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242 it as it stands if any one of them can put it together as it ought to be. You think you can learn everything out of books. I would not give a snap for all your histories; paper is patient, and lets you print what you like on it. I once tried to make a microscope after a description as it stood in the book, but it was good for nothing. Whoever is not in the business himself will never know as long as he lives how to bring the right focus into the glass. Go away with your learned disquisitions!" The master's wife came in; she had the pincers in her hand, and flourished the instrument violently.

"Yes," she cried; "If they could only learn how in a trice, every ignoramus would come here and turn optician in less than no time."

It was no little trouble to pacify the good folks again.

"I am a man like a lamb," then said the master; "if you cannot get on with me you will never get on with any one in this world."

"Yes, he is only too good to the people," interrupted his wife, "and what he wastes on other people I have to make up for."

"Never mind," said the master; "you take good care of yourself; but I will be honest with you, you shall not have it to say later that I kept anything back from you. In the first place, it is an unhealthy trade. Look at me, see what I am; I have already swallowed more than three hundredweight: of glass.

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Rh I know I shall not last much longer. God's will be done!"

"Don't belie yourself, Christian," interrupted his wife; "if one is as strong as that in the sixties, and for three years has not paid the doctor or the apothecary a farthing, I think one may thank God. You must not believe all he says."

"Let me speak, I know what I am saying," retorted the master, trying to give himself an air of importance. He first clasped his little finger round the ring-finger of his left hand, then said, "Secondly, it is a poor trade; you get nothing by it."

"Yes, yes, he is right there," commented his wife. "When we began business we and the late Greenwond, who lived by the Town Hall that is burned down, were the only two, and there are twenty-three in the town now; we hardly earn water enough for soup, and the worst of it is we cannot for shame give up the business. We are two old people and do not need much; with scraping and saving we manage to pull through, so that at the end of the year we still keep our things together. I don't know how folks get on with a house full of children, living on scanty wages."

His father, moved by these representations, would have retracted his consent, but Spinoza stood firm; so they came to an agreement with the master that, for a moderate premium, Spinoza should learn as long from him as he pleased.

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

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244 Such was the wholly new atmosphere, one filled with the smell of pitch and glass dust, into which Spinoza now entered. Henceforward he spent the greater part of the day in the workshop. He learned to handle the sharp diamond set in one leg of a compass, to cut pieces of a certain size out of panes, the pieces still keeping their crystal facets when split. Spinoza then entered on the first grade of the honorable art of polishing. The cut piece was fixed on a vise with pitch, this fixed to a lever, and a wheel worked with the right foot. A strap was fastened round this and to a roller, on which was fixed a perfectly smooth plate of lead. The plate turned, and with the left hand the fragment of glass was pressed against it, thus inscribing successive circles on it until the glass received the required form. Wet sand must be continually scattered over it to avoid setting the hard material on fire by friction, and to increase the roughness of the lead. The first stage was then finished. Spinoza would have preferred a less troublesome and, above all, a cleaner handicraft; but it was just these additions to his work which became his intellectual means to further penetration of the laws of existence. Men are much inclined to regard apparently rough and repulsive labors as inferior. Spinoza accustomed himself to regard the circumstances of life, not according to their popular estimation, but on the essential grounds of their

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Rh existence. The work is but unclean from one point of view; while engaged in it the workman is covered with dust and sand, but its aim is the highest degree of purity and cleanliness. At the second stage it was decided whether the smooth glass was to receive a concave or a convex form, and a concave or convex brass plate accordingly fixed on the cylinder; a screw was fixed alternately on either glass with pitch, and this by means of a peg turned round on the brass plate, on which the same movement as in the first stage was employed. Meanwhile the fine sand, now ground to polishing dust, must be spread on the plate by means of a brush, and water from the tin can near spurted out of the mouth on to the plate. After the two sides were so prepared the third stage was proceeded to; the brass plate was made hot, a drilled hole on the wrong side smeared with cement, covered on the right side with so-called caput mortuum (oxyd of iron), water being still sprinkled continually on it, and the glass thus polished. The glass having passed through the three stages of cutting, smoothing and polishing, so that neither crack nor flaw was discoverable, was perfect.

Spinoza soon mastered the mechanical difficulties, and the first glass that he perfected without extraneous aid from its roughest state to the satisfaction of the master made his eyes light up with pleasure. The sight of the perfected work was a

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246 double gratification, gratification that the raw material was perfected to its end, and gratification to the mind of the workman that the raw material bore the impress of his will.

He understood the mathematical calculation of the glasses and their combination sooner than the master had expected. The books must have contained something more than mere nonsense.

While Spinoza chipped glasses for the short and weak-sighted, to bring the distant near, and the near nearer, he worked out in his mind the finest optical problems to clear and strengthen the mind's eyes of his contemporaries and successors. He was glad that the continual whirring allowed but short intervals of intercourse with his comrades; he could thus follow his own thoughts undisturbed.

There was one merry fellow in the workshop, with finely cut, handsome features, and rough, curly brown hair; he always sang and laughed as he pushed the door open, for he went on crutches, having club feet. While he placed his crutches near, and, rolling his shirt-sleeves up, put his lathe in order—he worked it in a way of his own with his knees—he regularly treated his fellow-workmen to a speech. Once he said: "Am I not better off than King Nebuchadnezzar? He, I believe, had earthen feet, and could never have stumbled over our bad pavements. I have pulled the arms out of a tree and made myself feet thereof; the next time

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Rh an eagle flies between my legs I will pull his wings out and sew them on me. I have a right to ask wings from our Lord God. Why has he given me feet I cannot use? Brethren, it would be all up then; you might keep St. Monday five days in the week; you would want no more telescopes. Does any learned gentleman want to know what a star looks like? Here I am, Mr. Peter Blyning, at your service; for a good tip I will fly up and spy it all out for you. Perhaps I might stay up there and come down no more. If a pretty moon maiden would marry me I should be quite willing; down here I must die a bachelor."

A peal of laughter always followed his words, and he took every opportunity of treating them to his oratory.

"After all, as things are, we are all crutch makers; what our Lord and God has bungled over we have to set to rights. If he had stuck better eyes in the folks we need have no telescopes and no spectacles. May God forgive me! but I am often right down angry with him. What have I done to him that he should send me into the world half made? If he does not give me better feet up there he may keep his eternal life to himself. I'll none of it."

They all stared at him with blank faces when he spoke like this. Spinoza alone tried to show him that physical pains and imperfections are not real evils; and that it is a man's highest vocation to lead

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248 well the life God has allotted to him, and not to pine for powers denied to us by nature, for in so doing we shall never attain to true peace of mind.

"Yes, you have spoken well," said Peter, and his voice had a melancholy tremble in its tones; "you have spoken well, but do I demand more than belongs to me by right as a man? Look here; if but for once in my life I could dance I swear I should be ready to go to my grave in peace. When I hear dance-music, nay, even now, this moment, when I only think of it, I think I could jump out of my skin with rage; I could tear my eyes out; and shame on me! but I have drunk myself often enough blind drunk, because I was afraid the people all the while might see me crying."

Spinoza strove to soothe Peter; he won his good will, so that he was occasionally shown how to handle his work by him; but our philosopher, in the midst of his discourse, was often aware how infinitely difficult it is to descend from the heights of ideal generalities to daily needs and the questions of ordinary men.

The rumor spread through the workshop that Spinoza was a great scholar. His companions were proud of their apprentice, and boasted of him in the ale-house; but in their behavior to Spinoza himself they gave him plainly to understand that he was only a Jew, and took certain airs of superior birth and familiar condescension with regard to

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Rh him. Conquering all sensitiveness, Spinoza only noticed the latter, and his gentle yet self-possessed manner turned off all rudeness; his companions soon acquired a certain half unwilling respect for Spinoza. A short, impressive sentence spoken by him often worked long in the minds of those who heard it. Master Huyghens, and his wife too, soon became fond of the modest, quiet young man. These were not shepherds and fishermen, not men of simple life in continual intercourse with eternal nature, with whom he could live like the wise of old, enriching and widening his own intelligence. It was a world whose activity lay far from aboriginal simplicity; whose inhabitants spent their days in every imaginable noise; on whose minds even on holidays it was difficult to impress a word. But by the rushing brook or the whirring wheel the souls of men are as alike as the winds that carry the different waves of sound, and the priesthood that serves the eternal laws must be perpetually renewed. As in nature each plant shoots upward, it lives for itself alone, and yet to the minds of men it seems to open and close with the greatest uniformity; so the activity of mankind is divided into different callings, each man being devoted to one in particular, and striving to fulfil it; but to the thinking mind all are united in the working of one great machine. Spinoza felt especially glad to stand in the ranks of those who earn their daily bread by

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250 the labor of their hands. For all thus engaged quietly fulfil the requirements of the law of their nature. Work is the attribute of man; he fulfils the law in employing himself of his own free will; and it is a great and glorious chorus that comprises all the teaching and writing, the hammering and digging, the drilling and boiling in the individual workshops of the universe, and what results there-from. The quiet life of nature is mere existence; intelligence is thought; work is existence and thought united.

Spinoza was sociable, gay and contented.

Not so Olympia when he described his new way of life to her.

"I am glad we agree in one thing," she said; "that to spend the livelong day in brooding over the thought of others is either too much or too little work; so much so that it becomes tiresome to me, and I am glad to count my stitches again. When I am sewing my best thoughts come. Do you see that garland of roses? Legends as foolish and extravagant as those of the Gesta Romanorum are imprisoned in those stitches. Ah! how glad I was then that I knew some handicraft."

"But I do not work merely to do something with my hands, but to give my teeth something to chew."

"I have noticed for a long time," replied Olympia, "that reading Tacitus has made you quite humorous."

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Rh "I was not aware of it, but I am in sober earnest, that, for the future, I must earn my own livelihood."

"What did you acquire so much learning for then? Not for mere vanity, I hope? My father will enlarge his Institute, and you shall be a headmaster in it; will you not be my colleague?"

"I am sorry to say, No. You may call it egotism, but my first duties are to myself, and I must first be clear of these; then, if I can teach anything that would be of service to mankind I will think of it; but neither now, nor ever, will I sell the smallest of my convictions for material good."

"You always appear like a Deus ex machina," said Olympia to Oldenburg, as he entered. "Do you know that your god-child is preparing to be a master-craftsman?"

"An apostle to all lands, rather, you would say," replied Oldenburg.

"If it were only some pursuit," continued Olympia, "such as the learned men and statesmen of old times followed, like agriculture, I should not have minded so much; there was something great in making extremes meet, and doing with the most cultivated minds the work of the rudest aborigines; even fishing and carpentering have something poetical in them; but to polish glass in an obscure room cramps and stupefies body and soul. It sets my teeth on edge to think of glass

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252 polishing. The hand of a philosopher turning the wheel of a machine, and employed in stupid manufacture; it is too repulsive a thought!"

"Do not abuse handicraft," replied Spinoza earnestly, "it is a privilege of humanity. The beasts have only their instinctive faculties of work, to build their nests, obtain their nourishment, to attack and to defend. Mankind has made the external productions of nature his limbs. If he wants the flight of birds, the speed of deer, arrow and ball will overtake either. His hands can with, difficulty dig up the earth; he melts iron and points it as hatchet or plough, yokes the strength of beasts to it, and carves and shapes both wood and stone. The peaceful crafts of shaping and building are the noblest inheritance of mankind, are sacred traditions. Whoever leaves an improved tool to posterity gives a helping hand, and here a thousand immortal minds work on in obscurity. If I could in thought or deed invent something that would serve men after me in the enlightenment and beautifying of life, I should be happy; but never must we forget that all that is so handed down is but a tool for our own formation."

"That is all very fine and witty," said Olympia, womanlike seizing one thought out of the whole to reply to; "every one can think that, without being an artisan himself. Why should you work with sacred axes, sacred hatchets, and sacred files?"

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Rh "Because, to answer in your own way, I am cumbered with a sacred body, that requires food; and with the handicraft I have chosen I will demonstrate the whole theory of dialectics to you: Two concave glasses laid on one another show the object at which you look through them upside down, the reflecting glass between brings it again into its right position."

"When were you born?" interrupted Oldenburg.

"A strange question. Sir Godfather," replied Spinoza, "if you do not yet know, in November of the year 1632."

"That is excellent," continued Oldenburg; "did you never hear of the Görlitz Apostle who raved in perpetual apostolic ecstasies? On November, '24, he departed this life. He was by trade an honorable shoemaker, and I will show you from the Apocalypse that, seven years after his death, a new philosopher must be born, also a handicraftsman."

"Your comparison limps," said Olympia, "for your Jacob Böhme was a shoemaker, and became a philosopher, while our Maledict, from a philosopher became a handicraftsman."

"Excuse me," said Spinoza; "the jest does not limp, but has a leg too many, for there are eight years between 24 and 32."

"That does not matter," answered Oldenburg, "if you amputate a year. But in truth and earnest, you offend your friends by the aim to which you

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User:Tsillaria360

Tadaram Maradas' Book of Quotations

 * Negative energy can be a positive motivating force devoid human emotion, isolation, and extinction
 * Be careful of the company that you keep, for everyone who smiles in your face is not your friend
 * (Thought or Idea)  ..  That’s how the game is told, and that’s how the game is sold
 * For every action there is a reaction, however for every action there is also completely separate action that negates the first action
 * Life’s journey deals you friends in both high places (+), and low places (-), one can always mate the other
 * Every ending in one’s Life Series, constitutes a beginning De Novo, always every time
 * It’s not about your past, it’s about your future …… everyday
 * Life is good all of the time and what you do is make the most of it ….. every day that you are in it
 * As your life’s journey slowly trans-forms into the part of life called death, one can find the entire world in a grain of sand
 * The first indication of survival is a feeling of sadness and a tear, and the first action of survival is Self Preservation
 * At every level, there is another Devil
 * Visions, hopes, and dreams are what keep one alive, when you lose them and they come to you no more, then one has lost his / her reason for life itself
 * My Dad would always say to me, always takes care of your business son, and let everything else fall as it may, a lot of things may come and go, but you need to stay focused
 * Like my mother always said … You can’t always bust your gun Son, she would say, Sometimes you got to run
 * The kind of fear that can’t be erased is the kind of fear for failure of Self – Preservation
 * It’s better to be a live chicken, than a dead duck
 * Being a live chicken is a form of self – preservation, however when that same chicken is cornered and has to come out of the same corner fighting, is also a form of self – defense
 * I am a firm believer in the K.I.S.S., method: Keep It Simple Stupid
 * Happiness isn’t something that you remember it’s something that you experience
 * Hold on to your dreams, for if your dreams die, life is like a broken winged EAGLE that cannot fly
 * It is on the wings of the sparrow that the soul is first incepted into the world, and it is on the wings of ravens that it is incepted into the part of life called death
 * It is what it is, and never anything else but that
 * It’s the ones who you love the most, that hurt you the most, when you need them the most
 * If you don’t stand for something, then you will fall for anything
 * Always, everyday, all of the time, do the right thing, especially when no one is looking, that way when they go behind your back to see what you’ve done, they have nothing to see
 * The only time that water has life, and will flow uphill is when it’s forced, other than that it will only flow downhill, all the time
 * My Word is Born and my word is Bond  …   I said it and I meant it
 * It takes two negative reactions to erase one positive action, and it takes two positive reactions to erase one negative action
 * Trust is a hard thing to come by, it takes years to build and moments to destroy, oftentimes once you lose it you can never get it back
 * The ups and downs, changes and turnarounds in your life series occur when, a positive action is executed with a grain of salt, or a negative action is executed with a grain of sugar
 * Backwards, Ass Backwards, Back Asswards
 * It is so weak, but yet so powerful, and that is my gift to you
 * This one resounds through the ages, and never goes away: Money talks and Bullshit walks”
 * (Random & Idol thought) ….. Don’t be afraid, and don’t go away
 * (Random & Idol thought) ….. Don’t worry or feel any pain, and you can scream because there is no shame
 * A Theory, A Retrospective, A Hypothesis, you are a product of your environment
 * I believed that this happened, this is what happened, and this is what I believe can happen
 * Time does not heal all wounds, in-stead the longer it goes on, the worst it gets
 * Failure is a favor that moves one higher in responsibility and action as opposed to firing one from it
 * Trial and error, shadows and dust, dust and air
 * The smell of a skunk comes in two forms, a tree and an animal however the smell always dissipates with heat
 * Where darkness meets the light, and vice versa, If I can be myself in shades of gray, than that would be worth my weight in gold
 * Cutting edge creativity is a combination of creativity from pure thought (nothingness) in combination with creativity from the repetition of action
 * You cannot stop the sun from shining, because it shines all of the time, the times that it did not are the times you turned away from it
 * By natural characteristic, water flows downhill and still waters run deep unless it’s forced by pressure or wind, therefore water is always associated with a downdrop.(The Church of the living water’), (R.I.P, - Rest in Peace)
 * By natural characteristic Fire burns up in all degrees white, blue, red, yellow, and orange, then it dies down. But never burns down
 * There is a war up in heaven, and there is peace down in the earth
 * The book of Life brings death, and the book of death brings life
 * One cannot stop life, grass will grow through a concrete sidewalk, and a rose will sprout up in the middle of the street
 * An Atheist does not believe in Satan, Lucipher or the Devil !!!!
 * Love is that part of the glory of me, inscribed in you, that is enough to sus-tain you, even when I am away
 * Laughter is the best medicine, Success is the best revenge, Love is the answer
 * Shoot for the moon ...  even if you miss, you'll land among the stars
 * Don’t be afraid, and don’t go away, for what may seem like the end of the world to you, but to me it is just another day
 * Love has no Label, it's PURE or NOTHING
 * That’s the hurt bringing the pain, that’s the bitch calling the whore, together they are to die for
 * Almost doesn't count because there is absolutely tooooo much life on the other side of Almost
 * Keep your enemies close, but keep your friends closer, when you know who your real friends are, then you will know how far away to keep your enemies
 * There’s always a beautiful thing happening in the now right there before your eyes, you simply need to open your eyes to see it, When are you gonna open your eyes
 * Free your mind of the mental and psychological chains of traditionally defined colonialism
 * Hate has a perfect place in the world, but it's a trigger that is sets off by a variable, and not a constant
 * All good song lyrics comes from Poetry, and all good music comes from Classical music
 * When the POSITIVE motivation stops and the NEGATIVE is all around you the system is sending you into ISOLATION to set you up for EXTINCTION

 * Tadaram Maradas -  Book of Quotations

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254 are devoting your life; the case is so clear to me that I can not only speak before our friend, but before every one. Have you not declared to me yourself that among friends everything is in common? Are we so ethereal that we can only exchange words and feelings, and not clinking gold?"

"I know your generous heart, and you know I thereby thank you," replied Spinoza; "but I have already told you that I will never receive a gift from a friend, as long as I can work for my living with my hands."

Spinoza was not to be dissuaded from diligently following his trade.

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OW do you like Kerkering?" inquired Olympia one day when he did not come to the lesson.

"As you do," retorted Spinoza.

"You build too much on our habit of taking the words out of each other's mouths," answered Olympia. "What fault do you find with him?"

Spinoza flushed red at having to answer this, partly because he had silently extended similar blame to Olympia, partly because he feared Olympia might misconstrue his words as jealousy. These contradictory thoughts flashed through his mind in a second, and after a short pause Olympia continued:

"Kerkering is thoroughly good-hearted; his loquacity is the national failing of the Hanseatic towns of Germany."

"Now I see," replied Spinoza, "that the Jews are not alone in having the fate to be judged in a body by the first and best individual that chance throws in the way. But consider the self-possession and calm judgment of ethical subjects that characterize our friend Oldenburg. Why not take him as a type of the Hanseatic townsmen?"

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256 "You are right," replied Olympia; "but you make such progress with me that I shall never allow myself to judge in future. I am too easily influenced by surrounding circumstances, and you comprehend the general view so acutely."

"Do not call it masculine vanity," responded Spinoza; "but you confirm what I have observed with my sisters and their friends; women seldom seem to feel pleasure in mere rectitude; they do not judge of the deed but the doer, and of him with either partiality or prejudice."

"Agreed. Well, we are not in the world to philosophize. You agree with me there; you too do not like this jingling prattle, with its cut and dried ready-coined thoughts; if these pennies are always in circulation they become worn out, lose all freshness in the impression, and retain only nominal value. So it is with Kerkering, he is wanting in true inner worth."

"He has his compensations," said Spinoza, "he has all the more jingle."

Olympia seemed to have no inclination to pursue this turn of the conversation, for she continued with her eyes sparkling strangely:

"Our friend Oldenburg always wants me to try my hand at poetry like my namesake Olympia Morata; but I must confess that I pity poets almost as much as I respect them, because they both can and must lay bare their deepest feelings to the eyes

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Rh of the whole world. It seems to me that if I were to express to the world my inner life, what constitutes the core of my being, I should no longer be my own; the world would have me, I should remain but a shadow of what I had resigned, and must suddenly vanish away. So I prefer the ancient philosophers' way, who never made their own minds the subject of discussion; they had an esoteric doctrine expressed only in symbols, never in words."

"With the idea with which you started," said Spinoza, "I am in perfect harmony. If I were a theologian I might make an allegory of it: how the high-priest of the temple of Jerusalem, on peril of his life, entered the Holy of Holies but once a year, declaring the unutterable name of Jehovah therefrom, while all the people without fell on their faces. By a little 'pious fraud' we might easily substitute the idea which you have otherwise expressed; but I am not fond of such interpretations, they are usually self-deception or worse."

"Do not take the thing so barbarously literally; that is a glorious interpretation; but once, when the divine unites itself with the human, the Holy of Holies of the temple of the heart may be opened, and the unutterable incorporate itself in words. Why, it would be a good symbol, too, for many situations in life; in daily intercourse those who are near and dear to each other keep their isolated

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258 niches, which then would open, and would forebode what lies so deep in the heart and cannot be expressed."

"Forebodings, even between the most confidential, are often illusions,"

"No, not in this case, indeed not. Ah! it is so heavenly to feel, dispensing with words, yet with undoubting confidence, that the very depths of our souls, which no eye can penetrate, are in friendly communication with another's. What can be better than, in the thousand varying circumstances of life, to look into other eyes and know that there every feeling exists with equal power, and in unchangeable harmony with your own?"

With what deep unutterable yearning Olympia gazed at Spinoza; a rich color flushed her cheeks, her lips trembled with excitement, her whole attitude was one of abandonment.

Spinoza regarded her with unmoved countenance. Could a man of such fine feeling, sensitive to the slightest influences of thought and imagination, could he not see that here was a soul yearning for conscious communion with his? Had he no feeling for her? Or did he by force of will repress an inclination that could only bring trouble to both himself and Olympia?

"The unutterable of which you speak," said Spinoza after a painful pause, "I see more clearly day by day must remain such with our thoughts

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Rh of God and nature; we are never more than half understood, or are misunderstood."

Clearly he had comprehended Olympia, and wished to turn her thoughts into another channel.

"I shall not be able to come here to-morrow," continued Spinoza; "my sister is to be married to young Casseres. May she be truly happy! She understands me best; we often converse together half the night through."

This digression had not the desired effect.

"You are more fortunate than I," replied Olympia. "I am so lonely. I never knew my mother. You cannot imagine what it is for a girl never to have known her mother. I have often thought how very different I should have been if I had not grown up among men, and been educated almost entirely by my father. That dreadful war robbed me of my only brother; my cousin Cecilia, who has stayed here during my father's absence, was his betrothed. Ah! you would have been a dear friend to Cornelius, perhaps more so than to me."

"Certainly not that—but it is odd you should both have such heathenish names."

Did Olympia not agree to this, or did she really not hear him? Anyhow she continued in the same tone:

"I have often thought that, if one of us must die, would it not have been better if I had died? Cornelius could have been of use to and enjoyed the world; but I—what should I live for?"

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260 "To feel joy in yourself, to illuminate and charm with your intellect and graceful presence," answered Spinoza, inwardly blaming himself, thinking he had committed a fault in speaking thus.

"You jest," Olympia answered bitterly. "Once, I confess, I was vain enough to think so, but I have learned to see that nature should have sent me into the world under another mask, and at another period."

"Pray, do not belie yourself," interrupted Spinoza. "I am sure you think better of the world and of yourself. I dare not praise you, you say so often I have no eye for beauty."

Cecilia entered the room at this point, and relieved them both from a painful conversation. Spinoza soon after took his departure. He went home with a peaceful sense of self-conquest, for he thought that he had suppressed, with masculine power, the first buds of Olympia's inclination for him. A certain secret triumph he could not repress, that he should without solicitation be beloved by such a woman as Olympia.

Olympia was out of temper the whole evening, and as she lay on her bed she bedewed the pillows with bitter tears.

"Has it gone so far with thee," she said to herself, "that thou throwest thyself on any one's neck, and he stands with straightened arms!"

She sighed deeply, and Cecilia often inquired

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Rh what was the matter with her; she gave no answer, and pretended to be no longer awake, but in fact could find no rest.

"He is a heartless, selfish man, with a frosty intellect!"

No, she could not say that, she could not think so of him. His youthful modesty, his invincible truthfulness, and above all, the unmistakable signs of good will and love for humanity in his countenance, the tender smile of his loving mouth, and the glowing depths of his dark eyes! No, she could not make him a caricature.

Singing and carolling she arose next morning, and as she stood before the glass her looks said:

"No, it has not come to that yet, and were he a god, and thought himself raised above all human woes, my honor and self-respect require that he should kneel to me; and then, having won him, I will see how to begin."

With gay self-satisfaction she continued her toilette.

Not with such gayety did Miriam de Spinoza don her wedding garments, for religious custom had here ordained a strange and harsh contrast. Beneath the glistening bridal robes the bride must wear the sheet in which she will one day be laid in the bosom of the earth, her winding-sheet; the lovely ringlets of Miriam from this day forward would be hidden beneath the cap and veil; the long

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262 prayer of the Day of Atonement with its list of sins must be repeated; neither meat nor drink must pass her lips till, beneath the wedding canopy, her bridegroom pass her the love-draught in the wedding-goblet, allowing her to drink thereof, then shattering the glass against the wall.

The family feast—since his banishment among all nations the only one of joy remaining to the Jew—aroused to the full his inwardly fostered yearnings. The agitation which the wedding preliminaries and the wedding itself caused in all hearts was now dissipated in unchecked gayety. The married pair pressed each other's hands and told each other that, in view of the newly consummated union, all so long suppressed would receive new life. Youths and maidens looked glowingly at one another; the one became quieter, the other more openly animated to hide their emotions. A tearful thrill was in every voice of the assembly, and yet it sounded as harmony to each, and as they looked from one to the other each read joy in the other's countenance. At table all rejoiced in the affectionate meeting and suitable union, all expressed their joy, and drank to each other's health, and in this expression of their rejoicing it grew yet greater. All praised the bride and bridegroom, their beauty, their good-heartedness, their future happiness, and found a reflection of all these in themselves.

Baruch, in the midst of this community of

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text:
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Rh and rejoicing, was but the more sad and lonely. Was it because he could not help thinking of Olympia that he felt a stranger, or because he was so far removed from the present company in point of thought?

The meal was over, the cigars puffed cheerily, the company grouped themselves according to their liking, and the hum of voices became still more animated as it was heightened by an occasional laugh.

Baruch remained seated at the table; his face was flushed, for he had imbibed no less than the others of the "sweet fire." He dreamily gazed into the bottom of his glass.

Chisdai, who had come to Miriam's wedding feast to conceal the fact of his former wooing, approached Baruch with Ephraim Cardoso. "Wine that rejoices the heart of man" (Ps. civ. 15) he recited, waving his glass with jovial emphasis.

"That is probably the reason why the Talmudists wished men to have no vivifying wine," replied Baruch, "but weakened it by the admixture of water." Baruch addressed the words to his glass, but Chisdai must have overheard them.

"Yes," said Ephraim, as he drank to Baruch, "our forefathers knew how to live. Does not the Talmud say, 'The Spirit of God only rests on man in gladsomeness'? I was once by when the late Professor Barläus said to Rabbi Manasseh Ben

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264, 'Only the Greeks, not even the Romans, understood how really to enjoy life; the Jews were always too much engrossed in fathoming what God was, what he was like, and how he should be served. That they had been fairly successful in, but meanwhile all enjoyment of earthly life had gone to the ground.' He should come here now and see whether we cannot be jovial good fellows in the fear of God."

"Well met, Ephraim," said Baruch, and drank to him kindly.

"And even if what Christ said was true," said Chisdai, as he struck the table, "we could give up all pleasures, ay, even life itself, for the truth that we alone possess, the revelation of the real nature of God. We alone are free from error and deception."

"Ho, ho!" laughed Baruch, "you take too much in your mouth. Do you not know that in the tractate Sabbath" (and he added, according to custom of the Scribes, page 32) "it tells of the Talmudist Rabbi Samuel, who would never go over a bridge unless accompanied by some one of another faith, because Satan could not prevail against two religions?"

Chisdai stroked his young beard and inquired:

"You are now studying the Greeks and Romans; tell me, do you not find all, and much more than all, in Judaism that the learning of other nations can show?"

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text:
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Rh "Look at the thing aright," answered Baruch; "there is as much and as little of mere truth in the Bible as in other books. Look at it impartially and not with Jewish prejudice. Is not the human soul sometimes spoken of as contained in blood, sometimes in breath? Ay, and moreover, is God an immaterial being in all passages of the Bible? I know the Bible is said to tell people the literal truth; but consider: God is represented as filling space, for he appears on Mount Sinai in clouds and fire; in the vision of Moses his foot was of white sapphire. And that is the highest ideal of God! There are sublime and pure ideas of God to be found in the Bible; but how he is in and about things, how he creates and maintains, that seems to me to be taken for granted, never proved. And even that on which we lay most stress—the conception of him as the one only Godhead—is not sufficing, and can only be used figuratively, because we cannot form any idea of or expression for the omnipresence of God."

Chisdai clenched his fists under the table. "And the prophets," he asked, "have they all known nothing aright?"

"The prophets," answered Spinoza, "were great and upright men, endowed with a spirit that strove to comprehend the infinite whole; men to whose hearts not only the fate of Israel but that of the whole world lay near. As Isaiah says (xvi. 9),

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text:
Talk:Under the Pyramids (unknown)

The original publication was in Weird_Tales/1924, May/June/July issue.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:04, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The link to adelaide.edu.au no longer works. Do we want to relabel this version, so that we can have a fresh version direct from the original text ? -- Beardo (talk) 16:35, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It never should have been moved, so I moved it back.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:24, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

There is this version available - https://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/HPLovecraft/Other/UnderThePyramids.html - I don't know if that is the same. -- Beardo (talk) 17:38, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Under the Pyramids (unknown)


text: Index:United Nations General Assembly Resolution A6719.pdf


text:
Page:United Nations General Assembly Resolution A6719.pdf/1

 A/67/L.28

United Nations

General Assembly

Distr.: Limited 26 November 2012

Original: English

Sixty-seventh session

Agenda item 37

Question of Palestine

Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, China, Comoros, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Yemen, Zimbabwe and Palestine: draft resolution

Status of Palestine in the United Nations
The General Assembly,

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and stressing in this regard the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,

Recalling its resolution 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970, by which it affirmed, inter alia, the duty of every State to promote through joint and separate action the realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,

Stressing the importance of maintaining and strengthening international peace founded upon freedom, equality, justice and respect for fundamental human rights,

Recalling its resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947,

Reaffirming the principle, set out in the Charter, of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,

Reaffirming also relevant Security Council resolutions, including, inter alia, resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967, 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973, 446 (1979) of 22 March 1979, 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980, 1397 (2002) of 12

__________________


text:
Page:United Nations General Assembly Resolution A6719.pdf/2

A/67/L.28 March 2002, 1515 (2003) of 19 November 2003 and 1850 (2008) of 16 December 2008,

Reaffirming further the applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, with regard to the matter of prisoners,

Reaffirming its resolution 3236 (XXIX) of 22 November 1974 and all relevant resolutions, including resolution 66/146 of 19 December 2011, reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine,

Reaffirming also its resolutions 43/176 of 15 December 1988 and 66/17 of 30 November 2011 and all relevant resolutions regarding the Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine, which, inter alia, stress the need for the withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the right to their independent State, a just resolution of the problem of the Palestine refugees in conformity with resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 and the complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,

Reaffirming further its resolution 66/18 of 30 November 2011 and all relevant resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem, bearing in mind that the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, and emphasizing the need for a way to be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the capital of two States,

Recalling the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004,

Reaffirming its resolution 58/292 of 6 May 2004, affirming, inter alia, that the status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, remains one of military occupation and that, in accordance with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination and to sovereignty over their territory,

Recalling its resolutions 3210 (XXIX) of 14 October 1974 and 3237 (XXIX) of 22 November 1974, by which, respectively, the Palestine Liberation Organization was invited to participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly as the representative of the Palestinian people and was granted observer status,

Recalling also its resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988, by which it, inter alia, acknowledged the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988 and decided that the designation "Palestine" should be used in place of the designation "Palestine Liberation Organization" in the United Nations system, without prejudice to the observer status and functions of the Palestine Liberation Organization within the United Nations system,


text:
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A/67/L.28 Taking into consideration that the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in accordance with a decision by the Palestine National Council, is entrusted with the powers and responsibilities of the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine,

Recalling its resolution 52/250 of 7 July 1998, by which additional rights and privileges were accorded to Palestine in its capacity as observer,

Recalling also the Arab Peace Initiative adopted in March 2002 by the Council of the League of Arab States,

Reaffirming its commitment, in accordance with international law, to the two-State solution of an independent, sovereign, democratic, viable and contiguous State of Palestine living side by side with Israel in peace and security on the basis of the pre-1967 borders,

Bearing in mind the mutual recognition of 9 September 1993 between the Government of the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative of the Palestinian people,

Affirming the right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders,

Commending the Palestinian National Authority’s 2009 plan for constructing the institutions of an independent Palestinian State within a two-year period, and welcoming the positive assessments in this regard about readiness for statehood by the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund and as reflected in the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee Chair conclusions of April 2011 and subsequent Chair conclusions, which determined that the Palestinian Authority is above the threshold for a functioning State in key sectors studied,

Recognizing that full membership is enjoyed by Palestine in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and the Group of Asia-Pacific States and that Palestine is also a full member of the League of Arab States, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Group of 77 and China,

Recognizing also that, to date, 132 States Members of the United Nations have accorded recognition to the State of Palestine,

Taking note of the 11 November 2011 report of the Security Council Committee on the Admission of New Members,

Stressing the permanent responsibility of the United Nations towards the question of Palestine until it is satisfactorily resolved in all its aspects,

Reaffirming the principle of universality of membership of the United Nations,

 * 1) Reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967;


text:
Page:United Nations General Assembly Resolution A6719.pdf/4

A/67/L.28
 * 1) Decides to accord to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations, without prejudice to the acquired rights, privileges and role of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the United Nations as the representative of the Palestinian people, in accordance with the relevant resolutions and practice;
 * 2) Expresses the hope that the Security Council will consider favourably the application submitted on 23 September 2011 by the State of Palestine for admission to full membership in the United Nations;
 * 3) Affirms its determination to contribute to the achievement of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the attainment of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and fulfils the vision of two States: an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security with Israel on the basis of the pre-1967 borders;
 * 4) Expresses the urgent need for the resumption and acceleration of negotiations within the Middle East peace process based on the relevant United Nations resolutions, the terms of reference of the Madrid Conference, including the principle of land for peace, the Arab Peace Initiative  and the Quartet road map to a permanent two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides that resolves all outstanding core issues, namely the Palestine refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, borders, security and water;
 * 5) Urges all States, the specialized agencies and organizations of the United Nations system to continue to support and assist the Palestinian people in the early realization of their right to self-determination, independence and freedom;
 * 6) Requests the Secretary-General to take the necessary measures to implement the present resolution and to report to the Assembly within three months on progress made in this regard.


text: Popular Science Monthly/Volume 57/September 1900/The Progress of Science


text: Talk:Weird Tales/Volume 6/Issue 1/The Unnamable


text:
Talk:Spear and Fang (second hand)

Source
The original post says "from Gutenberg". As the story is not in the main Project Gutenberg site, I assume that means Project Gutenberg Australia - https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0607951h.html or https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0607951.txt. (I note they use ae instead of æ as in the original. -- Beardo (talk) 19:43, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Spear and Fang (second hand)


text:
Portal talk:United Nations General Assembly Resolutions/67

United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/67/19
I've started United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/67/19 at Index:United Nations General Assembly Resolution A6719.pdf. When it's proofread, I'll add the mainspace page so the link here will go blue. Superm401 - Talk 06:39, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


text: Talk:The Temple (Lovecraft; Adelaide)

title: Talk:The Temple (Lovecraft; Adelaide)


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 5


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 6


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 7


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 8


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 9


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 10


text: Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia/Chapter 11


text:
Talk:Fungi from Yuggoth

Error in Nyarlathotep, probably due to misprint
The last two lines of Nyarlathotep should be "Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew Earth's dust away."

The PDF does indeed leave out "to mould", but this makes the scansion wrong - the penultimate line is two syllables too short. I think the PDF contains misprints of the original poem and the text from before @Chrisguise's revision at 10.58 on 2nd January 2023 was the correct text. Can we get a second source for this book? @Cneubauer, do you still have the original source you typed this up from?

There may be other misprints in the PDF. Someone should compare the two texts and find the differences. 92.238.133.89 01:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fungi from Yuggoth


text: Talk:The Whisperer in Darkness

title: Talk:The Whisperer in Darkness


text: Talk:The Strange High House in the Mist

title: Talk:The Strange High House in the Mist


text: Talk:In the Vault

title: Talk:In the Vault


text:
Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/104

is not easy to convey correct ideas regarding the mental capacity and faculties of the Aborigines by any general statements. They differ from one another almost as much as uneducated Europeans differ from one another; but while in the latter the capabilities of improvement are very great, in the Australian black they are limited. With keen senses, quick perceptions, and a precocity that is surprising, he stops short just at the point where an advance would lead to a complete change in the character of his mind.

The adult wild native when brought into contact with the whites learns the English language quickly and easily, and all the words that at all resemble those of his own tongue are pronounced distinctly. Those which are harsh, or in which sibilants occur, he softens, and he keeps closely to the grammar of his own language.

Black children brought up in the schools learn very quickly, and in perception, memory, and the power to discriminate they are, to say the least, equal to European children. A Missionary, the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, a gentleman of great ability, who has the control of the Aboriginal Station at Lake Wellington, reports that the examinations made by the Government School Inspectors show that the Aboriginal pupils taught by him are quite equal to the whites. In his last report he states that the whole of the fifth class in his school had passed the standard examination (that appointed for pupils in State schools), and that they had received certificates. Whether they will continue to advance as they approach maturity is another question. If they do not, under the guidance of a gentleman of education who has devoted himself to the work of ameliorating the condition of the natives from a sense of duty, it may fairly be assumed that the prevalent opinion regarding the mental constitution of the Australians is correct.

The following account of a native youth, as given in the reports of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines in Victoria, is similar in many respects to those recorded in other cases where attempts have been made to educate and civilize the natives:—

"Thomas Bungeleen presents all the marks of the pure Australian, and in mental capacity, disposition, and character, is probably a fair type of the race. Before the Board undertook the care of him, some attempts had been made to teach him drawing, and he had been occasionally employed in copying letters and in other clerical duties; but all the gentlemen who had kindly taken an

title: Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/104


text:
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numbers that at the first coming of the white man occupied the area now known as Victoria cannot be ascertained nor even estimated with precision, but enough is known of Victoria and of other parts of Australia, some but lately explored, to admit of a rough estimate being made.

The late Sir Thomas Mitchell, whose accurate observations are justly valued by men of science, and whose works even now are the best to which reference can be made as regards Eastern Australia, formed a very low estimate of the numbers of the Aborigines:—"The native population is very thinly spread over the regions I have explored, amounting to nearly a seventh part of Australia. I cannot estimate the number at more than 6,000; but, on the contrary, I believe it to be considerably less. They may increase rapidly if wild cattle become numerous, and, as an instance, I may refer to the number and good appearance of the Cudjallagong tribe, near Macquarie Range, where they occasionally fell in with a herd of wild cattle."

If the reader will cast his eye over the map of the vast extent of country explored by Sir Thomas Mitchell, this estimate will probably strike him with astonishment. That there should be more than forty-five thousand acres of land required for the support of one Aboriginal appears to be incredible; but when the character of the country is carefully examined, the vicissitudes of climate to which it is subject duly noted, and its natural productions observed—and when it is considered further that the number of the Aboriginal inhabitants must of necessity be governed by the conditions of adverse seasons, rather than by those of ordinary or favorable years—and that, as will be seen when the laws of this people are considered, there was no possibility of any singularly rich or productive area in which food was plentiful adding to the resources of any tribes inhabiting adjacent less highly-favored lands—the sparseness of the population will cease to excite astonishment, and more importance will be attached to the low estimate—certainly, as regards Victoria, the very low estimate—made by Sir Thomas Mitchell.

The late Mr. E. S. Parker, who was for many years a Protector of Aborigines, stated, when delivering a lecture in Melbourne in 1854, that he estimated the number of the Aboriginal population at the foundation of the colony at 7,500. He said:—"In the year 1843 I endeavoured to take a nominal census of the Aboriginal population in the district extending from the Goulburn on the east to the Upper Wimmera on the west, and from the Great Dividing Range between

title: Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/113


text: Talk:The Dreams in the Witch-House

title: Talk:The Dreams in the Witch-House


text:
Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/128

may be imagined that the exigencies of savage life require that all the members of a tribe shall at all times be ready to move from one place to another—now for food, now for shelter, now to make war, now to avoid it. The sick man must rouse himself in times of trouble, even if his sickness be mortal; and as regards the females, they must obediently serve their masters in every season and under all circumstances. Certain events in their lives, however, claim the kindness even of their savage husbands, and the sympathy of their mothers and sisters. An Aboriginal woman, when she is about to give birth to a babe, if not treated in the same manner and with as much care as a civilized woman, is not neglected. The little attention she needs is given; the few comforts demanded are ordinarily provided; the help of some aged woman is not withheld. "When a woman is near her confinement, she removes from the encampment, with some of the women to assist her. As soon as the child is born, the information is conveyed to the father, who immediately goes to see the child and to attend upon the mother, by carrying firewood, water, &c. If there are unmarried men and boys in the camp, as there generally are, the woman and her friends are obliged to remain at a distance in their own encampment. This appears to be part of the same superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the camp at the time of her monthly illness, when, if a young man or a boy should approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to avoid her. If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to scolding, and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest relation, because the boys are told, from their infancy, that if they see the woman they will early become grey-headed, and their strength will fail prematurely.

"If the child is permitted to live (I say permitted, because they are frequently put to death), it is brought up with great care, more than generally falls to the lot of children of the poorer class of Europeans. Should it cry, it is passed from one person to another, and caressed and soothed, and the father will frequently nurse it for several hours together.

"Children that are weak, or deformed, or illegitimate, and the child of any woman who has already two children alive, are put to death. No mother will venture to bring up more than two children, because she considers that the attention which she would have to devote to them would interfere with what she regards as the duty to her husband, in searching for roots, &c. If the father dies before a child is born, the child is put to death by the mother, for the Father who provides for us all is unknown to them. This crime of infanticide is increased by the whites, for nearly all the children of European fathers used to be put to death. It is remarkable that when the children are first born they are nearly as white as Europeans, so that the natives sometimes find it difficult to say whether they are of pure blood or not. In such doubtful cases the form of the nose decides.

"When the child commences to walk, the father gives it a name, which is frequently derived from some circumstance which occurred at the time of the child's birth; or, as each tribe has a kind of

When the time of her trouble draws nigh, some one of the old women is selected to attend her, and the two withdraw from the main camp and shelter

title: Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/128


text:
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Rh themselves in a little rudely-constructed miam. The old woman takes the child as soon as it is born, and puts it into a net or rug lined with dry grass, and rubs it with the dry grass, and makes it presentable as far as possible with that simple treatment. The father, on a given signal, approaches, and provides his wife with firewood, water, and sufficient food. The new-born babe has some sort of care bestowed on it. The umbilical cord is cut; it is powdered with a dried fungus; and after a time it is laid on its back and a dry stick is placed over its chest to prevent any misbehaviour. There it lies for two or three days, with what nourishment is not known; but generally it is not suffered to draw the natural sustenance from its mother until this weary time has passed.

As soon as the infant is given to the mother there is general hilarity in the camp. The father occasionally nurses the babe, and shows a proper amount of pride as he exhibits it now to one and now to another. The young girls eagerly contend for the honor of holding the charge; and for a short time the mother is a happy woman, and has a sort of pre-eminence which is gratifying to her; but the necessity for a sudden movement; the whisper of a war; the birth of one or more children—making other mothers happy—is enough to put an end to her brief period of enjoyment. All the cares of maternity fall heavily and suddenly upon her; and if she is a young mother and this her first-born, and the necessity arises for the tribe to travel, she contemplates with horror the pains and anxieties of a prolonged journey, during which she will have to carry and nourish her babe, as well as bear the burdens and perform the duties which her husband may impose on her.

Mr. John Green says that the new-born babe was put into an opossum rug, and it would appear that it thereafter became the charge of the mother, who, patron or protector in the objects of nature—as Thunder, the protector of the Kaminjerar; a kind of ant, the protector of the Kargarinjerar; the pelican, a kind of snake, &c., &c., of other tribes—the father often confers the name of this protector (as the pouch of the pelican), or a part of it, upon the child. Grown-up persons frequently exchange names, probably as a mark of friendship.

"Children are suckled by their mothers for a considerable time; sometimes to the age of fire or six years; and it is no uncommon thing to see a boy, playing with his companions, suddenly leave off and run to his mother to refresh himself with a draught of milk. When weaned, he accompanies his father upon short excursions (unless he should be delicate and unable to bear the fatigue), upon which occasion the father takes every opportunity to instruct his son. For instance, if they arrive at a place concerning which they have any tradition, it is told to the child, if old enough to understand it. Or he shows him how to procure this or that animal, or other article of food, in the easiest way. Until his fourteenth or fifteenth year he is mostly engaged in catching fish and birds, because already, for some years, he has been obliged to seek for food on his own account. Thus he early becomes in a great measure independent, and there is nobody who can control him, the authority of his parents depending only upon the superstitions which they have instilled into him from infancy; and the prohibitions respecting certain kinds of food—for different kinds of food are allotted to persons of different ages—are enforced by their superstitions. The roes of fishes are appropriated to the old men, and it is believed that if women or young men or children eat of them they will become prematurely old. Other kind of meat they consider diminishes the strength of the muscles, &c., &c. At certain seasons of the year, when a particular kind of fish is abundant, the men frequently declare it to be rambe (holy); after which, all that are caught must be brought to the men, by whom they are cooked; and the women and children are not allowed even to approach the fires until the cooking is over and the fish are cold, when they may approach and eat of what the men choose to give them, after having previously regaled themselves."—H. E. A. Meyer. Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe, South Australia. 1846.

title: Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/129


text:
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is no such thing as marriage, in the proper sense of the word, amongst the Australians. The acts which precede matrimony are certainly not entitled to be regarded as rites. Men obtain wives by a convenient system of exchange, by conquest sometimes, and sometimes a woman is stolen. By what mode soever a man procures a bride, it is very seldom an occasion of rejoicing for the female.

The males engross the privilege of disposing of their female relations, and it often happens that an old man of sixty or seventy will add to his domestic circle a young girl of ten or twelve years of age. If the father be alive, he alone can dispose of his daughters; if he be dead, the eldest son can dispose of his sisters; and if there be no brothers, then the uncle or cousin steps in, and exchanges the women for others who become his wives. In rare cases the old men meet together and determine to whom a young woman shall be given.

A man having a daughter of thirteen or fourteen years of age arranges with some elderly person for the disposal of her, and, when all are agreed, she is brought out of the miam-miam, and told that her husband wants her. Perhaps she has never seen him, or has seen him but to loathe him. The father carries a spear and waddy, or a tomahawk, and, anticipating resistance, is thus prepared for it. The poor girl, sobbing and sighing, and muttering words of complaint, claims pity from those who will show none. If she resists the mandates of her father, he strikes her with his spear; if she rebels and screams, the blows are repeated; and if she attempts to run away, a stroke on the head from the waddy or tomahawk quiets her. The mother screams and scolds and beats the ground with her kan-nan (fighting-stick); the men, women, and children in the neighbouring huts come forth to see the sight; the dogs bark and whine; but nothing interrupts the father, who in the performance of his duty is strict, and mindful of the necessity of not only enforcing his authority but of showing to all that he means to enforce it. Seizing the bride by her long hair, the stern father drags her to the home prepared for her by her new owner. Further resistance, when she is really placed in the hands of her husband, often subjects her to brutal treatment. If she attempts to abscond, the bridegroom does not hesitate to strike her savagely on the head with his waddy; and the bridal screams and yells make the night hideous. If the girl is energetic, and absolutely refuses the man to whom she is assigned, she causes a disturbance that can be quelled only by the authority of the old men. The young fellows seize their weapons, and one or two who may have had

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User talk:Roseohioresident

— billinghurst  sDrewth  08:01, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

ACAB
Thank you for your additions to ACAB. In Wikipedia, the Cite Appletons' template should be used with the  when it is merely used as a link and not as a reference. Otherwise it introduces a spurious category. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 02:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:Roseohioresident


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before the Europeans came to mix with the Aboriginal natives of Australia the latter were afflicted with various diseases—some resembling those that are generally regarded as having had their origin in Europe and Asia. They had, as a common complaint, ophthalmia, brought on by exposure to the weather. Over the dusty dry plains of the interior, which cast back the rays of the sun with an intensity that cannot be believed until it is experienced, they were sometimes compelled to wander; and the heat, and the dust, and the stinging of the flies and mosquitos, almost blinded them.

"The poor winking people of New Holland," as they are called in Dampier's Voyage, "have their eyelids always half-closed, to keep the flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here that no fanning will keep them from coming to one's face; and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off, they will creep into one's nostrils, and mouth too, if the lips are not shut very close. So that from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people, and therefore they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at somewhat over them." It was on the 4th January 1688, in the height of the Australian summer, that Dampier saw the natives of the north-west coast, and his straightforward, uncompromising language was no doubt justified by what he saw.

Sir Thomas Mitchell found a native on the River Bogan afflicted with ophthalmia, and again on the Lachlan one almost blind from ophthalmia or filth. The complaint, combined with neglect and exposure, sometimes causes a native to lose the sight of one or both eyes. In the low, flat country drained by the Murray, Murrumbidgee, and Lachlan, this disease is common.

A very fatal disease, which nearly all writers describe as small-pox, was prevalent very many years ago, and carried off great numbers. Mr. Gason says that the Cooper's Creek natives call it Moora-moora, and that they were evidently subject to it before coming into contact with Europeans, as many old men and women are pock-marked in the face and body. They state that a great number died of this disease; and Mr. Gason has been shown, on the top of a sandhill, seventy-four graves, said to be those of men, women, and children who perished by this fell disorder.

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User talk:History2007~enwikisource

— billinghurst  sDrewth  08:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called History2007. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name History2007~enwikisource that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:26, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

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title: User talk:History2007~enwikisource


text:
User talk:Sailko

— billinghurst  sDrewth  08:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sailko


text:
User talk:Hartz

— billinghurst  sDrewth  08:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Hartz


text:
User talk:96.227.199.143

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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You are welcome to continue editing articles without logging in, but you may wish to  [ create an account] . Doing so is free, requires no personal information, and provides several benefits. Creating an account on Wikisource has many of the same benefits as creating an account on Wikipedia. For one thing, if you continue to edit without a username, your IP address is used to publicly identify you.

In any case, I hope you enjoy donating your time to grow the Wikisource library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question. Again, welcome! — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:96.227.199.143


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266 'Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer,' but beyond that they were men as we are, ay, in many things more ignorant than we are, for in many cases they did not know the first principles of the laws of nature. If the Spirit of God spoke directly by them how could they remain ignorant of such simple things?"

He spoke yet further on these subjects, and in the details he adduced he became yet sharper and more decided. Chisdai remained quiet and cold, but ground his teeth. When he had heard enough he went away with Ephraim without saying a word.

Spinoza remained at the table alone; he would not rise; all seemed so uncongenial and repulsive to him. He had just drunk off a glass of wine to distract his thoughts when his sister Miriam approached him.

"What have you done?" she said. "That spiteful Chisdai is breathing fire and fury against you. I was standing by Chaje in the kitchen, and reminding her how she once dreamed of my wedding, when I heard Chisdai cry, 'Cursed be the air breathed by this shameless one! You have heard, Ephraim, how Baruch has slandered God and the prophets. Oh, that no hand will stretch from heaven to tear his lying tongue from his jaws! But I will not lay my head down to rest until he is swept from the earth.' Ephraim tried to pacify him. 'It is well you were by,' continued Chisdai.

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Rh 'One witness is not evidence; you must go with me before the Sanhedrim; we will accuse him; he must be laid under the great ban; I will yet set my foot on his neck.' Ephraim said he would not witness against you—he had heard nothing. 'So you will not!' cried Chisdai, and seized him by the arm; 'then you must swear you heard nothing, and if you do you may go to the devil with him.' I heard it all, for they did not notice me. But, dear brother, you bring the most fearful misfortunes on us. I would rather die now, on my wedding day, than live through this."

Spinoza pacified his sister, but he could not pacify himself.

"How great you thought yourself yesterday," he said to himself, "when you told Olympia that our conceptions of highest things should remain unexpressed in the soul. Now you have proved yourself." The whole day he remained sunk in grief.

Chisdai's efforts had not the wished-for result. Every one had regard for Benjamin Spinoza and his influential connections; and there were only words not deeds adduced against Baruch. Chisdai was obliged to defer his undertaking to a more favorable opportunity; he could easily wait that length of time, for soon after Miriam's wedding Baruch's father again lay dangerously ill. No one would inform the sick man of the rumor that attached to his son.

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LYMPIA from day to day revealed the wealth of her intellectual and spiritual life more freely to Spinoza, and he felt himself most agreeably excited by the vivacity and elasticity of her mental powers. She had not only that rare quality in a woman—the desire for unvarnished truth in the correction of her modes of thought, but that of accepting unreservedly and freely these demands against herself. She had, moreover, a sort of hospitable motherliness which took charge with friendly alacrity of all that was brought to her, even of what she did not know what to do with. Thus it happened that she perpetually attracted fresh offerings, and many things that the bringer had wholly forgotten she brought forward on some later occasion to his astonishment, and occasioned a double feeling of pleasure to the original possessor—pleasure in the unforeseen possession and in its faithful guardian. Thus Spinoza's thoughts easily took reference to Olympia, and he was more communicative to her than to his friends. Was not such devotion love?

Spinoza knew himself to be free from all desire

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Rh to possess Olympia; he found so much to blame in her, and can love find anything to blame in the object of its regard? He rightly disapproved, however, of Olympia's referring so often with indestructible naïveté to the wealth and luxury of her earlier experiences; if a new life had begun for her with his appearance, what was this resurrection of the dead for? Ought not the past to disappear without leaving a trace behind in view of present happiness? Olympia, strange to say, thought to strengthen her partially weakened natural power by her traditional power, but Spinoza's disapproval thereof ought to have served as a proof that he was not perfectly free from the desire for possession, since he certainly desired monopoly of rule. One day Spinoza and Oldenburg were with Olympia.

"Heaven is not favorable to us to-day," said Oldenburg, "for it makes such a tearful face at us that we must renounce all idea of spending a pleasant day at your hospitable Buiten (country house)."

"Heaven, that is a fine invention!" retorted Olympia jestingly; "that weather prophet (pointing to a barometer) is the thing now. Heaven can no longer do as it likes, Torricelli has shown himself its master. Is it not perfect despair to think that we have now neither Heaven nor Hell? Copernicus and Galileo, more fortunate than the Titans, have

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270 stormed Heaven. The stars nearest to us are dark bodies like the earth, and the earth far off is as bright as the twinkling stars; our star-decked carpet is gone; where now can we place the throne of God? Hell, too, we have no more. There, we used to think, below, far below, roasted and stewed the godless, till Columbus steered ever westward, and now we know that people live there too just as we live. What shall we do now with our pious and godless ones?"

"Jufrow Olympia," answered Spinoza, "did you not perfectly agree with me last Friday when I explained to you that the external appearances of things had justly fallen away that men might hold fast to the ideal of them? Every elevation of mind by which a man rises above his personal harmony and chimes in with the universal harmony—the existence of God you may call it, if you are so fond of the term—is, to my ideas, Heaven and its felicity; that state of forcible separation from self, no hold in self, and no external support in opposition to the laws of natural destiny, shaken by the slightest impulse, without consciousness of unity with the whole—can there be a more frightful hell?"

"Granted," replied Olympia, "but I prefer my earlier ideas."

"That I believe," said Oldenburg; "but you cannot throw such metaphysical ideas at any

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Rh one's head; that is not friend Spinoza's fault, however."

Oldenburg had not intended his words to contain any double meaning, but they gave that impression. Olympia blushed, and a pause ensued; but, though embarrassed, she quickly tried to resume the thread of their discussion.

"You can hardly believe," she began, "how inexpressibly miserable I was, when, as a child of ten years old—you must not find out how long ago that is—I realized that there was no sky, and that the earth turned round in infinite space. It seemed as if I held my life in my hand, and might at any moment let it fall. My father soon set me at rest as to the movement of the earth, but I cannot endure the loss of the heavens yet. It was so beautiful when it was a firm canopy, and now the blue dome is nothing but refraction, the blue of the heavens nothing but the blue of the distant mountains, produced by light on one side, and dark bodies in the background on the other. Oh, our beautiful blue heavens!"

Spinoza thought of his grief at the death of his Uncle Immanuel; it was singularly fascinating to feel that Olympia had gone through the same struggle as himself. Oldenburg took it upon him to answer.

"I condole sincerely with you," he said, "to be robbed of the delicious hope of one day hearing

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272 your silvery voice resound in the chorus of the angels, and with wings on your back, glistening with rainbow tints, sing Hallelujah and Hosanna all day long for entertainment."

"The ambassadors of Heaven do not use such stale compliments as the envoys of the Hanse towns," replied Olympia hastily, and, turning to Spinoza, continued: "Listen, I can give you an example from very near what a good refuge the old Heaven, is. My cousin Cecilia, who has stayed very long at mass to-day, was the betrothed of my brother Cornelius; now he is dead she is pleased to see her charms fade, for her daily prayer is that God may be pleased soon to take her to her bridegroom in Heaven. On his birthday she writes to him regularly, and describes her life of the past year, rejoicing that another year of their long probation has gone before their eternal union. It is often quite weird to me to be with her. I feel as if I had a sleep-walker with me who, by some unexpected cry, might be startled from her safe elevation."

Cecilia entered dressed in the deep mourning which she had never laid aside since the death of her lover; from the customary black veil, which covered her from head to foot, looked forth a pale, refined face on which pain and sorrow were at home; the weary eyelids drooped over the blue eyes, whose fire was extinguished. The painful

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Rh shock which pervades a company when any one enters who has just been spoken of was deepened now by the singular apparition of Cecilia; with a rose-garland in her hand and that pious endurance in her countenance she looked like some beatified penitent. Olympia was secretly annoyed that she had—for which the two friends had already blamed her in their own minds—so publicly revealed the secrets of a broken heart. No one could find a word with which to resume the conversation; even Oldenburg, the sworn foe of all melancholy, could not suppress a shudder when he looked at Cecilia. She, too, felt that she had caused embarrassment, and soon excused herself on the pretext of having forgotten a visit.

"I often envy Cecilia the peacefulness of her faith," said Olympia.

"You can acquire it yourself," replied Spinoza.

"No, I cannot," replied Olympia hastily. "I once complained of my unhappiness to my uncle Boniface, who was priest of St. John's here. He advised me to read the Bible; I did, but it was of no use. He told me perpetually to read it with a believing mind, but that is what I was seeking in it; if I had it already I should not want the Bible. It seems so hard and difficult often, when I think that I cannot understand the reason and object of the world."

"I think Descartes could help you over your doubts."

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274 "Oldenburg, you are a zealous missionary for your philosophical warrior," said Spinoza. "Do you think Jufrow Olympia would agree with the view that soul and body are each self-existent beings, who would not follow each other if the miraculous intervention of God did not connect them, and constrain them to mutual obedience?"

"That would be a pair in harness such as Frau Gertrui Ufmsand calls unwilling matrimony. I hate that like death."

"Tell me plainly, do you find the doctrine of Descartes so thoroughly unsatisfactory?" inquired Oldenburg.

"It is not my business to discover the faults of others."

"Then tell us simply your own solution of the eternal problem."

"That is not so easy to do; rules concerning external facts are much more easily defined than concerning processes of thought."

"I have noticed," said Oldenburg, "instead of Descartes' cogito ergo sum you put sum cogitans. To think and to be are inclusive, not exclusive. In that case thunder and lightning are one, even though two different minds first perceive them one after another."

Spinoza nodded smilingly, and after considerable opposition he explained: "The connection into which Descartes has brought his two substances by

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Rh means of a third is only apparent. Two perfectly independent and unconnected substances cannot be co-existent, for where the one ceases the other begins; they exist in proportion, in the exact proportion to their limitation and negation of each other, each one thus neutralizing the absolute independence of the other. Nor can two equally perfect wholes co-exist together, for either they are totally or partially dissimilar, so that neither is perfect, because each one lacks certain perfections of the other, or they are totally similar, in which case they are identical. So that these two substances are not held together by a third, but are merely different appearances of one thing; and we can only think of one thing as perfect and independent of all others, and that is God. Spirit and matter, thought and space, are but different manifestations of one and the same being."

"Is there then a God?" asked Olympia.

"God alone is; the idea of God as necessarily includes the idea of existence as the idea of a triangle includes the idea that the three angles are equal to two right angles."

"Can we have as clear an idea of God as of a triangle?"

"If you ask. Can we have as clear an idea of God as of a triangle? I answer, 'Yes.' If you ask, Can we have as plain an image of him as of a triangle? I answer, 'No.' For we cannot represent God to

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276 ourselves in an image; we can only recognize him in thought. He is the infinitude of all qualities thought of as a unit; but we recognize him only in single manifestations, which we trace back to him as the centre; but we cannot comprehend this centre as such, nor make any exhaustive representation of it. The words one and only one, with which we could designate God as the only self-existent substance, are always founded on human conceptions. God is an incommensurable quantity, which can have no reference to any other, because nothing beyond it exists. One and only one, though taken in their exclusive sense, still presuppose a reference to some other."

"Does God then stand in no relation of comparison with nature and history?"

"Nothing exists that is not of him and from him; all that occurs he does; all that is he is; it is only a change of form; the eternal, the infinite is ever the same."

"Oh, that is glorious!" cried Olympia; "the pure childlike joy of nature, with its hidden, smiling deities, such as the ancients had, is here so beautifully combined with the awe-inspired reverence that Jews and Christians observe in the contemplation of nature. God lives in us, ourselves; from the crimson lips of the rose, from the modest eyes of the violet, in the melting notes of the nightingale, the same spirit speaks that lives in me; they know,

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48 We have done for the air what we have done for the sea. Our birds of song have not to dread the hawk, and our plumper edible birds have, nothing to fear unless they get too numerous, in which case they are killed by the silent discharge of an electric fowling piece. We have no large cattle nor any horses, only asses and goats. A few playful, half tame little animals are to be seen in forest reserves, but these do not trench upon food supplies nor take up ground that could be devoted to farming.

Gunnery is almost a lost art, partly because men have ceased to slay each other and partly because there is nothing to destroy. Still we practise archery pretty freely, for both sexes can join in the game and it is not a wasteful pastime. Our ammunition serves again and again. Indeed our metals are none too abundant. We have none to waste in useless tools, and none to fire away in balls, bullets and shot. We have plenty of games for either sex, and plenty in which both can participate, but we have not one that of necessity involves waste or it is uncommonly dangerous to life or limb. We have accidents now and then, whether at work or at play, and sometimes deaths occur, but these do not furnish reasons for giving up our games."

Such is the gist of our diarist's communications during nearly two years. He says a deal about the workshop, the work, and the thoughtful and skilful men who instruct him from time to time. He even repeats many little scraps of conversation, and tells of incidents in home life and that of the workshop, but if the diary were copied in its entirety there would be little to interest the general reader. He now says that he is going to commence his tenth year and his travels about at the same time.

CHAPTER X.

OTHER knows the world hotter than I do; knows that wherever I go everything I can want and need will be placed at my disposal, and yet she wants me to take several things with me; to pack a box and carry changes of clothing and some personal belongings, which she says I may not always be able to get. I thought of only taking my haversack in which to carry my note-books, &c, but I must obey my mother. After all, a box needs not be much of an encumbrance. If I have to walk sometimes and at others to fly where luggage is not carried, I can get the box sent on to meet me at any suitable point.

Father is not going with me, but will come and spend a while with me in the capital. Mother and my sister Emma, who is as tall as mother, and well educated and accomplished as a musician and artist, will probably accompany him.

For me there are several modes of travel from which I can choose. From

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Rh the nearest depôt I can get an air boat and fly with it as long as I require it, leaving it at the nearest depôt when done with. If I take it the whole fifteen thousand miles it will be just as much a chattel of the government and just as much at home as now. Its use for the time I have had it will be debited to me, that is all. I am under no obligation to return it. If articles get congested in one place they are redistributed; but this rarely happens. My freedom causes the depôt to debit the government, for they have to give an account to the Central.

I do not take an air boat, for the weather is cold and the mode of travel lonely. Besides, in flying eternal vigilance has to be manifested and occasional descents made to resupply electricity. We carry a chemical generator for an emergency, such as being caught in mid air with no means of controlling descent, and so having to fall. In some places supply wires are thirty miles apart. It is possible to pass one and be unable to reach another; it is therefore necessary to know how far you can go and how far you have gone.

Another mode is by the swift air boats that carry despatches and special messengers. These go through the upper air, above the level of ordinary traffic, at an average speed of one hundred miles an hour; on emergency they go at twice the speed. Even that is slow compared with the rate of a dozen centuries ago, at which period everything used to go in a greater hurry. It was discovered, however, that the rapidity of travel made drivers nervous, and materially impaired their health and shortened their lives. A parliament was convened and the question of rates of travel fully discussed. The result is we travel slower and live longer. It is a matter of history that one of the government air boats, about twelve hundred years ago, went round the planet in four days, That is, it travelled over three hundred miles an hour.

I decided not to go by the government boat. My medal would pass me, but my journey to the metropolis was not of State importance, and to have used the boat would have been to tax my prerogative to the utmost. Fifteen thousand miles is a long journey in any case.

Two more ways lay open; by rail, skirting the south of the Central Ocean, and by rail and sea, taking a warmer and more northerly route. The latter I selected.

Our lines all run underground, so that travellers by rail see nothing of the country, and have no night nor day. The propelling force is the usual one. The cars are well lit and supplied with every convenience. In them you can eat, drink, sleep, read, bathe, work, write; in short, make yourself at home. The maximum rate of travel is one hundred miles an hour, and the cars are suspended between the wheels, so that motion is scarcely felt. The sound also is deadened so much that ordinary conversation is heard as

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50 if in a drawingroom. In winter railway travelling is the most comfortable, for one thing the warmest.

As we have no waste spaces, and depôts for the reception and distribution of produce have not to be far apart, we have need for a vast railway system. Heavy goods of all kinds are carried underground. Articles are rarely consumed in any quantity where they are produced. This causes a great amount of traffic. Trains are run very frequently. We have branch lines and perfect communication with every district. They do not run from city to city, because we have no cities in the ordinary sense of the term. In no part have we buildings massed together, no streets, and no dense masses of population. Where manufactures are carried on houses are nearer together; in agricultural areas they are further apart, but they never touch one another. The number of railway stations is regulated by the density of the population of the district, and there is always a station near a depôt for the reception and distribution of commodities.

During my first day's travel nothing occurred that requires mention; but early on the second day a traveller joined me whom I cannot forget in a hurry. He was an old man, very old, one who would appear aged amongst people who are in the habit of growing old. Our people almost always die of old age, and yet, all the old men I have seen appear young when compared with this man.

His hair was a soft white fleece of silvery whiteness and beautiful to look upon, and his full beard reaching down to his waist of the same whiteness gave him a peculiarly venerable appearance. I have never seen a face like his. The skin had in it literally thousands of finely traced wrinkles and was semi-transparent. It appeared as if a faint light glowed beneath it; the features were very fine and harmonius; indeed, he had the peculiar beauty which belongs to the old age of a remarkably good life. Old as he was, he presented no sign of senility; he was active in his movements, and every sense and faculty appeared to be on the alert.

When I saw that the old man intended to get into the train, I went to his assistance and carried a handbag for him. We went into one of the cosy sitting-rooms and got into conversation. He saw that I wore the badge of Freedom, which he also carried, and asked me how I had obtained that honor at such an early period of my youth. His views regarding the use of the badge were entirely in harmony with my own. He had gained the honor by mathematical and astronomical research.

We exchanged cards, and finding that we were bound to the same place, to the intellectual centre of the metropolis, we decided to travel together. I say the centre of the metropolis because the metropolitan area is a thousand miles long and five hundred in width, and contains one fifth of the population of the planet. But even here, each house has about a rood of land, and fruits

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