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 whether they waited for him, could not be said. He had been killed by a bullet entering through the back of the neck; the man had evidently come prepared.

Ten days had elapsed between the murder and the finding of the body, and the man was never traced. A postman had met him coming from the neighbourhood of Laleham Gardens at about half-past nine. In the fog, they had all but bumped into one another, and the man had immediately turned away his face.

About the soft felt hat there was nothing to excite attention, but the long, stiff, yellow mackintosh was quite unusual. The postman had caught only a momentary glimpse of the face, but was certain it was clean shaven. This made a sensation in court for the moment, but only until the calling of the next witness. The charwoman usually employed by the Hepworths had not been admitted to the house on the morning of Mrs. Hepworth's departure. Mrs. Hepworth had met her at the door and paid her a week's money in lieu of notice, explaining to her that she would not be wanted any more. Jetson, thinking he might possibly do better by letting the


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 house furnished, had sent for this woman, and instructed her to give the place a thorough cleaning. Sweeping the carpet in the dining-room with a dustpan and brush, she had discovered a number of short red hairs. The man, before leaving the house, had shaved himself.

That he had still retained the long, yellow mackintosh may have been with the idea of starting a false clue. Having served its purpose, it could be discarded. The beard would not have been so easy. What roundabout way he may have taken one cannot say, but it must have been some time during the night or early morning that he reached young Hepworth's office in Fenchurch Street. Mrs. Hepworth had evidently provided him with the key.

There he seems to have hidden the hat and mackintosh and to have taken in exchange some clothes belonging to the murdered man. Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, an elderly man—of the type that one generally describes as of gentlemanly appearance—was accustomed to his master being away unexpectedly on business, which was that of a ships' furnisher. He always kept an over-

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 coat and a bag ready packed in the office. Missing them, Ellenby had assumed that his master had been called away by an early train. He would have been worried after a few days, but that he had received a telegram—as he then supposed from his master—explaining that young Hepworth had gone to Ireland and would be away for some days. It was nothing unusual for Hepworth to be absent, superintending the furnishing of a ship, for a fortnight at a time, and nothing had transpired in the office necessitating special instructions. The telegram had been handed in at Charing Cross, but the time chosen had been a busy period of the day, and no one had any recollection of the sender. Hepworth's clerk unhesitatingly identified the body as that of his employer, for whom it was evident that he had entertained a feeling of affection. About Mrs. Hepworth he said as little as he could. While she was awaiting her trial it had been necessary for him to see her once or twice with reference to the business. Previous to this, he knew nothing about her.

The woman's own attitude throughout the trial had been quite unexplainable. Beyond


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 agreeing to a formal plea of "Not guilty," she had made no attempt to defend herself. What little assistance her solicitors had obtained had been given them, not by the woman herself, but by Hepworth's clerk, more for the sake of his dead master than out of any sympathy towards the wife. She herself appeared utterly indifferent. Only once had she been betrayed into a momentary emotion. It was when her solicitors were urging her almost angrily to give them some particulars upon a point they thought might be helpful to her case.

"He's dead!" she had cried out almost with a note of exultation. "Dead! Dead! What else matters?"

The next moment she had apologised for her outburst.

"Nothing can do any good," she had said. "Let the thing take its course."

It was the astounding callousness of the woman that told against her both with the judge and the jury. That shaving in the dining-room, the murdered man's body not yet cold! It must have been done with Hepworth's safety-razor. She must have brought it down to him, found him a looking


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 glass, brought him soap and water and a towel, afterwards removing all traces. Except those few red hairs that had clung, unnoticed, to the carpet. That nest of flat-irons used to weight the body! It must have been she who had thought of them. The idea would never have occurred to a man. The chain and padlock with which to fasten them. She only could have known that such things were in the house. It must have been she who had planned the exchange of clothes in Hepworth's office, giving him the key. She it must have been who had thought of the pond, holding open the door while the man had staggered out under his ghastly burden; waited, keeping watch, listening to hear the splash.

Evidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer—to live with him! That story about America. If all had gone well, it would have accounted for everything. After leaving Laleham Gardens she had taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the name of Howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an actor on tour. To make the thing plausible, she had obtained employment in one of the


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 pantomimes. Not for a moment had she lost her head. No one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no letters for her. Every hour of her day could be accounted for. Their plans must have been worked out over the corpse of her murdered husband. She was found guilty of being an "accessory after the fact," and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude.

That brought the story up to eleven years ago. After the trial, interested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some further particulars. Inquiries at Liverpool had procured him the information that Hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had been well known and highly respected. He was retired from business when he died, some three years previous to the date of the murder. His wife had survived him by only a few months. Besides Michael, the murdered son, there were two other children—an elder brother, who was thought to have gone abroad to one of the colonies, and a sister who had married a French naval officer. Either they had not heard of the case or had not wished to have their names dragged into it. Young Michael had started life as


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 an architect, and was supposed to have been doing well, but after the death of his parents had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until the trial, none of his acquaintances up North ever knew what had become of him.

But a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had elicited had somewhat puzzled him. Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, had been the confidential clerk of Hepworth's father! He had entered the service of the firm as a boy; and when Hepworth senior retired, Ellenby—with the old gentleman's assistance—had started in business for himself as a ships' furnisher! Nothing of all this came out at the trial. Ellenby had not been cross-examined. There was no need for it. But it seemed odd, under all the circumstances, that he had not volunteered the information. It may, of course, have been for the sake of the brother and sister. Hepworth is a common enough name in the North. He may have hoped to keep the family out of connection with the case.

As regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond the fact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in Rotterdam, she had described herself as the


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 daughter of an English musician, and had stated that both her parents were dead. She may have engaged herself without knowing the character of the hall, and the man, Charlie Martin, with his handsome face and pleasing sailor ways, and at least an Englishman, may have seemed to her a welcome escape.

She may have been passionately fond of him, and young Hepworth—crazy about her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's head—may in Martin's absence have lied to her, told her he was dead—lord knows what!--to induce her to marry him. The murder may have seemed to her a sort of grim justice.

But even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal! She had married him, lived with him for nearly a year. To the Jetsons she had given the impression of being a woman deeply in love with her husband. It could not have been mere acting kept up day after day.

"There was something else." We were discussing the case in my friend's chambers. His brief of eleven years ago was open before him. He was pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, thinking as he talked.


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 "Something that never came out. There was a curious feeling she gave me in that moment when sentence was pronounced upon her. It was as if, instead of being condemned, she had triumphed. Acting! If she had acted during the trial, pretended remorse, even pity, I could have got her off with five years. She seemed to be unable to disguise the absolute physical relief she felt at the thought that he was dead, that his hand would never again touch her. There must have been something that had suddenly been revealed to her, something that had turned her love to hate.

"There must be something fine about the man, too." That was another suggestion that came to him as he stood staring out of the window across the river. "She's paid and has got her receipt, but he is still 'wanted.' He is risking his neck every evening he watches for the raising of that blind."

His thought took another turn.

"Yet how could he have let her go through those ten years of living death while he walked the streets scot free? Some time during the trial—the evidence piling up against her day by day—why didn't he come forward,


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 if only to stand beside her? Get himself hanged, if only out of mere decency?"

He sat down, took the brief up in his hand without looking at it.

"Or was that the reward that she claimed? That he should wait, keeping alive the one hope that would make the suffering possible to her? Yes," he continued, musing, "I can see a man who cared for a woman taking that as his punishment."

Now that his interest in the case had been revived he seemed unable to keep it out of his mind. Since our joint visit I had once or twice passed through the street by myself, and on the last occasion had again seen the raising of the blind. It obsessed him—the desire to meet the man face to face. A handsome, bold, masterful man, he conceived him. But there must be something more for such a woman to have sold her soul—almost, one might say—for the sake of him.

There was just one chance of succeeding. Each time he had come from the direction of the Edgware Road. By keeping well out of sight at the other end of the street, and watching till he entered it, one might time oneself to come upon him just under the


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 lamp. He would hardly be likely to turn and go back; that would be to give himself away. He would probably content himself with pretending to be like ourselves, merely hurrying through, and in his turn watching till we had disappeared.

Fortune seemed inclined to favour us. About the usual time the blind was gently raised, and very soon afterwards there came round the corner the figure of a man. We entered the street ourselves a few seconds later, and it seemed likely that, as we had planned, we should come face to face with him under the gaslight. He walked towards us, stooping and with bent head. We expected him to pass the house by. To our surprise he stopped when he came to it, and pushed open the gate. In another moment we should have lost all chance of seeing anything more of him except his bent back. With a couple of strides my friend was behind him. He laid his hand on the man's shoulder and forced him to turn round. It was an old, wrinkled face with gentle, rather watery eyes.

We were both so taken aback that for a moment we could say nothing. My friend


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 by services which would make him celebrated anywhere else, and finishes as a vice-sovereign, governing a great realm and millions of subjects; then he goes home to England substantially unknown and unheard of, and settles down in some modest corner, and is as one extinguished. Ten years later there is a twenty-line obituary in the London papers, and the reader is paralyzed by the splendors of a career which he is not sure that he had ever heard of before. But meanwhile he has learned all about the continental princelets and dukelets.

The average man is profoundly ignorant of countries that lie remote from his own. When they are mentioned in his presence one or two facts and maybe a couple of names rise like torches in his mind, lighting up an inch or two of it and leaving the rest all dark. The mention of Egypt suggests some Biblical facts and the Pyramids—nothing more. The mention of South Africa suggests Kimberly and the diamonds and there an end. Formerly the mention, to a Hindoo, of America suggested a name—George Washington—with that his familiarity with our country was exhausted. Latterly his familiarity with it has doubled in bulk; so that when America is mentioned now, two torches flare up in the dark caverns of his mind and he says, "Ah, the country of the great man—Washington; and of the Holy City—Chicago." For he knows about the Congress of Religion, and this has enabled him to get an erroneous impression of Chicago.

When India is mentioned to the citizen of a far country it suggests Clive, Hastings, the Mutiny, Kipling, and a number of other great events; and the mention of Calcutta infallibly brings up the Black Hole. And so, when that citizen finds himself in the capital of India he goes first of all to see the Black Hole of Calcutta—and is disappointed.

The Black Hole was not preserved; it is gone, long, long ago. It is strange. Just as it stood, it was itself a monu-


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 enthusiast has hoped, the nations of the world would conclude to lay aside politics and concentrate attention and energy on education. The truth is, however, being made increasingly clear, for all the obsessions of the passing hour, that the sovereignty of arms and armaments is short-lived, and that the future chiefly belongs to culture and character. Hence the paramount importance of all problems of educational reconstruction. It is the duty as well as the privilege of every educated person to participate, with understanding and zeal, in this glorious work of national renaissance.—Now, ladies and gentlemen, I deem it an honor as I feel it a pleasure to offer to you—to each member of this fraternity—the most cordial congratulations of the University—might I add, of this assembly and of the whole South Indian Community?—on the respective degrees which you have won through tested capacity and acknowledged merit. As the eye dwells with delight on this thrice happy sight and the heart feels braced as if by an elixir of life, the memory spontaneously recalls that charming scene where, invited by a richly-ornamented friend


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 stammered out an apology about having mistaken the house, and rejoined me. At the corner we burst out laughing almost simultaneously. And then my friend suddenly stopped and stared at me.

"Hepworth's old clerk!" he said. "Ellenby!"

It seemed to him monstrous. The man had been more than a clerk. The family had treated him as a friend. Hepworth's father had set him up in business. For the murdered lad he had had a sincere attachment; he had left that conviction on all of them. What was the meaning of it?

A directory was on the mantelpiece. It was the next afternoon. I had called upon him in his chambers. It was just an idea that came to me. I crossed over and opened it, and there was his name, "Ellenby and Co., Ships' Furnishers," in a court off the Minories.

Was he helping her for the sake of his dead master—trying to get her away from the man. But why? The woman had stood by and watched the lad murdered. How could he bear even to look on her again?


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 Unless there had been that something that had not come out—something he had learnt later—that excused even that monstrous callousness of hers.

Yet what could there be? It had all been so planned, so cold-blooded. That shaving in the dining-room! It was that seemed most to stick in his throat. She must have brought him down a looking-glass; there was not one in the room. Why couldn't he have gone upstairs into the bathroom, where Hepworth always shaved himself, where he would have found everything to his hand?

He had been moving about the room, talking disjointedly as he paced, and suddenly he stopped and looked at me.

"Why in the dining-room?" he demanded of me.

He was jingling some keys in his pocket. It was a habit of his when cross-examining, and I felt as if somehow I knew; and, without thinking—so it seemed to me—I answered him.

"Perhaps," I said, "it was easier to bring a razor down than to carry a dead man up."

He leant with his arms across the table, his eyes glittering with excitement.


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 "Can't you see it?" he said. "That little back parlour with its fussy ornaments. The three of them standing round the table, Hepworth's hands nervously clutching a chair. The reproaches, the taunts, the threats. Young Hepworth—he struck everyone as a weak man, a man physically afraid—white, stammering, not knowing which way to look. The woman's eyes turning from one to the other. That flash of contempt again—she could not help it—followed, worse still, by pity. If only he could have answered back, held his own! If only he had not been afraid! And then that fatal turning away with a sneering laugh one imagines, the bold, dominating eyes no longer there to cower him.

"That must have been the moment. The bullet, if you remember, entered through the back of the man's neck. Hepworth must always have been picturing to himself this meeting—tenants of garden suburbs do not carry loaded revolvers as a habit—dwelling upon it till he had worked himself up into a frenzy of hate and fear. Weak men always fly to extremes. If there was no other way, he would kill him.


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 "Can't you hear the silence? After the reverberations had died away! And then they are both down on their knees, patting him, feeling for his heart. The man must have gone down like a felled ox; there were no traces of blood on the carpet. The house is far from any neighbour; the shot in all probability has not been heard. If only they can get rid of the body! The pond—not a hundred yards away!"

He reached for the brief, still lying among his papers; hurriedly turned the scored pages.

"What easier? A house being built on the very next plot. Wheelbarrows to be had for the taking. A line of planks reaching down to the edge. Depth of water where the body was discovered four feet six inches. Nothing to do but just tip up the barrow.

"Think a minute. Must weigh him down, lest he rise to accuse us; weight him heavily, so that he will sink lower and lower into the soft mud, lie there till he rots.

"Think again. Think it out to the end. Suppose, in spite of all our precautions, he does rise? Suppose the chain slips? The workmen going to and fro for water—suppose they do discover him?


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 to produce her jewels, a noble Roman matron introduced her beloved sons with words of the purest wisdom and love, ‘these are my jewels'. You are the latest—the freshest and brightest—jewels of the motherland; the youngest and, therefore, the dearest daughters and sons of Bharatamata. Unto you is richly due, and is hereby heartily accorded, all the prayerful joy, all the hopeful felicitation, befitting this auspicious hour. If the true wealth of a country consists in the numerical strength and the moral soundness of the educated section, the Convocation of the University is the annual presentation of the treasure-trove of South India for the appreciation of her well-wishers. This day is your ‘Day’; we rejoice with you; we render our thanks for you. The field of culture is world-wide; the domain of character is universal. To wish you well is to wish well of the whole country, indeed, of the entire race. This inspiring ceremony is significant of several noteworthy ideas and sentiments. It testifies to the lasting interest taken by the community in liberal education. It betokens the sympathy and the goodwill shown by all


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 "He is lying on his back, remember. They would have turned him over to feel for his heart. Have closed his eyes, most probably, not liking their stare.

"It would be the woman who first thought of it. She has seen them both lying with closed eyes beside her. It may have always been in her mind, the likeness between them. With Hepworth's watch in his pocket, Hepworth's ring on his finger! If only it was not for the beard—that fierce, curling, red beard!

"They creep to the window and peer out. Fog still thick as soup. Not a soul, not a sound. Plenty of time.

"Then to get away, to hide till one is sure. Put on the mackintosh. A man in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be seen to go away. In some dark corner or some empty railway carriage take it off and roll it up. Then make for the office. Wait there for Ellenby. True as steel, Ellenby; good business man. Be guided by Ellenby."

He flung the brief from him with a laugh.

"Why, there's not a missing link!" he cried. "And to think that not a fool among us ever thought of it!"


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 "Everything fitting into its place," I suggested, "except young Hepworth. Can you see him, from your description of him, sitting down and coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the murdered man stretched beside him on the hearthrug?"

"No," he answered. "But I can see her doing it, a woman who for week after week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a woman who for three hours sat like a statue while old Cutbush painted her to a crowded court as a modern Jezebel, who rose up from her seat when that sentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was pronounced upon her with a look of triumph in her eyes, and walked out of court as if she had been a girl going to meet her lover.

"I'll wager," he added, "it was she who did the shaving. Hepworth would have cut him, even with a safety-razor."

"It must have been the other one, Martin," I said, "that she loathed. That almost exultation at the thought that he was dead," I reminded him.

"Yes," he mused. "She made no attempt to disguise it. Curious there having been that likeness between them." He looked at his


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 watch. "Do you care to come with me?" he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"We may just catch him," he answered. "Ellenby and Co."

The office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a cul-de-sac off the Minories. Mr. Ellenby was out, so the lanky office-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening; and we sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was falling, we heard his footsteps on the creaking stairs.

He halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without surprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting long, he led the way into an inner room.

"I do not suppose you remember me," said my friend, as soon as the door was closed. "I fancy that, until last night, you never saw me without my wig and gown. It makes a difference. I was Mrs. Hepworth's senior counsel."

It was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim eyes. Evidently


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 the incident of the previous evening had suggested to him an enemy.

"You were very good," he murmured. "Mrs. Hepworth was overwrought at the time, but she was very grateful, I know, for all your efforts."

I thought I detected a faint smile on my friend's lips.

"I must apologise for my rudeness to you of last night," he continued. "I expected, when I took the liberty of turning you round, that I was going to find myself face to face with a much younger man."

"I took you to be a detective," answered Ellenby, in his soft, gentle voice. "You will forgive me, I'm sure. I am rather short-sighted. Of course, I can only conjecture, but if you will take my word, I can assure you that Mrs. Hepworth has never seen or heard from the man Charlie Martin since the date of"—he hesitated a moment—"of the murder."

"It would have been difficult," agreed my friend, "seeing that Charlie Martin lies buried in Highgate Cemetery."

Old as he was, he sprang from his chair, white and trembling.


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 thoughtful persons towards zeal for learning and eagerness for self-improvement. It evidences how you are the objects of the tenderest solicitude from all quarters. It discloses the nature and scope of that fellowship, transcending faculties and professions, which a University seeks to establish. It aims at awakening in your minds and hearts a lively sense of your responsibility to augment the stores of your own knowledge and experience by incessant industry and to dedicate your powers and opportunities to the welfare of your fellow-beings. It commemorates your reception into a vast academic brotherhood of noble aims, generous sympathies and devoted services. It celebrates your initiation into that second—the higher and holier—life of the Spirit in Wisdom, Goodness and Grace.—My first word of counsel to you, therefore, is that, you value your degree at its intrinsic worth which is unquestionably high. Tour degree is your testimonial that you embody in yourself a respectable measure of talent and capacity, of perseverance and industry, of self-control and self-denial. It is the witness unto your possession of a


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 "What have you come here for?" he demanded.

"I took more than a professional interest in the case," answered my friend. "Ten years ago I was younger than I am now. It may have been her youth—her extreme beauty. I think Mrs. Hepworth, in allowing her husband to visit her—here where her address is known to the police, and watch at any moment may be set upon her—is placing him in a position of grave danger. If you care to lay before me any facts that will allow me to judge of the case, I am prepared to put my experience, and, if need be, my assistance, at her service."

His self-possession had returned to him.

"If you will excuse me," he said, "I will tell the boy that he can go."

We heard him, a moment later, turn the key in the outer door; and when he came back and had made up the fire, he told us the beginning of the story.

The name of the man buried in Highgate Cemetery was Hepworth, after all. Not Michael, but Alex, the elder brother.

From boyhood he had been violent, brutal, unscrupulous. Judging from Ellenby's story,


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 it was difficult to accept him as a product of modern civilisation. Rather he would seem to have been a throwback to some savage, buccaneering ancestor. To expect him to work, while he could live in vicious idleness at somebody else's expense, was found to be hopeless. His debts were paid for about the third or fourth time, and he was shipped off to the Colonies. Unfortunately, there were no means of keeping him there. So soon as the money provided him had been squandered, he returned, demanding more by menaces and threats. Meeting with unexpected firmness, he seems to have regarded theft and forgery as the only alternative left to him. To save him from punishment and the family name from disgrace, his parents' savings were sacrificed. It was grief and shame that, according to Ellenby, killed them both within a few months of one another.

Deprived by this blow of what he no doubt had come to consider his natural means of support, and his sister, fortunately for herself, being well out of his reach, he next fixed upon his brother Michael as his stay-by. Michael, weak, timid, and not perhaps without some remains of boyish affection for


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 a strong, handsome, elder brother, foolishly yielded. The demands, of course, increased, until, in the end, it came almost as a relief when the man's vicious life led to his getting mixed up with a crime of a particularly odious nature. He was anxious now for his own sake to get away, and Michael, with little enough to spare for himself, provided him with the means, on the solemn understanding that he would never return.

But the worry and misery of it all had left young Michael a broken man. Unable to concentrate his mind any longer upon his profession, his craving was to get away from all his old associations—to make a fresh start in life. It was Ellenby who suggested London and the ship furnishing business, where Michael's small remaining capital would be of service. The name of Hepworth would be valuable in shipping circles, and Ellenby, arguing this consideration, but chiefly with the hope of giving young Michael more interest in the business, had insisted that the firm should be Hepworth and Co.

They had not been started a year before the man returned, as usual demanding more money. Michael, acting under Ellenby's guid-


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 ance, refused in terms that convinced his brother that the game of bullying was up. He waited a while, and then wrote pathetically that he was ill and starving. If only for the sake of his young wife, would not Michael come and see them?

This was the first they had heard of his marriage. There was just a faint hope that it might have effected a change, and Michael, against Ellenby's advice, decided to go. In a miserable lodging-house in the East End he found the young wife, but not his brother, who did not return till he was on the point of leaving. In the interval the girl seems to have confided her story to Michael.

She had been a singer, engaged at a music-hall in Rotterdam. There Alex Hepworth, calling himself Charlie Martin, had met her and made love to her. When he chose, he could be agreeable enough, and no doubt her youth and beauty had given to his protestations, for the time being, a genuine ring of admiration and desire. It was to escape from her surroundings, more than anything else, that she had consented. She was little more than a child, and anything seemed


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 preferable to the nightly horror to which her life exposed her.

He had never married her. At least, that was her belief at the time. During his first drunken bout he had flung it in her face that the form they had gone through was mere bunkum. Unfortunately for her, this was a lie. He had always been coolly calculating. It was probably with the idea of a safe investment that he had seen to it that the ceremony had been strictly legal.

Her life with him, so soon as the first novelty of her had worn off, had been unspeakable. The band that she wore round her neck was to hide where, in a fit of savagery, because she had refused to earn money for him on the streets, he had tried to cut her throat. Now that she had got back to England she intended to leave him. If he followed and killed her she did not care.

It was for her sake that young Hepworth eventually offered to help his brother again, on the condition that he would go away—by himself. To this the other agreed. He seems to have given a short display of remorse. There must have been a grin on his face as he turned away. His cunning eyes


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 had foreseen what was likely to happen. The idea of blackmail was no doubt in his mind from the beginning. With the charge of bigamy as a weapon in his hand, he might rely for the rest of his life upon a steady and increasing income.

Michael saw his brother off as a second-class passenger on a ship bound for the Cape. Of course, there was little chance of his keeping his word, but there was always the chance of his getting himself knocked on the head in some brawl. Anyhow, he would be out of the way for a season, and the girl, Lola, would be left. A month later he married her, and four months after that received a letter from his brother containing messages to Mrs. Martin, "from her loving husband, Charlie," who hoped before long to have the pleasure of seeing her again.

Inquiries through the English Consul in Rotterdam proved that the threat was no mere bluff. The marriage had been legal and binding.

What happened on the night of the murder, was very much as my friend had reconstructed it. Ellenby, reaching the office at his usual time the next morning, had found


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 Hepworth waiting for him. There he had remained in hiding until one morning, with dyed hair and a slight moustache, he had ventured forth.

Had the man's death been brought about by any other means, Ellenby would have counselled his coming forward and facing his trial, as he himself was anxious to do; but, viewed in conjunction with the relief the man's death must have been to both of them, that loaded revolver was too suggestive of premeditation. The isolation of the house, that conveniently near pond, would look as if thought of beforehand. Even if pleading extreme provocation, Michael escaped the rope, a long term of penal servitude would be inevitable.

Nor was it certain that even then the woman would go free. The murdered man would still, by a strange freak, be her husband; the murderer—in the eye of the law—her lover.

Her passionate will had prevailed. Young Hepworth had sailed for America. There he had no difficulty in obtaining employment—of course, under another name—in an architects office; and later had set up for him-


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 self. Since the night of the murder they had not seen each other till some three weeks ago.

I never saw the woman again. My friend, I believe, called on her. Hepworth had already returned to America, and my friend had succeeded in obtaining for her some sort of a police permit that practically left her free.

Sometimes of an evening I find myself passing through the street. And always I have the feeling of having blundered into an empty theatre—where the play is ended.


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Page:CTRL0000034608 - Deposition of John Eastman, (Dec. 9, 2021).pdf/1

1 SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE

JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL,

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

DEPOSITION OF: JOHN EASTMAN

The deposition in the above matter was held in Room 1309, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 12:57 p.m.

Present: Representatives Lofgren, Raskin, Cheney, and Kinzinger.


text: Malvina of Brittany/The Street of the Blank Wall


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here follows the Prologue. It ought, of course, to have been written first, but nobody knew of it until quite the end entirely. It was told to Commander Raffleton by a French comrade, who in days of peace had been a painter, mingling with others of his kind, especially such as found their inspiration in the wide horizons and legend-haunted dells of old-world Brittany. Afterwards the Commander told it to the Professor, and the Professor's only stipulation was that it should not be told to the Doctor, at least for a time. For the Doctor would see in it only confirmation for his own narrow sense-bound theories, while to the Professor it confirmed beyond a doubt the absolute truth of this story.

It commenced in the year Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight (anno Domini), on a particularly unpleasant evening in late February—"a stormy winter's night," one would


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2

For the SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL:

, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL AND OF CHAIR TO THE VICE CHAIR

, INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL

, DETAILEE

SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

, CHIEF CLERK

For JOHN EASTMAN:

CHARLES BURNHAM


text: File:Potts v National Australia Bank Limited.pdf


text: Index:Potts v National Australia Bank Limited.pdf


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MICHAEL THOMAS POTTS

AND

NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED

''1. Revoke the grant of special leave to appeal to this Court given on 21 April 2023.

2. The appellant pay the respondent's costs.''

On appeal from the Supreme Court of New South Wales

Representation

N C Hutley SC with M E Ellicott and A Zheng for the appellant (instructed by Hall & Wilcox)

B W Walker SC with J A Arnott SC, C G Winnett and M Mellos for the respondent (instructed by Norton Rose Fulbright)

 * Notice: This copy of the Court's Reasons for Judgment is subject to formal revision prior to publication in the Commonwealth Law Reports.


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 CATCHWORDS

Potts v National Australia Bank Limited

High Court of Australia – Special leave to appeal – Where questions of legal principle not in issue at appeal hearing – Whether single ground of appeal concerning factual issues met criteria for special leave to appeal – Whether special leave to appeal should be revoked.

Words and phrases – "question of law of public importance", "revocation of special leave", "special leave to appeal".

Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), s 35A.


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 GAGELER CJ, GORDON, EDELMAN, STEWARD AND GLEESON JJ. The appellant, Mr Potts, former company secretary, chief financial officer and director of Dick Smith Holdings Ltd, now known as DSHE Holdings Ltd (receivers and managers appointed) (in liquidation) ("DSHE"), was granted special leave to appeal to this Court from the judgment and order of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales which dismissed his appeal from the decision of the primary judge. The primary judge ordered judgment for the respondent ("NAB") against Mr Potts in the sum of $57,278,091.44, as damages caused by Mr Potts' misleading and deceptive conduct which induced NAB to enter into a syndicated facility agreement ("SFA") and associated agreements to loan funds to Dick Smith Holdings Ltd (as DSHE was then known).

The single ground of appeal was that the Court of Appeal erred in finding that Mr Potts had failed to establish that DSHE was a concurrent wrongdoer for the purposes of proportionate liability defences relied upon by Mr Potts to reduceh is liability to NAB. The grant of special leave was limited to Mr Potts' casec oncerning a representation made by DSHE to NAB in cl 21.1(t) of the SFA that all information provided by DSHE to NAB was accurate in all material respects and not misleading by omission.

Mr Potts' special leave application contended that the proposed appeal raised a question of general importance concerning the correct principles to apply when attributing knowledge to a corporate entity and, specifically, when determining if a corporation engaged in misleading conduct by makingr epresentations authorised by its board. In response to a question from the Bench, senior counsel for Mr Potts submitted that the question of general importance involved no factual inquiry.

However, at the hearing of the appeal, principles concerning the attribution of knowledge for the purpose of finding a corporate entity to be a concurrent wrongdoer were not in issue. Instead, Mr Potts contended that the cl 21.1(t)


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Gageler CJ Gordon J Edelman J Steward J Gleeson J

representation was falsified by three pieces of information provided by DSHE to NAB because each was "misleading by omission in [a] material respect as at the date provided", within the meaning of cl 21.1(t). Neither the primary judge nor the Court of Appeal had made findings to this effect.

Senior counsel for Mr Potts acknowledged this deficiency in the factual basis for the appeal, but sought to overcome it by arguing, variously, that: the falsity of the cl 21.1(t) representation had been admitted by NAB on the pleadings; the falsity was an obvious inference from the facts as found; and the primary judge and the Court of Appeal had failed to deal with Mr Potts' case by omitting to find those facts. Contending that the Court of Appeal erred by identifying DSHE's knowledge of the falsity of the cl 21.1(t) representation as a relevant issue when the representation was one of historical fact, Mr Potts submitted that his liability for NAB's loss should be limited to no more than 50 per cent, taking into account DSHE's comparative culpability.

Special leave to appeal would not have been granted to address the arguments made by Mr Potts at the hearing of the appeal. None of those arguments raised a question of law of public importance or met any of the other criteria for a grant of special leave to appeal.

Moreover, none of Mr Potts' contentions concerning the deficient factual basis for the appeal were made out. The Court of Appeal was correct to say that Mr Potts' proportionate liability defences omitted an identification of the facts which constituted breaches of the cl 21.1(t) representation by DSHE as an entity independently of Mr Potts. It is sufficient to observe that Mr Potts' defences did not allege that any of the three pieces of information relied upon in this Court was misleading in a material respect at the date provided, so as to render the cl 21.1(t) representation misleading or deceptive. Consequently, NAB's admission, that the cl 21.1(t) representation was misleading or deceptive by reason of DSHE's failure to disclose to NAB various pleaded matters prior to entry into the agreements that included the SFA, did not encompass an admission that the cl 21.1(t) representation was misleading or deceptive by reason of omissions from any of those pieces of information.


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Gageler CJ Gordon J Edelman J Steward J Gleeson J

If DSHE had been found to have engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct by any of these omissions, questions of public importance may have arisen as to the extent of culpability of DSHE and whether DSHE was a concurrent wrongdoer in relation to NAB's claim against Mr Potts, as a person "whose acts or omissions … caused, independently of [Mr Potts] or jointly", the loss that was the subject of the claim. In the absence of an adequate factual basis for considering that issue, the case was not an appropriate vehicle to consider that question.

Accordingly, the proper course is for the grant of special leave to be revoked. Mr Potts must pay the costs of the proceeding in this Court.


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23 cultivated intellect, chastened tastes, refined susceptibilities, worthy aspirations, considerate demeanour and disciplined character. The studies whereby you have qualified for the degree have ‘learnt’ you one supreme lesson— the tasks of the student are in themselves enlivening and elevating, that ‘labor is life’ and ‘labor is glory'. Those studies were designed and directed to evolve in you the true spirit of the scholar—the spirit noted for passionate quest of knowledge, cheerful submission to discipline, unswerving adherence to duty, keen appreciation of the realities of life and an inexhaustible fund of humane impulses. The ‘promises’ which you have had to guarantee with your honor before you could be admitted to your degree, constitute a comprehensive covenant that you would bo ever alive to your obligations as an individual, as a worker, as a citizen, as a member of society, as a factor of humanity. Through these pledges you have bound yourself to eschew whatever is low and unworthy, to strive after whatever is high and honorable, to employ your talent and influence for


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24 the diffusion of enlightenment and the propagation of virtue, to discharge with loyalty and integrity the whole round of your duties in life and to further the best interests of the community and of humanity to the utmost possibility of your opportunities. Thus, in eloquent symbol, your gown is the robe of a Dedicated Life; your hood, the budge of an ever-growing League of the Leading Light; and the diploma now handed to you, the Lamp of Learning more constant and more potent than Aladin’s 'Wonderful Lamp’. These form the charter of your franchise in the Republic of Letters. By your graduation you have been admitted to the freedom of the world-wide Commonwealth of Culture. Your Degree is thus a pearl of great price. I exhort you to use it with wisdom and to wear it with honor. I wish you all the, happiness of its possession.

It goes without saying that the Degree the possession of which entitles you to the esteem of all lovers of learning, has been won with incalculable pains. ‘Tendrils strong as flesh and blood’ intertwine the several


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25 generations; and as Emerson teaches us, 'every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.' But how hard the task to sum up the full ‘tale' of their self-denying services to posterity I However, out of a vast number, may it be permitted to a descendant of three generations of military men to dwell for a moment on one striking instance, memorable but oft-forgotten? In his brilliant Convocation Address, after a glowing tribute to the countless deeds of endurance, self-denial and heroism of the Madras Army, Col. Hughes-Hallet assured the graduates of the year, ‘it is the Madras Army which has made your presence here to-day possible’. To the numerous lives laid down on the battle-field should be added the stil larger number spent out in winning the victories of peace. From the humble hind who binds the sheaf or watches the reef to the exalted sage who, from the Eiffel-tower of genius, surveys the domain of knowledge, there ranges a glorious procession of good men and true who have ‘toiled and bled and died' that we may gain and grow and thrive. To them all we owe the pious tribute of profound esteem and deep


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 gratitude. Thus, as a fruit of great sacrifice your Degree has come to be yours; and as an offering of pure sacrifice alone will you be suffered to employ it. This is the true meaning of the noble precept, ‘freely ye have received, freely give As a free gift of the self-sacrifice of the past you have received it; and, rendered richer with your reverent mite, as a free offering of the present you will pass it on.

This incidental reference to a truth of great moment—namely, that life can perpetuate itself only through renunciation, that lasting good is achieved solely through ceaseless self-surrender—demands that I should make a fervent appeal to you, with all the earnestness of a sincere well-wisher, to cleanse your minds of even the slightest taint of one misleading and injurious notion. I refer to the not uncommon notion that there exists a real antithesis, an inherent conflict, between privileges and obligations, between rights and duties. Unlike certain other pairs of words—such, for example, as light and darkness, good and evil-which name irrecon-


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 cilable and, therefore, mutually extinguishing. Antagonisms, the twin words we are now considering denote not divergences but parallels, not contraries but complements. Rights and duties are inseparable concomitants, inalienable allies. It would be a fatal mistake to think of rights as the bribe for duties or of duties as the penalty for rights. Rights and duties are two aspects of one concept, two directions of one energy, two results of one function. They form the inlet and the outlet of one fountain of life—the inlet of power and the outlet of service. Rights without duties would bean idle boast; duties without rights, a surly growl. Rights and duties are welded into the undivided serene strength of self-realisation through self-reliance and self-expansion. Is it right or is it duty that prompts the stream to flow, the seed to grow, the bird to sing, the heart to beat? Withhold from the heart the right to pulsate, it is numbed; withdraw from the heart the duty to purvey, it is clogged. Nor is it irrelevant that we ponder over this fact for a moment. Our Alma Mater prescribes to us Culture as the supreme end of our being;


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 and the distinguishing characteristic of Culture is the equipoise of Truth, which, resists what the poet calls the ‘falsehood of extremes’. The goal of Culture is that emancipation from the bondage of self-interest whereby every right is instinctively transformed into a duty, as in unimpaired physical life food is automatically transmuted into energy. Let rights be received as a trust and duties be accepted as a call. Then their connascent relationship in man’s moral life will become manifest- Then it will be perceived that even by a divine ordinance wide-spraad respect waits on unflincbing self- control, and liberal privileges are invariably yoked with exacting obligations. Verily, unto whom much is given, of him much shall be required.

Thus we are brought back to the thought that for being a liberal ‘pensioner on the past’, every educated person must be 'indentured ’ as a servant of the future. This, too, is an illustration of industry claiming ‘an interest in its own fruits’. Our position places each one of us under a triple


text: Poems (Nora May French)/Notes

title: Poems (Nora May French)/Notes


text: Poems (Nora May French)/The Outer Gate

title: Poems (Nora May French)/The Outer Gate


text: The Outline of History

title: The Outline of History


text: Poems (Nora May French)/Rain

title: Poems (Nora May French)/Rain


text: Poems (Nora May French)/Best-Loved

title: Poems (Nora May French)/Best-Loved


text: Poems (Nora May French)/The Rose

title: Poems (Nora May French)/The Rose


text: Poems (Nora May French)/Between Two Rains


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C. 580-590 ] himself as a brother among the rest. For three years he lived in seclusion the religious life, according to the rule, there can be little doubt, of St Benedict, which he often afterwards so warmly eulogised. The chief of the Roman citizens had become a humble monk among monks: it was a contrast typical of the life, set betwixt civilisation and Christianity, barbarism and ascetic devotion, of the early Middle Age.

In the monastery of St Andrew the second part of Gregory's training was accomplished. For three years he was learning all that monasticism could teach him. And first it taught him a keen interest in the evangelisation of the heathen. It was probably at this date (though the evidence is uncertain), when he was one of the most famous personages in Rome, the chief civil ruler of the city who had given up all for the religious life, that his attention was first directed towards the distant isle of Britain. There is no reason to doubt the familiar story told so picturesquely by Bede, a narratio fidelium as the earlier Monk of Whitby calls it, that he was walking in the forum when he saw some Anglian lads, probably exposed for sale. He had heard of their coming and desired to see the denizens of a country concerning which Procopius had told the strange tale that thither Gaulish boatmen ferried the souls of the dead by night. Beautiful boys these were, with light complexion and light hair. "Alas," he said, when he was told they were heathens, "that lads so bright should be the slaves of darkness." He asked what was the name of their race. "Angli," they told him, and he answered that they had angel faces and should be coheirs of the angeli in heaven. They came from Deira: so should they be saved de ira Dei. Their king was Aelle: Alleluia should be sung in his land. From that moment Gregory planned to evangelise the English. He obtained the leave of the Pope, Benedict I; but the punning habit which seemed to have given him the first thought of his mission now intervened to check him in its course. He sat reading, during the rest time on the third day of his journey, and a locust settled on his book, and locusta seemed to mean loco sta: he should not proceed. So it proved, for messengers from the pope hurried to command his return, for the people of Rome would not suffer the departure of one whose services to them had been so recent and whose conspicuous self-abnegation seemed to shed a glory on the city of St Peter. The call of the Angles was set aside, but it was not forgotten. Gregory was given to learning, to asceticism, and to active assistance to the papal court.

The learning of his school-days was now continued on more exclusively ecclesiastical lines. In earlier years he had loved to read Augustine and Jerome. He became a deep student of the Bible. Later years, when he can have had little time for close study, shewed that he had become acquainted with the text of the Scriptures in detail more exact than was at all common in his day. What he read he pondered on, and he became a master of that "divine art" of Meditation which was to be so


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 1

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 1


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238 exhaustively developed in the Medieval Church. And to meditation he added vigil and fast till his health was injured for the rest of his life. But the time, as he looked back to it again and again from the troubled world, seemed like a happy shore as seen by the storm-tossed mariner on the waves of a mighty sea. On the sea of public life indeed he was soon about to embark again.

First he was made one of the Seven Deacons who shared with the pope the governance of Rome, in charge of the seven regions of the city. For such a post few could have been so well fitted as he who had played so conspicuous a part in municipal life. This may have been in 578. In that year Benedict I died; while the city was in throes of plague and flood, and the Lombards were on the point of attack. Pelagius II, the new pope, determined to send to Constantinople, as his resident at the Emperor's court, one who knew so completely the needs and the dangers of old Rome. In the spring of 579 Gregory left Italy as the apocrisiarius of the pope. The six years, or more, during which he resided in the imperial city supplied perhaps the last and most important of the formative influences of his life. Tiberius II was emperor (578-582), Eutychius was patriarch (577-582). The papal envoy was theologian as well as statesman, and he controverted a theory of the latter that the resurrection-body would be impalpable, convincing at least the former so that he put the erroneous treatise in the fire. But while he did not neglect theology, for he also wrote while he was at Constantinople his famous Moralia, a commentary on the Book of Job, a very Corpus of Divinity in itself, containing also many wise saws and modern instances, he was more continuously and actively employed in studying the magnificent system of imperial government. In a city notorious for the luxury of the nobles and the political independence of the people, where public interest was divided between the controversies of theologians and the games of the hippodrome, he saw how the turbulent life of a fickle and arrogant population was guided, not always wisely, by ecclesiastics, and restrained with extraordinary and imperceptible tact by an army of officials who, when dynasties changed and the throne tottered, preserved the fabric of the imperial constitution through all hazards and gave for centuries the most marvellous example of constitutional organisation amid the confused revolutions of Medieval Europe. As a theologian Gregory made it his business to see and talk with heretics that he might win them to truth, contrary to the example of those among whom he lived, some of whom were "fired by mistaken zeal and imagine they are fighting heretics while indeed they are making heresies." As for his own theological controversies, if he entered upon them charitably he certainly took them seriously: John the Deacon tells that at the end of his dispute with the patriarch Eutychius he took to his bed from exhaustion. In 582 Eutychius was succeeded by a famous ascetic, John "the Faster," a Cappadocian. With him Gregory had no dispute till later days: but


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 2

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 2


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585-590] the first letter between them that is preserved, written in 590, reads as though their cordiality had never been great.

In the imperial court the papal envoy made many friends: and when Tiberius had chosen Maurice for his successor Gregory had still closer relations with those of Caesar's household. Theoctista, the new Emperor's sister, and Narses, one of his generals, are found later among those to whom he wrote. He was intimate, too, with other foreign ecclesiastics, visitors like himself at the centre of imperial power, notably with Leander of Seville, afterwards the victorious champion of Catholicism against the Arian Visigoths. Leander and Gregory became close friends: it was Leander who induced Gregory to write his Moralia, and he received its dedication. In later years no congratulations on Leander's success were so warm as those of his old companion; though the Spanish prelate was absent in body yet, said Gregory, he was felt to be ever present in the spirit his image impressed upon the heart of his friend. Anastasius, once patriarch of Antioch, also lived in Constantinople, with memories of the theological storm which clouded the last days of Justinian, and he was said to have refuted the Aphthartodecetic opinions which that Emperor probably never held and the edict in favour of them which he certainly never issued. With him also Gregory was on cordial terms.

But from the imperial Court itself the papal apocrisiarius could find no support for the cause which he came to advocate. The Lombards had northern Italy at their feet, Pelagius wrote piteously begging for succour. But Maurice looked eastwards rather than towards the West, and as Caesar would not, or could not, help the pope. When Gregory returned to Rome in 585 he had accomplished nothing. But he had acquired a knowledge of foreign politics, of the routine of imperial administration, and of the great personages of his time, which was invaluable to him.

For five years Gregory remained at Rome as head of his own monastery, and he made it a school of saints, and a home of Biblical study. He himself wrote commentaries on several of the Scriptures, and completed his lectures on the Book of Job which (like the Magna Moralia) became almost a popular classic in the Middle Age and proved a storehouse from which very much of later theology was extracted. To him also was entrusted by Pope Pelagius the conclusion of the unhappy controversy of Justinian's day on the Three Chapters; and he set before the bishops of Istria the orthodox creed as Rome and Constantinople had accepted it in a treatise of lucid and masterful reasoning. In 590 Pelagius died and the Roman people insisted that he who had once been their highest official and was now the most eminent of their monks should become their bishop. If he was reluctant to accept it, he yet in the interval before the imperial assent could be obtained shewed himself to be the religious leader that the city needed in its distress.


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240 Rome was swept by the plague: Gregory had himself done his utmost to abate it by sanitary measures: Pelagius himself had been its victim. Now the abbot of St. Andrew's organised a demonstration of public penitence, and preached a famous sermon which another Gregory, himself a hearer, and afterwards the great bishop of Tours, statesman and historian, recorded from his lips. As the penitential procession, moving in seven bodies and. singing litanies, passed through the streets, death was still busy: in one hour, as the solemn march went on, eighty men fell dead: but at last, said a legend of later days, the Archangel Michael was seen to stand on the cupola of the Mausoleum of Hadrian and to sheathe his flaming sword. So the plague was stayed: and the Castle of Sant' Angelo, with all its long history of romance and crime, bears witness to the memory

Six months after the death of Pelagius, in August 590, came the sanction of Maurice the Emperor to the choice that had been made of his successor. Gregory, still a deacon, prepared for flight, but he was discovered, taken to St. Peter's and consecrated a successor of the Apostle as bishop of Rome. It was on 3 September 590.

It was a ship rotten in every plank and leaking at every seam that he came to captain: so he wrote to his brother of Constantinople. With a real regret did he abandon the Rachel of contemplation for the Leah of active life. Yet if any ecclesiastic was ever fitted for rule, for statesmanship, for practical labour among men, it was Gregory the Great.

If Gregory's most obvious achievements, in the sight of his own time, lay in the region of politics, it must be remembered always that he himself viewed his whole work from the standing-point of a Christian bishop. He sets this before every reader in his Regulae Pastoralis Liber, a book which, probably addressed to John of Ravenna, his "brother and fellow-bishop," was welcomed by all who knew him, both clerk and lay, by the Emperor Maurice, who had a Greek translation made of it, as well as by Leander of Seville: and, later on, to read it became part of the necessary rendition of a bishop. Throughout the book there is a sense of tremendous responsibility. The conduct of a prelate, says Gregory, ought to surpass the conduct of the people as a shepherd's life does that of his flock. In his elevation he should deal with high things, and high persons, yet should he not seek to please men, being mindful of the duty of reproof and yet reproving with gentleness. The mind anxious about the management of exterior business is deprived of the sense of wholesome fear; and the soul is flattered with a false promise of good works: there is danger in refusal as well as in acceptance of high places; but most danger lest while earthly pursuits engross the senses of the pastor the dust that is driven by the wind of temptation blind the eyes of the whole Church. The entire treatise shews an intimacy of practical knowledge in regard to


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 3

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 3


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 4

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 4


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 5

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 5


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 6

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 6


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 7

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 7


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 8

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 8


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 9

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 9


text:
User talk:Igopin

Welcome
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Again, welcome! Beardo (talk) 09:55, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Virtual agronomist
Please could you add a note of the source, and also the copyright status. Regards -- Beardo (talk) 09:56, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

title: User talk:Igopin


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 10

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 10


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 11

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 11


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 12

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 12


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 13

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 13


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 14

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 14


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 15

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 15


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 16

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 16


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 17

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 17


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 18

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 18


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 19

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 19


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 gammon if you please; you are just the chap to destroy all these objectionable songs, and nothing would be easier than for you to give a hint to your company, that would effectually silence the goguette singers from committing themselves in my hearing."

"Who do you take me for, sir?" exclaimed Raoul with quickness. "I am incapable of such conduct; if I promise you to let every thing proceed as if you were not present, nothing could induce me to deviate from it; you can either believe me or not, at your pleasure, but to convince you of my honour in the business, you shall remain by my side the whole of the day; I pledge myself not to breathe one word respecting you to a living soul, not even to my wife when she comes home, so that you may be very sure;—however, you will, I hope, see no objection to my attending to my customers as usual."

"Assuredly not; let every thing go on as usual, and to lull all suspicion I don't care if I lend you a helping hand."

"Your offer is too agreeable to be refused," replied Raoul; "so if you please, M. Jules, we will proceed to work at once."

"Come on then," said I, and we descended the stairs together. Raoul prepared his huge carving-knife, and, with my sleeves tucked up, and a napkin fastened before me, I aided him in carving the veal, which, with the accompaniment of sorrel sauce, was destined for the banquet of the Luculluses of the cabaret. From the veal we proceeded to the mutton; we set out some dozens of chops in the most tempting manner, and trimmed up the leg, that delicate morsel so generally relished and longed for. I next assisted in preparing some turkeys for the spit, after which we cleared away the litter, and repaired to the wine cellar, where I made myself equally useful, by helping my companion to manufacture genuine wine at six sols the flask.

During this operation I was quite alone with Raoul, who passed me off to every one as his most intimate


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 20

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 20


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 obligation—the obligation of ceaseless self-development, the obligation of disinterested service to humanity, the obligation of reverent response to ‘ the Eternal Power, not ourselves, by which all things fulfil the law of their being’. These are the intellectual, moral and spiritual obligations of Culture. Genuine Culture is thus a composite of three elements—a beam commingling three rays, a strength woven of three strands. Will you be good enough to bear with me while I attempt a very short study of this very great subject?

Culture has been designated ‘‘the true philosopher’s stone’. The phrase is happy as an appreciation of the sublime results of self-cultivation. The actual process, however, is one of development, and not of transformation. According to Novalis, Culture aims at giving man ‘ a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own self’, by rendering the human consciousness ‘its own light and its own mirror’. In other words, the object of Culture is to fit man for his noblest achievement—namely, self-realisation. In the illuminating language of the


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 Seer of 'Santiniketan,‘ every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man’. Culture is the witness to this Divine Hope in man, in that it affirms his high destiny to enlarge towards a glorious consummation. Culture is the pilgrimage of wonder to the shrine of wisdom. The basal assumption of Culture is that the human bosom is a mine of mysterious powers. The one great end of true education is to put man in conscious possession of these powers. The first among these is perception— the capacity to see with an investigating mind. Every conscious act of man is an exercise of this power of perception—the 'dwelling of the mind on the objects and happenings of life. Education has to steady this power by discipline and strengthen it by suggestion—that is, to develop perception into reflection, through concentration and comparison. Man thus becomes a being of the ruminating kind’; the essence of his existence as man is to choose, to ponder and to realise. And in order effectively to exercise this ruminating capacity, man has to limit himself, even as a stream limits itself to its banks. This is


text: The Outline of History/Chapter 21

title: The Outline of History/Chapter 21


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31 'concentration’ and 'devotion’—the first illustration of ‘renunciation.' As a consequence, the human mind establishes direct contact with the realities of life. Its fruit is clear thinking, penetrating insight, balanced judgment, and, therefore, sure ground under the foot and an open view before the eye. Man is thus enabled to stand erect and to look ahead—to think clear and to see straight. Thereby he enlarges the sphere of his interest and the field of his influence. Like a widening river, he receives affluents from all sides into himself and expands. This process of self-expansion inevitably sheds the old shell of narrow self-interest. The self is drawn out of its little cell into the broad light. The bead and the heart are alike illumined. Aims and considerations with a circuit ampler than individual life become the decisive factors of plan and action. The thinking man matures into the considerate man. Altruism is engendered. Knowledge, vidya, is widened and deepened into wisdom— that X ray of the spirit which pierces through forms and appearances to the reality of existence. This is viveka—the


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32 search-light of the soul turned on the face of the world. Dark recesses are radiated; new avenues of thought are opened out ; new springs of pure happiness are discovered. Wisdom is sublimated into illumination, vignana till each single object shines as a 'theophany’—a suggestive sample of the one Eternal Idea'. My meaning I may seek to elucidate with a humorous but instructive example borrowed from a well-known British journal. There is the familiar primrose. We pity the Peter Bells of the unthinking world to whom the primrose is nothing more than a yellow primrose. Out of their ignorance we have emerged into scientific knowledge : we have discovered the primrose to be a dicotyledon, and we have classified it as a rhododendron. Indeed, we have proved our practical sagacity by adopting it as the badge of a political party in the Primrose League. Nevertheless, have we been initiated into the secret of it? Why does the inspired bard name it the ‘rathe primrose’? Can it be for the reason that it is the first smile of the incoming year—the messenger of resuscitated life—the bearer of the ‘good tidings’ that


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33 in nature there is no death but that 'every winter changes to spring’? Similar is the light which Culture, the Science of the Truth, casts on all the experiences of life. It is man’s glory to be, as the Arabic phrase hae it, Ashraful-Makhlukhat—the exalted one of creation, because of his inborn power to ‘con’ the lessons of this occult science. The cultured man is thus a person endowed with a trained and developed capacity to appreciate aright the values of events and entities in relation to the whole round of existence. He possesses what Wordsworth and, after him, Newman call ‘the philosophic mind’.

The moral and social value of the man of Culture, as the efflorescence of passionless sacrifice—viraga, cannot but be rare- With stores of knowledge which he is to be ever ready to augment through participation with others, he is an abundant source of, enlightenment. With pure motive, high moral purpose and a strong sense of duty, he is an inspiring model character. With catholic spirit, courteous bearing, humane impulses and benevolent designs, he is a ‘heaven-born


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 friend. I stuck as close to him as his very shadow, and he himself appeared as unable to dispense with me as with his large carving knife. I must confess that several times I trembled lest he should suspect the motive of my watching him so closely; had he done so, he would certainly have murdered me, and I must have perished beneath his violence, without any human creature being able to assist me; happily he saw in me only a familiar of the political inquisition, and as to the seditious imputations urged against him, he was perfectly at his ease.

Up to four o'clock I continued my assistance as second in office, when the commissary of police, (now head of the second division,) whom I had informed of the affair, arrived. I was on the ground floor, when I perceived him at a distance, and hastening to him, I begged he would not make his appearance for a few minutes. I then returned to Raoul, and affecting to be exceedingly angry, "The devil take them!" cried I, "the police have just sent to me to say that our business lies at your house in Paris, and that we must remove thither instantly."

"Oh, if that be all," said Raoul, "let us go there at once."

"Yes," replied I, "and when we are there we shall be ordered back again here; faith, they do not stand very nice as to the trouble they give us with the contradictory orders! if I were in your place, since we are in your house, I would send to request the commissary of police to allow your premises to be searched; it would be a convincing argument that you were wrongly accused."

Raoul applauded this advice as most excellent, did as I recommended, and having obtained the commissary's consent, the strictest search took place, without, however, its producing anything to criminate him.

"Well," cried he, (when the whole was concluded,) with that tone of exultation which might have sprung from a man of conscious integrity; "Well, gentlemen, I


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34 harmoniser With clear thought, wide outlook, balanced judgment and well-directed energy, he is a powerful organiser. Braced by the vitalising conviction that ‘the highest is also the most real’; refined by the chastening influences of that true humility, vinaya, which, like ‘the fruit-laden bough’, 'rests its head upon the ground’; and illumined by the savant’s truth—‘the laws of nature are the thoughts of God’, by the sage’s wisdom—‘the shoe-black is Infinite’, by the Seer’s evangel— ‘among the Daityas I am Prahlada’, he is (in Lord Haldane’s noble phrase) a brother of the ‘Priesthood of Humanity’.

Stated in my inadequate language, such are the content, the aim and the worth of that Culture which the University assigns to you as the supreme concern of life. It is an ‘excelsior’ ascent of ever-towering heights. With expanding horizons and multiplying marvels, the prospect is glorious. The enterprise is heroic in purpose and fruitful in results. It is a path adorned with the foot-prints of the wisest and noblest of all ages.


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70 THE SIKH RELIGION uttering 'Shiv, Shiv' with thy mouth, thy heart is filled with greed. Thou practisest excessive hypocrisy before the world, and art not ashamed to beg from door to door. Thou remainest for nearly two hours holding thy nose as if thou wert practising Jog. Thou standest on one leg invoking Shiv. If any one pass by and give thee one paisa, thou pickest it up with thy teeth, and forgettest thy gods. Thou givest instruction to others, but meditatest not on God thyself. Thou ever preachest to people to despise money. Yet for that very money thou beggest at the doors of high and low, and art not ashamed to debase thyself before even the meanest of thy fellow creatures. Thou sayest that thou art holy, but thou art very unholy. Thou callest thyself contented, but thou art very discontented, and only leavest one door to go and beg at another. Thou makest a clay idol of Shiv, and having worshipped it throwest it into the river. When thou returnest home thou settest up another in its place. Thou tallest at its feet, and rubbest thy forehead on the ground for an hour. Think what it hath to give thee. Thou worshippest the symbol of pro- creation, and tallest before it believing it to be Shiv. Thou callest a stone God, but it will not avail thee. Since the stone belongeth to the lowest order of creation, say what shall it give thee even if propitiated and pleased with thee ? Even if it at any time make thee like itself, thou shalt be no better than a stone. Great simpleton, be assured that, when thy life hath departed, it will be too late for thee to know anything of God. Thou hast passed thy childhood without prayer, but even in thy manhood thou hast not repeated God's name. Thou hast induced others to give charity, but never lifted thy hand to assist another. Thou hast bent thy head to stones, but never to God. O fool, entangled in thy domestic affairs, thy life thou hast passed in procrastination. Having read one or two Purans, O Brahman, thou art swollen with conceit. Thou hast not read the Puran through which all the sins of this life may be erased. It is for the sake of show thou practisest penance. Day and night thy mind is absorbed in lucre. Fools accept thy statements, but not I. Why practisest


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35 No traveller along this track, as a Persian, poet assures us, has ever missed his way. Security and success are guaranteed of Heaven. Stout of heart and firm of foot, keep, then, to this path. The warmest benedictions of your Alma Mater go with you.

Before conclusion, a word of special welcome is due to the Bachelors of Agricultural Science—the pioneers, as we trust, of a steadily increasing corps of trained and willing workers in a field of vast possibilities. A great world-classic widely honoured in South India, defines the cultivators as ‘the pivot of the world’; and upon the intelligence and the industry of the recipients of the new Degree will largely depend the sustaining power of that pivot. This Faculty, perhaps, more than any other, demands that devotion to duty which accepts hard labour as a privilege. It will be your good fortune 'to scatter plenty o’er a smiling land’. May yours be the joy of benevolent duties zealously discharged!—The Lady Graduates are entitled to the warmest felicitations of all friends of India. If men-graduates prove


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36 India’s cultural power, their sisters in distinction represent India’s cultural glory, 'a light to young or old’. A hallowed sentiment of this land demands that the mother shall be venerated as the first—the earliest and dearest—object of worshipful esteem. To you who are the expression of ‘the mother’, I accord, not only the respect due to grace, but also the reverence due to sanctity. In you and the other members of the sisterhood is vested the true greatness of the nation. May you achieve your heaven-appointed mission!

To Graduates of the Year in all the Faculties I would, in conclusion, address one word with all the solemnity of the farewell moment. It is not a word new to you; nor is it a word you will be suffered to forget. It is a word associated in the human mind with mingled feelings of awe, sadness and thankfulness—even the regnant word, Duty. The longer one lives and strives to be true to the purer promptings of one’s nature, the more vividly is brought home to one ’s con-


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37 scoiousness the sovereignty of this mighty word over human life. It is, theirefore, incumbent on the outgoing to offer to the in-eoming generation, even as a memento of mutual good-will, some vivid though succinct account of one’s deep-impressed experiences relating to this all-compelling idea.—On the subject of Duty it is not possible that I can say anything that is new. But the reiteration of a world-old ideal is a daily task, like the daily reappearance of the Sun. The precept, ‘whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might’, signifies that a dedicated life alone can be a useful life. The Sacred Book of Human Existence opens with the dedication—‘ To Duty '- In the estimates of Duty, there is no distinction of *high and humble. The day ’s duty notes the fulfilment of the day ’s worship. The privilege of performing Duty is ‘the only absolute Right’ of man.—Of the several characteristics of Duty, reference will here be made to two. The eye of Duty is ever upon man. .It is ‘ the Hound of Heaven' watching over him through all the windings of life. No moment, no incident, is too trivial for the purview of Duty. Th»


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38 final judgment on Life is the verdict of Duty. Again, marvellous is the change of aspect in which Duty successively presents itself. It is usual to picture Duty as 'stern’; and severely stern it undoubtedly is, as it enforces fidelity. But before long, experience discovers stern duty to be stimulating purpose. Through discipline comes development- And as development expands and enriches life, duty is ultimately hailed as delight. Discipline, Development, Delight—these mark the stages in the transformation of sternness into sweetness- Duty may at first be struck out ‘as the waters out of the rock but, in the end, Duty oozes ‘as honey from the comb’. With this grace of sublimating labour into pleasure. Duty endears itself to life. Indeed, in the crowning accomplishment of man—self-realisation, life is duty, duty is life. The paramount duty enjoined by Culture is to realise the soul and surrender it to service. The supreme reward of a life devoted to Culture is the privilege to dedicate itself to love and service—that beatitude the glory of which has been


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39 chanted in such enblime notes in that ‘Lord’s Lay’ of our times, the Gitanjali :

“Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.”

Graduates of the Year, such is ‘the vision divine’ that Culture brings into ken. Such is the heavenly gleam that shall be followed, with unaverted eye and undaunted heart, by every votary of Culture—the ‘golden dream’


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LIFE OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 71 thou so much hypocrisy? For what object adorest thou a stone? Thou hast forfeited thy happiness here and hereafter. Thou givest false instruction and gladly accept- est all payment which thou claimest. It is enough that thou hast given evil instruction to my brothers; instruct not me.

Hear me, O princess, thou hast not considered Shiv's greatness. Ever worship the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiv. Thou knowest not their greatness, and that is why thou talkest in that way. Know that they are the oldest of all the gods, and do thou recognize them as the lords of the world. I am, O princess, a fasting Brahman, and love all both high and low. I communicate instruction to all and induce even great misers to practise charity.

Thou communicatest spells in order to make disciples. Thou then takest money as offerings from them in whatever way thou canst, but thou teachest them not the truth, and marrest their happiness in this world and the next. Hear, O Brahman, thou plunderest in whatever way thou canst those to whom thou givest thine initiatory spell. The fools receive no divine knowledge from thee, but are fleeced for their pains. Thou tellest them that thy spell shall be advantageous to them, and that Shiv will grant them a boon. When the spells turn out unsuccessful, thou pre- tendest that they have omitted some necessary ceremony, and that is why they have not been successful. Thou next tellest them to give alms to Brahmans and perform the spell by which they might behold the god. Thou takest a fine from them when they ought to take it from thee for misleading them, and in return for their money thou givest them the same spell over again. Thou leadest them astray all along the line, and at last thou tellest them that they have omitted certain words, or that something interrupted the ceremonies to account for the non-appearance of the god and his failure to grant the desired blessing. On


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 Of Knowledge fusing class with class,
 * Of dvic Hate no more to be,

Of Love to leaven all the mass,
 * Till every Soul be free’.

Ladies and Gentlemen, once again I offer to you, as Sister and Brother Graduates, the heartiest congratulations of our University. And as she bids you an affectionate farewell, our Alma Mater pronounces upon each one of you the benediction of the ‘benign mother': Heir of the Past, Trustee of the Future, Apostle of Truth, Harbinger of Hope, may the richest gifts of Grace abide with you all your days!


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72 THE SIKH RELIGION this thou counsellest them to again give thee alms. O Brahman, that is the sort of spell thou teachest those whose houses thou designest to plunder. And when thy victims become poor, thou goest to spy out others. Were thine incantations and spells efficacious, thou wouldst sit as a monarch at home and not go about begging.

The Brahman filled with anger and heaping curses on the princess, said, 'How canst thou know mine affairs? Thou talkest as if thou hadst taken bhang.'

Hear, O Brahman, it is thou who knowest not what thou sayest. Thou addressest me in an insolent manner. My senses are not stolen away by bhang. Whither have thine own senses gone without it? Thou callest thyself wise in that thou never takest bhang even by mistake, but when thou goest a-begging, thou insultest, as if under the influence of bhang, him whose house thou visitest. Why beg from door to door for the money thou pretendest to despise ? Thou goest to rajas and takest morsels from them. Thou sayest thou hast abandoned all worldly things and preachest to everybody to do the same. Why stretchest thou forth thy hand to grasp what thou pretendest to renounce? To one man thou preachest to renounce wealth, to another thou sayest that he is under the influence of malignant stars, and therefore he ought to pay thee for deliverance therefrom. It is in the hope of cheating people thou wanderest from door to door. Thou recitest the Veds, the Shastars, and the Simritis, so that a double paisa may fall to thee from some one. Thou praisest him who givest thee anything and revilest him who refuseth. In this way thou hopest to obtain alms from all people. But thou reflectest not that praise and blame are every one's lot while alive, but affect not the dead. Thou canst not confer salvation on those who give thee alms, nor canst thou kill the son or father of him who giveth thee none. I only accept him as a Brahman who deemeth the givers and the refusers, praise and blame as the same. O Brahman, the man from whom


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LIFE OF GURU GOBIND SINGH 73 thou extortest money, or whom thou pleasest with thy varied flatteries, shall at last go to hell in thy company. Brahmans, though they say they have abandoned the world, are lovers of wealth, and in quest of it go to die either in Banaras or Kumaun. Some through greed for money twist their matted hair round their heads. Others put on a wooden necklace and go forth shamelessly to the forest. Others again, taking tweezers, pluck out all the hair of their heads. The Brahmans practise hypocrisy in order to plunder the world, and they thus lose their happi- ness both here and hereafter. They make a clay lingam and worship it, but it hath no power for good or evil. Why do men who know that the lingam hath no light in it, light a lamp before it? And why do very foolish and obstinate persons thinking it God fall down before it? Thoughtless one, think of God and quickly cast away thy mind's indecision. They who have studied for a long time in Banaras go at last to die in Bhutan. Having acquired a little learning thou leavest thy home and wanderest from country to country. Thy father and mother thou hast left somewhere; thy wife, thy son, and thy son's wife cannot find thee. No one hath passed beyond the goal of covetousness; it hath beguiled all people.

Thou shavest the heads of some, on others thou imposest fines, and on others again thou puttest wooden necklaces. To one thou teachest spoken, to another written, and to a third other forms of incantations, yet thou conferrest no abiding spiritual knowledge. Some thou showest how to argue on learned subjects, but to all thou settest an example of covetousness in thine efforts to obtain wealth to the best of thine ability. Thou showest no mercy and never pro- pitiatest God, O fool, but worshippest clay. It is on this account thou art doomed to wander begging. Think, thoughtless one, on Him who made men conscious; why deemest thou Him unconscious ? Why call a stone God? Why sellest thou thy precious soul under its value? Thou knowest nothing, great simpleton, and yet thou callest thyself a superior pandit. Diest thou not of shame, O great boaster? In thy pride thou forfeitest thine honour. Thou


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Author:V. Ramakrishna Rao

Works

 * The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1/Introductory Sketch (1922)
 * The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2/Introductory Note (1923)
 * The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3/Introductory Note (1924)

title: Author:V. Ramakrishna Rao


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 hope you are now satisfied. Upon my word, I do not think myself at all well used to be suspected and searched in this manner. Why you could not have done more had I committed murder!"

The assurance with which the latter part of the sentence was pronounced really startled me, and for a moment I repented of having ever suspected him, but the many reasons I had for concluding him guilty quickly effaced my regret. Still it was frightful to consider that a robber and murderer like himself, whose hands were yet reeking with the blood of his victim, could, without a shudder, utter words which thus recalled his guilt. Raoul was calm and almost triumphant in his manner; and when we were seated in the hackney-coach which was to transport us to Paris, an indifferent spectator might have supposed he was proceeding to a festival; he rubbed his hands, and said with all the glee imaginable, "I am thinking how my wife will be astonished at seeing me return to her in such good company." It happened to be his wife who opened the door; at the sight of us her countenance underwent not the slightest alteration; she presented us with seats, but as we had but little time to lose, the commissary and myself immediately set to work to perform our task of examining the house. Raoul did not appear desirous of quitting us for a moment, but guided us through our search with the utmost complaisance.

In order to give a colouring to the story I had first told him, we affected the greatest solicitude respecting his papers; he gave me the key of his escritoire. I seized upon a bundle of papers, and the first upon which I cast my eyes was a direction, part of which had been torn off. Instantly the shape of the torn fragment, on which was written the address found on the place of murder, and affixed by the magistrates of Corbeil to their procès verbal, occurred to my recollection. The piece now before me had evidently formed part of it. The commissary to whom I communicated my opinion coincided with me in it. Raoul


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74 THE SIKH RELIGION callest thyself a prophet and pretendest to know the future, but yet thou knowest not even the past. Thou thinkest thyself very handsome and able, and claimest to be con- tinent and physically strong. Thou sayest that Shiv is certainly in the stone, but, O great fool, thou knowest nothing. O clever man, consider in what part of the stone Parbati's lord is. Say what spiritual perfection thou attain- est by bowing thy head to clay? He whom the world cannot please will not be pleased by thy offerings of rice. Thou burnest incense, blowest shells, and rainest a shower of flowers. Thou growest weary in thine endeavours, but findest not God in a stone. To those who accept not thine incantations and spells thou recitest songs and verses. In broad daylight thou stealest wealth from men's houses. Thieves, pickpockets, and robbers seeing thy cleverness are ashamed of their ignorance. Thou payest no heed to the magistrate or the judge. Thou livest by cheating thy disciples.

Rich people are like flowers, clever men like thee are the bumble-bees which, unmindful of their homes, continue to buzz over them. Every one is at last in Death's power, and yet men have departed without resigning the craving for wealth. There are no bounds to this desire. It is the only thing in this world that surviveth.

You shave the heads of some, you send others to places of pilgrimages, and at the same time ask for all they possess. Those thou seest wealthy thou entanglest in the narrow door and leviest a tax at so much per head on them. Thou then lettest them pass. It is thirst for money not love of God that actuateth Brahmans.