugh, because he blessed by rote—pretending paternal emotion, which he did not feel just then.

“Go now,” she said.

“I will, my lass,” he answered, turning away.

Dismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She half wanted him to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any sign. She only breathed freely when he was gone out of the room again, leaving behind him a faint smell of pit-dirt.

Mrs. Morel had a visit every day from the Congregational clergyman. Mr. Heaton was young, and very poor. His wife had died at the birth Of his first baby, so he remained alone in the manse. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Cambridge, very shy, and no preacher. Mrs. Morel was fond of him, and he depended on her. For hours he talked to her, when she was well. He became the god-parent of the child.

Occasionally the minister stayed to tea with Mrs. Morel. Then she laid the cloth early, got out her best cups, with a little green rim, and hoped Morel would not come too soon; indeed, if he stayed for a pint, she would not mind this day. She had always two dinners to cook, because she believed children should have their chief meal at midday, whereas Morel needed his at five o’clock. So Mr. Heaton would hold 3


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Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/46

34 the baby, whilst Mrs. Morel beat up a batter-pudding or peeled the potatoes, and he, watching her all the time, would discuss his next sermon. His ideas were quaint and fantastic. She brought him judiciously to earth. It was a discussion of the wedding at Cana.

“When He changed the water into wine at Cana,” he said, “that is a symbol that the ordinary life, even the blood, of the married husband and wife, which had before been uninspired, like water, became filled with the Spirit, and was as wine, because, when love enters, the whole spiritual constitution of a man changes, is filled with the Holy Ghost, and almost his form is altered.”

Mrs. Morel thought to herself:

“Yes, poor fellow, his young wife is dead; that is why he makes his love into the Holy Ghost.”

They were halfway down their first cup of tea when they heard the sluther of pit-boots.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Morel, in spite of herself.

The minister looked rather scared. Morel entered. He was feeling rather savage. He nodded a “How d’yer do” to the clergyman, who rose to shake hands with him.

“Nay,” said Morel, showing his hand, “look thee at it! Tha niver wants ter shake hands wi’ a hand like that, does ter? There’s too much pick-halt and shovel-dirt on it.”

The minister flushed with confusion, and sat down again. Mrs. Morel rose, carried out the steaming saucepan. Morel took off his coat, dragged his armchair to table, and sat down heavily.

“Are you tired?” asked the clergyman.

“Tired? I ham that,” replied Morel. “You don’t know what it is to be tired, as I’m tired.”

“No,” replied the clergyman.

“Why, look yer ’ere,” said the miner, showing the shoulders of his singlet. “It’s a bit dry now, but it’s wet as a clout with sweat even yet. Feel it.”

“Goodness!” cried Mrs. Morel. “Mr. Heaton doesn’t want to feel your nasty singlet.”

The clergyman put out his hand gingerly.

“No, perhaps he doesn’t,” said Morel; “but it’s all come out of me, whether or not. An’ iv’ry day alike my singlet’s wringin’ wet. ’Aven’t you got a drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from the pit.”

“You know you drank all the beer,” said Mrs. Morel, pouring out his tea.


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Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/47

Rh “An’ was there no more to be got?” Turning to the clergyman—“A man gets that caked up wi’ th’ dust, you know,—that clogged up down a coalmine, he needs a drink when he comes home.”

“I am sure he does,” said the clergyman.

“But it’s ten to one if there’s owt for him.”

“There’s water—and there’s tea,” said Mrs. Morel.

“Water! It’s not water as’ll clear his throat.”

He poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it up through his great black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then he poured out another saucerful, and stood his cup on the table.

“My cloth!” said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.

“A man as comes home as I do ’s too tired to care about cloths,” said Morel.

“Pity!” exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.

The room was full of the smell of meat and vegetables and pit-clothes.

He leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward, his mouth very red in his black face.

“Mr. Heaton,” he said, “a man as has been down the black hole all day, dingin’ away at a coal face, yi, a sight harder than that wall—”

“ Needn’t make a moan of it,” put in Mrs. Morel.

She hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience, he whined and played for sympathy. William, sitting nursing the baby, hated him, with a boy’s hatred for false sentiment, and for the stupid treatment of his mother. Annie had never liked him; she merely avoided him.

When the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.

“A fine mess!” she said.

“Dos’t think I’m goin’ to sit wi’ my arms danglin’, cos tha’s got a parson for tea wi’ thee?” he bawled.

They were both angry, but she said nothing. The baby began to cry, and Mrs. Morel, picking up a saucepan from the hearth, accidentally knocked Annie on the head, whereupon the girl began to whine, and Morel to shout at her. In the midst of this pandemonium, William looked up at the big glazed text over the mantelpiece and read distinctly:

“God Bless Our Home!”

Whereupon Mrs. Morel, trying to soothe the baby, jumped up, rushed at him, boxed his ears, saying:

“What are you putting in for?”


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/73

Rh Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy Earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,

The palaces of crownéd kings—the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gathered round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye

Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:

A fearful hope was all the World contained;

Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour

They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks

Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhode Island


text: The World's Famous Orations/Volume 1/Against Ctesiphon; or, On the Crown


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/74

44 And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenchéd hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past World; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled

And twined themselves among the multitude,

Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food:

And War, which for a moment was no more,

Did glut himself again:—a meal was bought

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left;

All earth was but one thought—and that was Death,

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails—men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devoured,

Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead

Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answered not with a caress—he died.

The crowd was famished by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place


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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/75

Rh Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—

Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The World was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped

They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe. Diodati, July, 1816. [First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

beside the grave of him who blazed

The Comet of a season, and I saw


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Maharif

MAHARIF, mä'hȧ-rḗf. An antelope of the Sudan (Hippotragus Bakeri), allied to the roan and sable antelopes, and standing nearly five feet high at the withers. It is of a pale liver color, with penciled ears and black stripes across the shoulders. This fine antelope, whose horns are massive, was discovered by Sir Samuel Baker.


text:
Page:Memories of Virginia.djvu/134

 requested to read his verses, but was unable to be present, and asked Mrs. Grant to take his place on the program. The poem follows:

I am the voice of the bell, named of her name and sweet

With metals fused by the glowing flame of love in the crucible's heat;

I am the voice of her heart, and her charm, and her virgin grace.

Who stood in the path of the savage blow with pity upon her face. I am the voice of her soul, who was princess and woman, too,

A rose of the tawny bloom that bloomed under these skies of blue! I am the voice of the bell in whose sweet throat they've spun

Metal of worth from Northern homes and homes of the Southern sun;

Blended and massed and fused, dim treasures of memory old,

Silver and copper, and bronze, and brass, and gold of the yellow gold;

Out of one speaks the tongue and the heart of the sovereign land,

A sisterhood of the sister States, neighborly, hand in hand!

I am the voice of the bell, Virginia's bell and time's; Ringing the revel of golden years in revel of golden chimes;

Ringing the old days back, sweet as they were before, With loveliness of the olden love and charm of the ancient lore;

Ringing the new and true, the tocsin of splendid days,

With hope and cheer for the onward years lighting the golden ways !

I am the voice of the bell, with a rose song in my mouth, Ringing the faith of a woman's heart over the rosy South;

Ringing her fame afar and ringing her name on high—

A woman of worth when the young green earth bloomed under a tender sky! I am Virginia's bell, and the glory of her is mine,

As the glory of her, O land we love, is ever and ever thine!

title: Page:Memories of Virginia.djvu/134


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Mahaseer

MAHASEER, mä'hȧ-sēr. A large barbel of India and Ceylon (Barbus tor), which reaches a length of six feet under favorable circumstances. These great fish reside in the streams

of the highlands, and form one of the principal attractions to the 'angler in the East. When the rainy season begins, the mahaseers ascend the hill rivers and their tributaries as far as possible, and spawn, after which they drop down with the subsiding waters. When the ova hatch the fry find themselves alone in the scanty headwaters, and safe from the devouring appetites of their now absent parents. In these small streams and pools they grow almost unmolested until the next season's high water enables them to go down stream. Thus the continued supply of this and of various other similar fishes is secured to the people of the plains. Mahaseer fishing is one of the leading sports of India.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Mahātma

MAHĀTMA (Skt., possessing a great soul). A name applied in theosophy (q.v.) to a class of saints who are said to refrain from entering ../Nirvana/ (q.v.) that they may help mankind by their presence on earth. As a result of their asceticism and meditation they are supposed to possess superhuman powers, by means of which they are enabled to project their astral bodies to vast distances. The idea of mahātmas is entirely theosophical. Real Oriental philosophy knows nothing of them.


text:
Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/90

 A higher form of activity involving the sensori-motor apparatus of the body is found when the control over external objects is achieved by means of tools of some sort, or by the application of one material to another. The use of a saw, a gimlet, a plane, of modeling-sticks, etc., illustrate the intervention of tools. The use of a thread in sewing, the application of heat and moisture in cooking or other simple experimentations, illustrate the use of one thing (or mode of energy) to bring about a change in another thing. There is, of course, no sharp distinction, either in practice or in principle, between this form of activity and the more direct kind just discussed. The organs of the body—especially the hands—may be regarded as a kind of tools whose use is to be learned by trying and thinking. Tools may be regarded as a sort of extension of the bodily organs. But the growing use of the latter opens a new line of development so important in its consequences that it is worth while to give it distinctive recognition. It is the discovery and use of extra-organic tools which has made possible, both in the history of the race and of the


text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 4/Darkness


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Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/91

 individual, complicated activities of a long duration—that is, with results that are long postponed. And, as we have already seen, it is this prolongation and postponement which requires an increasing use of intelligence. The use of tools and appliances (in the broad sense) also demands a greater degree of technical skill than does mastery of the use of the natural organs—or rather, it involves the problem of a progressively more complicated use of the latter—and hence stimulates a new line of development.

Roughly speaking, the use of such intervening appliances marks off games and work on one side, from play on the other. For a time children are satisfied with such changes as they can bring about with their hands and by locomotion and transportation. Other changes which they cannot so effect they are satisfied to imagine, without an actual physical modification. Let us "play"—let us "make-believe" that things are so and so, suffices. One thing may be made to stand for another, irrespective of its actual fitness. Thus leaves become dishes, bright stones articles of


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Mahāvansa

MAHĀVANSA, (Pali, great lineage). The title of a celebrated historical work, written in Pali, giving an account in epic form of the island of Lanka, or Ceylon, from the earliest times and the introduction of Buddhism down to the death of King Mahasena, which occurred A.D. 302, and extended later by various additions down to the time of the English occupation. Like the (q.v.), the Mahavansa is derived from a more ancient source, the historical portion of the Aṭṭakathā, which commented on the Buddhist Scriptures after giving an annalistic record by way of introduction. An incomplete edition of the Mahavansa, with an English translation, was published by G. Turnour (Ceylon, 1837) and reissued later in revised form by L. C. Wÿesinha, Mahāwanso, Translated from the Pali into English, vol. i. (Colombo, 1889). Consult Geiger, Dīpavansa und mahāvansa, die beiden Chroniken der Insel Ceylon (Erlangen, 1901).


text: United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 2


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Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/92

 food, splinters of wood knives and forks, when children are playing at setting a table. In free play things are plastic to alter their nature as mood or passing need dictates; chairs now serve as wagons, now as a train of cars, now as boats, etc. In games, however, there are rules to be followed; so that things have to be used in definite ways, since they are means for accomplishing definite ends, as a club is a bat for hitting a ball. In similar fashion, children as their powers mature want real dishes, real articles of food; and are better satisfied if they can actually make a fire and cook. They want to use the things that are fitted to their purposes and that will really accomplish certain results, instead of effecting them only in fancy. It will be found that the change comes with ability to carry a purpose in mind for a longer time. The little child is impatient, as we say, for immediate returns. He cannot wait to get the appropriate means and use them in the appropriate way to achieve the end: not because he is physically more impatient than older persons, but because an end that is not achieved almost at once gets away


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Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/93

 from his mind. To execute his purpose he makes his "means" realize his ideas at one stroke of the magic wand of imagination. But as ideas persist for a longer time they can be employed to effect an actual transformation of conditions—a process that almost always requires the intervention of tools, or the use of intervening appliances.

There seems to be no better name for the acts of using intermediate means, or appliances, to reach ends than work. When employed in this way, however, work must be distinguished from labor and from toil and drudgery. Labor means a form of work in which the direct result accomplished is of value only as a means of exchange for something else. It is an economic term, being applied to that form of work where the product is paid for, and the money paid is used for objects of more direct values. Toil implies unusual arduousness in a task, involving fatigue. Drudgery is an activity which in itself is quite disagreeable, performed under the constraint of some quite extraneous need. Play and work cannot, therefore, be distinguished from one another according to


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Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/212

 It is ever anatomy, an execution, a flaying scene; always some suffering, never an action of the hero, never an interest in the scene before you; always something for the fancy, some excitement accruing from without. Nothing but deeds of horror or convulsive sufferings, malefactors or fanatics, alongside of whom the artist, in order to save his art, invariably slips in a naked boy or a pretty damsel, as a spectator, in every case treating his spiritual heroes as little better than lay figures (Gliedermanner) on which to hang some beautiful mantle with its folds. In all there is nothing that suggests a human notion. Scarcely one subject in ten that ever ought to have been painted, and that one the painter has chosen to view from any but the right point of view.

Guido's great picture in the Church of the Mendicants is all that painting can do, but, at the same time, all that absurdity could task an artist with. It is a votive piece. I can well believe that the whole consistory praised it, and also that they devised it. The two angels, who were fit to console a Psyche in her misery, must here …

The St. Proclus is a beautiful figure, but the others—bishops and popes! Below are heavenly children playing with attributes. The painter, who had no choice left him, laboured to help himself as best he could. He exerted himself merely to show that he was not the barbarian. Two naked figures by Guido, a St. John in the Wilderness, a Sebastian—how exquisitely painted, and what do they say? The one is gaping and the other wriggling.

Were I to contemplate history in my present ill humour, I should say, faith revived art, but superstition immediately made itself master of it, and ground it to the dust.

After dinner, seeming somewhat of a milder temper, and less arrogantly disposed than in the morning, I


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 the presence or absence of direct interest in what is doing. A child engaged in making something with tools, say, a boat, may be just as immediately interested in what he is doing as if he were sailing the boat. He is not doing what he does for the mere sake of an external result—the boat—nor for the mere sake of sailing it later. The thought of the finished product and of the use to which it is to be put may come to his mind, but so as to enhance his immediate activity of construction In this case, his interest is free. He has a play-motive; his activity is essentially artistic in principle. What differentiates it from more spontaneous play is an intellectual quality; a remoter end in time serves to suggest and regulate a series of acts. Not to introduce an element of work in this sense when the child is ready for it is simply arbitrarily to arrest his development, and to force his activities to a level of sense-excitation after he is prepared to act upon the basis of an idea. A mode of activity that was quite normal in its own period becomes disintegrating when persisted in after a person is ripe for an activity involving more thought. We must


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The New International Encyclopædia/Mahāvīra

MAHĀVĪRA, (Skt. mahā-vīra, great hero). Name of the founder of the sect of the Jains. (See .) He is known also as Vardhamāna ‘the Exalted,’ Vīra ‘the Hero,’ or as Jina ‘the Victorious.’ He is regarded as the twenty-fourth and last in the long list of deified masters recognized in Jainism, and he appears to have been an elder contemporary of Buddha. His birthplace was at Kotigama (now Vasakund), in Northeastern India. His legendary history is given in the Kalpa-Sūtra (q.v.) and the Mahavīra-Charitra, two works held in great authority by the Jainas. According to these works, Mahāvīra's first birth occurred at a period infinitely remote; it was as a nayasara, head man of a village, that he first appeared in the country of Vijaya, subject to Satrumardana. He was next born as Marichi, the grandson of the first Jaina saint Rishabha; he then came to the world of Brahma, was reborn as a worldly minded Brahman, and after several other births—each separated from the other by an interval passed in one of the Jaina heavens, and each period of life extending to many hundreds of thousands of years—he quitted the state

of a deity to obtain immortality as a saint, and was incarnate toward the close of the fourth age, when seventy-five years and eight and one-half months of it remained. After he was thirty years of age he renounced worldly pursuits, and departed to practice austerities. Finally, he became an Arhat or Jina; and at the age of seventy-two years, the period of his liberation having arrived, ‘he resigned his breath,’ and his body was burned by Indra and other deities, who divided among them such parts as were not destroyed by the flames. The ashes of the pile were distributed among the assistants; the gods erected a splendid monument on the spot, and then returned to their respective heavens.