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NUMBER STORIES how you would divide 1728 by 144, using the new method,” and Filippo then divided almost the same way that we do.

Filippo lived just as Europe was beginning to pass from the old “scratch method”, in which the figures were scratched out, or canceled, after they had been used, and was about to adopt a method very much like ours.

FILIPPO’S NEW METHOD OF DIVIDING 1728 BY 144 Notice that Filippo used one more number (28) than we should and that he did not write the quotient above the dividend as we do. This was the second important step towards our modern method of long division

The “scratch method” was called in Italy the “galley method” because the figures were arranged to look like a galley — a kind of boat — with its sail set Schoolboys often showed the galley in the drawings they made in their notebooks, just as you made drawings in your books when you first went to school. 76


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31 catheter,—without compensation to be in some degree guaged by the nature and extent of the service he has rendered ? If the law does not award him legitimate compensation, he is necessarily driven to an indirect excuse for subjecting his patient to a course of physic, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the malady.

The objections to this system cannot be overcharged. It is mseparably interwoven with the rank of our profession, with the respectability of our characters, and with the well- being of every station of society.

It upholds the most pernicious doctrine, that medicine is the sole, or at least the primary, antidote against disease. It invites empiricism. It engenders erroncous principles of pathology, and it weakens the allegiance of our profession to nature, as the great author of disease, and the beneficent worker of its treatment. The true principles of the art of healing, consist in the endeavour to develope and awaken the influence of nature, in the cure of disease. By the adoption of the present system, we forget the operation of first causes, in our false reliance on second; we largely circumscribe our curative powers, and we strike a fatal blow at the just rank and respectability of our profession.

If there exist one feature more injurious than another to the rank of the general practitioner of England, and the persistance in which, presents a more fatal obstacle to the success of any attempt to ameliorate his condition, it is that which places a pecuniary value on the drugs he dispenses.

With quite as much reason, might the surgeon claim compensation, in the name of the instruments he employs, for their services, after an operation.


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32 I conceive that so long as the general practitioner consents to subject his professional practice to such degrading conditions, he is unworthy the rank and estimate of a professional man. Medicines should be dispensed at their real, not their adventitious value. With one voice, this depart- ment of the whole profession should cry aloud, and claim their indisputable right to repudiate a practice so vicious, both as regards their own high claims, and their utility to others ; and obtain from parliament the title to a remuneration, more consistent with the real services they have rendered, and less derogatory to the repute of the high profession to which they belong.

Fourthly,—One of the highest incentives to superiority that can animate the human mind, is ambition of distinction above the rank of our fellow-men.

I do not stop to inquire how far this sentiment 1s identified with the excellence, or the weakness of our nature, but it is undeniable that its exercise in every age has led to great deeds, by which the world has profited.

It affords, however, a stimulus to exertion, far less avail- able to the professor of medicine, than to any other of the so-called professions. We have in England no public honours or distinctions.

Inasmuch as our duties are limited to the bedsides of our patients, so are our claims to public gratitude, unacknowledged by the world. For, the mere privacy of our duties should not disqualify us for public reward; and I look forward to the time, when the profession of medicine will stand forth in higher relief; when the award of the public voice, shall grant to it some public memorial or acknowledgment ;


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33 when its high services, shall no longer pass unnoticed and unrewarded. I would claim for eminent superiority in either department, some “order of merit,’ to be granted by the Government, to such men as have distinguished them- selves, either in the cause of medical science, or in that of humanity.

I may be told, perhaps, by such as are content “to stand upon the ancient ways,” that the purposed distinctions will be invidious, and I will point in reply, to the jealousies of our profession ; or, I may be told that however plausible the scheme, it cannot work practically, without great difficulty. I will reply that difficulty is no argument. If the profession be resolved to possess such a boon, they have but to demand it with one voice. Divinity, arms, law,—each has its public rewards, in the dispensation of which, if the voice of society does not exercise an immediate control, at least its sym- pathies are enlisted in their award, and most jealous is the public mind of their misappropriation.

These causes exercise a most pernicious influence on the public estimate of the profession of medicine, and for the removal of which, so indispensable are our duties, we may fearlessly call on society to co-operate with us in our endea- vour to remove them, nor should we call in vain.

Among these four causes of depression, viz.—l. The want of high classed education: II. The low standard of medical ethics: III. The present imperfect state of the law: IV. The absence of public and national honours—it is obvious that the first and greatest, 1s irremediable as regards the present generation; but there is no other reason why the remaining causes should not undergo consideration with a view to their


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34 removal, beyond the difficulty of rousing attention, the diffi- culty of bringing into action a distracted power, and directing it towards one focus.

We waste our energies in a fruitless struggle to raise ourselves in individual classes, by a sort of mternecine contention, instead of making one general effort to elevate our pursuit. Every class has its grievances, real or supposed. In one department, fretting under the imdignities imposed on it by law, we find contention for the honours of collegiate government. A second has sought emancipation from the contact of pharmaceutics, in the assumption of a title. The third has claimed superiority in the exclusive right to treat disease, within a certain locality; and on these lesser objects of contention, we fritter away on comparative trifles, that influence that might be profitably exerted in the far higher aim, of obtaining for ourselves as a profession, the estimate and the respect of the world.

It cannot be expected that society will aid us, unless we aid ourselves, unless we root out those evils that we alone can deal with; that we purge ourselves of the imputations of littleness, and throw ourselves on the highest resources of our profession.

We may point to the grandest discoveries in general science, or to the practical deductions of the profoundest philosophers and mathematicians without envy, we may marvel at the triumphs of human intellect, manifested in the recent discovery by Le Verrier and Adams of the planet Neptune, the nature and existence of which, was deduced from its recognised obedience to the Newtonian law of gravi- tation, and constituting one of the most sublime examples of


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35 induction the world has ever seen—to the knowledge of the remotest stars of the solar system—to the discovery of Voltaic electricity—to that of the atomic theory of Dr. Dalton —to the wondrous inventions in the mechanical arts that have in recent times all but realised the fervent appeal of the lover in Martinus Scriblerus, “ Ye Gods, annihilate both space and time ”—to the names of Ferguson, of Hallé, of Priestley, of Herschell, and of Davy, and feel that in the limited circle of our own profession, we may boast names and discoveries, not inferior in greatness or utility, and which, if they display themselves in a less degree as the result of the highest order of inductive reasoning, than on that of experimental science, greatly exceed them in their intrinsic value, if guaged by their subserviency to the well-bemg and happiness of mankind.

Famiharised by daily imtimacy with any recognised fact or phenomena, however grand its discovery, the mind ceases to wonder. We lose the power, or rather the habit of appre- ciating it in its early grandeur, forgetful of the mtellect that has been employed in developing it, and it takes its place in a prominent position in the great temple of science, to support the superstructure of yet more recent discoveries.

In our own profession, I may allude not unworthily to Mr. Hunter’s inductive reasoning on the subject of arterial disease,—to the yet older discovery of the circulation—to that of the recent investigations of Dr. Marshall Hall, which have established the important doctrine of the independence of the true spinal cord,—to the introduction of the vaccine virus as an antidote to smallpox, a disease more destructive than the plague ;—to the identity of the cellular formation


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36 of animal and vegable life; and finally, to the discovery of a property possessed by certain physical agents, of suspending unimpaired, the powers of sensation and consciousness.

These are indeed discoveries worthy of any age, or any science, discoveries of universal application, benefitting every class of society, from the peasant to the king.

If we could persuade ourselves occasionally to turn aside from the daily path of practical observation, to retrace the chain of thought on which our principles are based, and to recall to our recollection the names of Harvey and of Hunter, of Desault, of Cuvier, of Jenner, of Bichat, of Abernethy, of Cooper, and of Laennec, as the link that connects their great works with the occupations of our daily life, our souls would expand with the real greatness of our pursuit, and we might be induced to combine in one united effort to elevate our honoured profession to a higher rank, than it now occupies in the esteem of the world !

In considering the subject of the remunerations of our profession at the present day, so palpably below the level of our responsibilities, I do not lose sight of the fact, and a painful fact it is, that the necessities of society increase in proportion to its inability to afford us compensation,—that poverty is the very nursery and focus of disease, and that whether under the form of Hospital, Dispensary, or Union practice, a large portion of our time is devoted to the relief of human suffermg. Doubtless the motives that dictate these high services rendered to the world, are composite in their nature. If to motives of philanthropy, a love of professional knowledge, an honourable ambition of distinction, and a not unworthy desire of future independence, meet in combination,


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37 the world is yet our debtor, and it is because society cannot afford us pecuniary compensation, that we have an especial claim on it for an honorary distinction. The award of the sovereign encircles the soldier’s brow with victorious wreaths, his bruised arms are hung up for monuments of his glory— distinguishing orders of pre-eminent rank await him on his re- tirement from public life ; and while these and other honours, open to his ambition, operate as the reward of his past ser- vices, and stimulate the younger members of the same profession to high achievements; it is perhaps a natural sequence, that the professor of medicine, whose life is equally at the expense of his own, devoted to the purpose of extending the term of human existence, should pass unnoticed and unrewarded.

It is almost singular that this significant fact, should have escaped the inventor of the Malthusian doctrine.

I have alluded to the impracticability of extending the advantages of education to the practitioners of the present generation. Thus far the evil is irremediable, but there is no reason why much good may not be effected by the active agency of a refining spirit, employed for the purpose of root- ing out the vulgarisms in conduct, that unhappily prevail in our profession, to an injurious extent, and prey upon the - vitals of our reputation.

I desire to see a better spirit infused into our vocation, a spirit that will tend to avert those evils of conduct between man and man, that savour of the mercantile transactions of barter, and that are founded on questions of mere profit and loss. As an antidote against this spirit, I would venture to suggest the endeavour to cultivate a more refined taste than


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38 now pervades the profession, the accomplishment of which would, I apprehend, be a less difficult task than many would suppose.

By taste, I mean simply the power of appreciating beauty in any form, whether in nature or in art, and the cultivation of which, forms, I conceive, an important and a valuable substitute for more profound pursuits, but to which it may be superadded, with still greater advantage to its possessor. Good taste and good feeling are found in daily companion- ship with each other, and without its development in some shape or other, a blank is left in the circle of man’s most refined enjoyments, while even his intellectual frame-work is incomplete, and mutilated. For men are differently gifted, both as regards their sensibility and their taste. One man delights in the simple beauty of a flower, and expatiates with earnestness on its form and colours, a source of beauty quite distinct from that of its organisation; while another observes the same object with indifference.

I do not presume to enter into any definition of the nature of the beautiful, its essence or its source; but I will venture to assert, that its study forms one of the most elegant resources of our minds, by enlarging the number of our intellectual pleasures ; and in no direction can the mind, pre- occupied by the responsible and active duties of our profes- sion, expand more pleasingly or more profitably for the happiness of its possessor, than in that, which opens to its sense of admiration, the beauty of nature and of art.

This interesting study embraces a wide range of human knowledge, from its primitive form, exhibited in the sensa- tions of pleasure that reach the heart from the perception of


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39 the beauty of form or colour, or from a succession of harmonious sounds, equally grateful to the ear, to the highest manifestations of refined and cultivated taste, possessed by the poet or the painter. Such objects, in some form or other, are brought home within the range of every man’s observation, but im an especial degree, does a country life furnish materials for the development of untutored thought and admiration of such objects of beauty and refinement, which are calculated to take a man out of the sphere of his personal occupations, and to direct his thoughts to the contemplation of objects that tend to calm, and at the same time to elevate his mind.

The sources of this knowledge, and the pleasure that it produces, are infinite; the whole universe is charged with the office of mstruction to the hitherto untaught mind— innumerable voices reach it from earth and heaven! It takes lessons from every object within the sphere of its senses, from the form of a rosebud to the profoundest beauty of ancient or modern art.

Who can behold the exquisite colours of the tulip, or the gorgeous drapery of a golden sunset, or even the variegated colours decomposed by the common prism, without a sensa- tion of pleasure? Whose eye is so dead to the beauty of form or outline as to betray indifference to the delicate tracery of mosses, of ferns, of heaths, or to the grandeur and no less varied outlines of the sturdy oak, the graceful sweep of the weeping willow, or the lighter pencilling of the ash— the beautiful undulations of distant hills, or the yet more sublime form of gigantic and ponderous-looking clouds, when viewed against the blue sky, or fringed with light reflected


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40 from the sun ?—or more sublime than the boiling thunder of a cataract, or the broad expanse of the boundless ocean,—

“ That glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests, in all time Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity,—the throne Of the Invisible.” *

The relish for such enjoyments has a tendency to adorn the solid acquisitions of the student. His mind awakening as from a trance to new existence, becomes conscious of infinite sources of delightful speculations, and objects around that have met his daily gaze for years, start into existence and disclose charms, hitherto unknown, and he may be said to breathe a new existence in the novel associations of every day, and hour.

The transition of the beauty of nature to that of art, is easy ; and here the painter, and the sculptor, and the archi- tect, exhibit all that is beautiful to the eye in composition, and elaborate in artistic skill. |

But nature is still the prototype from which are reflected the efforts of the artist, and from her simplicity we dare not stray.

Doubtless, the aptitude for these studies—I mean for the perception of the beauty of art—is possessed in various degrees of perfection by different individuals, but probably the germ is dormant in all; and in many, or in most, by early develop- ment and early cultivation, it may be rendered competent to perceive and to enjoy the highest perceptions of artistic

 * Lord Byron.


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41 power, from the simple beauty delineated in the form of an arabesque, to the highest sublimity of genius exhibited in the majestic beauty of the Theseus, or the other Greek adorn- ments of the great temple of Athens, which British taste and enterprise, have safely deposited within the walls of our National Museum.

It cannot be denied that the full appreciation of the highest sublimity of art, requires a specific development, but its study must always exercise a refining influence over the character; and I pity the man who could see unmoved the sublime exhibitions displayed in the marbles of Nineveh, and who, quite irrespectively of their intrinsic beauty, in which they far exceed the later productions of Egyptian art, does not attach to them a sacred character, as he enters the chamber allotted to them, with an emotion of awe, forming the great link in the chain of evidence, of the biblical history of a former. world.

If I appear to enlarge unnecessarily on the subject of taste, it is because I believe, by its more general cultivation, we may eradicate much of the human dross that pervades our profession ; for taste is not more a matter of perception and feeling than of conduct, and forms a regulating principle of our lives. It associates itself with our every action, as well as with the motive that animates them.

“Where taste exists in the highest perfection,” says Dugald Stewart, “we may expect to find an understanding discriminating, comprehensive, and unprejudiced, united with a love of truth and nature, and with a temper superior to the irritation of the little passions, while it implies a spirit of accurate observation, and of patient induction, applied to the most


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42 fugitive and evanescent class of our mental phenomena, it evinces that power of separating universal associations, from such as are local or personal, which more than any other quality of the mind is the foundation of good sense, both in scientific pursuits, and in the conduct of life. The intellec- tual efforts by which such a taste is formed, are in reality much more nearly allied than is commonly suspected, to those, which are employed in prosecuting the most important and difficult branches of the philosophy of the human mind.”

In truth, a man’s just taste for what is elegant, whether in art or in nature, and his delicacy in moral conduct, are but one and the same sense, exerting itself on the same subject,— viz., a love of beauty, of order, of propriety, extended to all their various intellectual exhibitions. ‘ We observe in such a man, the same elegance, pointing towards the simplicity of nature; the same refined, correct, and judicious mode of thought expressed in all his relations to the world, whether in his step, in his attire, his furniture, his equipage, his garden, or his actions.”

“The dignity of every occupation,” says Burke, “ wholly depends on the quantity and the kind of virtue that may be exerted in it.” What are the requisitions of our profession ? Test it by the claims of the other professions, or test it by its own. Can it be said that our duties demand a lower standard of moral excellence? Are we content with mediocrity of intellectual power? On the contrary, does any pursuit demand for its full efficiency a higher order of intellect, a deeper fund of moral courage, more quickness of perception, a greater boldness in action? Truly, the soldier is the occasional arbiter of the fate of thousands, but there are few who


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43 reach the standard of superior excellence. The law is sup- posed to be the arbiter of character and of property.

The medical man is, under Providence, the arbiter of human life, more precious im a ten-fold degree, in the esteem of that very world, whose favourable verdict is awarded to us with a niggard generosity, than the highest stake which calls forth in a court of law, the exercise of the most brilliant forensic talent of the advocate. “Ars corporis curandi tuendique, atque utilitas, Deorum immortalium, inventioni est con- secrata.”* A pursuit which, although in its infancy, and incomplete in its development, was yet so great as to claim a descent from the Gods, which is so interwoven with the phy- sical and moral welfare of every individual member of society, and on the cultivation of which, even something of our national character depends, and no less our scientific rank in the world, demands for its perfect condition of utility, first, the most vigilant observance and exposition of its defects, and secondly, the active co-operation of all who profess to study our national happiness, or desire to promote the welfare of this great nation throughout the globe.

We justly boast in this glorious country, our noble hospi- tals and infirmaries, erected and endowed by private benevo- lence, and dedicated to the relief of the diseased, and the necessitous. To what region of this globe can you point, and say, “ Here are equal examples of private munificence to those of Britain?” Is not the practice of charity stamped upon the national character? In the various hospitals of this metropolis alone, about 300,000 persons obtain annual relief from suffering. What are the endowments of a hos-

 * Cicero, Tuse. Dise.


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 Number Stories, p77-illustration.png DIVISION THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Page from a schoolboy’s notebook written about three hundred years ago. The picture is supposed to resemble an old-fashioned galley with sails set

In using the method which his teacher called the new one, Filippo saw that it was unnecessary to write as many figures as the 77


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 One of the memorable scenes in Desperate Remedies is that of Manston's playing of his organ to Cytherea, in which the influence of the powerful strains of music as produced by his practical hand are represented as shaking and bending the impressionable girl "as a gushing brook shakes and bends a shadow cast across its surface." In contrast to the rather sinister spell exercised by the art here, one might call attention to the wonderful power for good which the strains of the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," have over the tortured soul of Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd. Tess's innate love of melody, also, "gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times."

Hardy's knowledge of the history and of the technical side of the art may not have been as great as his knowledge of painting, but he could at times make telling use of the information he possessed. Thus the elm-tree with which John South's life is bound up, gives forth melancholy "Gregorian melodies," Eustacia's presence calls to mind Mendelssohn's march in "Athalia," and Mop Ollamoor might have been "a second Paganini." The Baptists in A Laodicean sing a rather long hymn "in minims and semibreves," and the Trumpet Major possesses the faculty of "absolute pitch." In The Mayor of Casterbridge the sounds emanating from Ten-Hatcher-Wier are likened to the various voices of a symphony orchestra.

Christopher Julian in The Hand of Ethelberta is the only professional musician who plays a major part in


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 the stars and never again permitted to stray earthward. His great dark sky square with a star on each corner is exceedingly easy to find especially during September when it is on the sky slope in the east, although if there is any difficulty in locating it, let the eye travel from Cassiopeia to the Segment of Perseus—which resembles a rod bent in the middle and swayed by the weight of this big chained Square.

The Square rises and sets in a tilted fashion with its corner star, Scheat, on the horse's knee, almost above Algenib, which lies on his wing. This causes the Square to resemble a distorted diamond-shaped figure when seen in the east or west but when the figure travels along the south about nine o'clock during the latter part of October or the first of November, its sides are horizontal and vertical.

The Winged Horse first makes his appearance in the northeast near midnight in the middle of June but is better seen in the east between nine and ten o'clock a little later in the summer. Any time during the Autumn he may be seen flying inverted across the dome of the heavens and by November is high in the west. Evening after evening his silvery wings fly lower and lower; the star Enif flutters as it nears the thickened atmosphere about the horizon

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OF LONG AGO teacher did, and so he decided that some day, when he grew up, he would write an arithmetic of his own and make the work in division still more simple.

When Filippo became a man he did what he had planned ; he wrote an arithmetic containing our plan of dividing, and this was published in Florence just a year before Columbus discovered America.

In the time of Filippo Calandri, about the year 1500, Italy was much in advance of other European countries, and so we may expect that Filippo’s improvement in division was not at once adopted outside of his country.

{{Box| 3 150 {25 66 }} HOW ADRIAEN DIVIDED The division of 150 by 6, from a work by Adriaen van Roomen, printed about three hundred years ago

This is the reason why a boy named Adriaen van Roomen (văn rō'mĕn), who lived in Holland one or two hundred years later, was still dividing by the old method. 79


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when all were come upon the shore, the king gan ask: “Who will show us the right roads through this land, that we go not astray?”

Then the sturdy Folker spake: “For this I alone will have a care.”

“Now hold,” quoth Hagen, “both knight and squire. Certes, me-thinketh right that we should heed our friends. With full monstrous tales I’ll make you acquaint: we shall never come again to the Burgundian land. Two mermaids told me early in the morning that we should not come back again. I will now counsel you what ye do: ye must arm you, ye heroes, for we have mighty foes. Ye must guard you well and ride in warlike guise. I thought to catch these mermaids in a lie. They swore that none of us would come home safe and sound, save the chaplain alone. Therefore would I fain have drowned him to-day.”

These tidings flew from band to band and valiant heroes grew pale from woe, as they began to fear a grewsome death on this journey to Etzel’s court. Forsooth they had great need. When they had crossed at Moering, where Else’s ferryman had lost his life, Hagen spake again: “Sith I have gained me foes upon the way, we shall surely be encountered. I slew this same ferryman early on the morn to-day. Well they wot the tale. Now lay on boldly, so that it may go hard with Gelfrat


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NUMBER STORIES For the same reason that Adriaen, going to school in Holland, was dividing by the old galley method, Michael Stifel (stē'fĕl), going to school in a little German town about the same time, also learned this same old-fashioned way, and so we see that Filippo’s new method, the one that we use to-day, was not known to boys living in Holland and Germany one or two centuries later.

HOW MICHAEL DIVIDED The division of 9552 by 12, from a work by Michael Stifel, printed about four hundred years ago

If you had lived when the Pilgrims came to America, you might all have learned division by the scratch method, because many people still used it then. Only a few years ago the Story-Teller found it still in use in Morocco, and the people who used it thought that it was better than ours. What do you think about it? 80


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 and Andromeda probably trembles as he draws her near Cetus, head downward through the western sky.

By the first of the year the starry "Square" of the beautiful Pegasus has entirely disappeared. Andromeda and Perseus soon follow but Cassiopeia continues around the horizon in the north. Throughout the spring and early summer Pegasus remains in regions below our sight but in September he again appears and flies inverted up the heavens in the east.

Early poets describe Cetus as a monster armored with heavy scales or as being long-necked and clawed, which brings to mind the sea-reptiles which are known to have inhabited the sea during the Mesozoic Age. Although poets are known for their tendency to exaggerate, this in itself is enough to lend a spicy interest to the legend, for one's thoughts fly back to the world's young days

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Rh and Else, should they match our fellowship here to-day. I know them to be so bold that ’t will not be left undone. Let the steeds jog on more gently, that none ween we be a-fleeing on the road.”

“This counsel I will gladly follow,” quoth Giselher, the knight; “but who shall guide the fellowship across the land?”

They answered: “This let Folker do; the valiant minstrel knoweth both road and path.”

Ere the wish was fully spoken, men saw the doughty fiddler standing there well armed. On his head he bound his helmet, of lordly color was his fighting gear. On his spear shaft he tied a token, the which was red. Later with the kings he fell into direst need.

Trustworthy tidings of the ferryman’s death were now come to Gelfrat’s ears. The mighty Else had also heard the tale. Loth it was to both; they sent to fetch their heroes, who soon stood ready. In a passing short time, as I’ll let you hear, one saw riding towards them those who had wrought scathe and monstrous wounds in mighty battles. Full seven hundred or more were come to Gelfrat. When they began to ride after their savage foes, their lords did lead them, of a truth. A deal too strong they hasted after the valiant strangers; they would avenge their wrath. Therefore many of the lordings’ friends were later lost.

Hagen of Troneg had well planned it (how might a hero ever guard his kinsmen better), that he had in charge the rear guard, with his liegemen and his brother Dankwart. This was wisely done.

The day had passed away; the night was come. For his friends he feared both harm and woe, as beneath


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 any of the novels. He belongs to the variety known as "organist-composers," and, as an all-around musician, proves a suitable vehicle for Hardy's opinions on the profession. Of his circumstances we learn that in comparison with starving, he thrived; "though the wealthy might possibly have said that in comparison with thriving he starved." Ethelberta's musicale provides a beautiful opportunity for criticism of the usual attitude of the cultured public towards the cultivated art they profess to admire.

Not only the unappreciative public, but the creative musician himself, when he loses sight of his ideals in his efforts towards material advancement, called forth most satiric comment from Hardy. Jude the Obscure, stirred to his soul by the strains of the hymn, "The Foot of the Cross," imagines its composer as one who would, of all men, understand his difficulties. The interview that he finally obtains is one of the great disillusionments of his life. In place of the full and throbbing soul he had thought to find, he meets a respectable, but shabby-genteel, and altogether mercenary spirit.

Although one may come across references to a great variety of musical subjects in the stories, including the ever-popular arts of singing, piano-playing, and the like, Hardy's preferences usually run to phases of musical expression that do not generally appear in metropolitan concert-halls. His interests lie rather in such things as the efforts of a humble shepherd with the flute he loves, in a soldier's affection for his martial trumpet, in that curious and almost extinct instrument, the serpent, or


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 "Schlangenrohr," and in a crudely constructed æolian harp, the mournful notes of which are fraught with suggestion.

The only modern concert-instrument for which Hardy seems to have a decided liking is the organ. His experience as a church-architect is probably largely responsible for his intimate acquaintance with its parts and with the effects that it can produce. He likens the wooden tones of the wheels and cogs of the flour-mill to the distinctive quality of the stopped diapason pipes of an organ; the mournful wind sounding through the chimney reminds him of its deep and hollow pedal tones; and a sensitive woman's quivering lip is to him like a tremolo-stop opened in her speech. With regard to organ-performers, we notice that in addition to Jude, the poorly equipped amateur, Manston, the well-trained amateur, and Christopher Julian, the professional, there is another most interesting "semi-professional" class, represented by Fancy Day, Elfride Swancourt, and Tabitha Lark. These rural young ladies figure as the supplanters of the ancient local string-choirs, of which Hardy was so enamoured.

Religious music, in general, was employed by him in preference to other kinds, for incidental use in heightening the effects he wished to achieve. That he had at least some knowledge of the history of church-music in England is shown by Somerset's ruminations over the tune "The New Sabbath," in the first chapter of A Laodicean. He recollects that the tune appertained to the old west-gallery period of church-music, anterior to the great choral reformation and rule of Monk—that old time when


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 when reptiles of great size literally overran the earth and cluttered up the sea. Many of these forms have been reconstructed from fossils found embedded in the rock strata. These are most amazing, grotesque and even terrifying and may be seen in any of the great museums. If a museum is not handy one may shiver with real thrills by going through the pages of a well illustrated text on geology.

Some such creature as one of these was Cetus,—according to the poets. Some authors think that the whole story of Andromeda is an allegory; others, that it may have been based, though somewhat lightly, upon a historical fact. Ancient authorities (Pliny, Josephus and others), claim that the bones of Cetus were brought from Joppa to Rome and there exhibited by M. Scarus, and it is also claimed that the people along the sea-coast at this time were driven forth in hysterical fear, for when the monster appeared it not only swallowed up the cattle as they came to browse at the river's mouth but also snatched the children as they splashed about at play. Mythology tells us that Hercules, as well as Perseus, once killed such a sea-monster as this and it is then related that he tried to narrow the width of the strait leading into the Mediterranean by pushing the rocks on either shore closer together so as to prevent further invasions of Neptune's fierce and terrible creatures.

The pictures of Cetus differ in the old star-maps although he is almost always represented as being strange and ferocious. After having drawn the animal, however, with scales and claws, a mad, mad tail and sometimes even rows of teeth, the mapmaker becomes conservative and calls it "Cetus, the Whale."

As a constellation, Cetus first begins to appear in September but does not get fully above the horizon for almost four months. By January he is completely visible, his huge, faint form covering over 40 degrees of sky. His head is rather pentagonal as impressed among the stars and extends on a long neck above the celestial

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 the repetition of a word, or half-line of verse, was not considered a disgrace to an ecclesiastical choir. The old psalm-tunes, familiar and dear to every true Englishman's heart, often add a wealth of suggestion to incidents and situations. As an inn burns down to the ground, the bewildered chimes of the near-by church "wander through the wayward air of the Old Hundred and Thirteenth" and when the unfortunate Cytherea has been deserted by her Edward, the well-known verses of the First, cause "that sphere-descended maid, Music, friend of Pleasure at other times," to become a positive enemy—racking, bewildering, unrelenting. Turning for illustrations from the earliest novel to the latest, a remarkable passage from Jude the Obscure might be mentioned as an instance of the dramatic use of church-music. It will be remembered that the repentant Jude enters the Cathedral-Church of Cardinal College at Christminster just as the choir intones the second part, In quo corriget, of the 119th Psalm, stirred by the question, "Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way?" A more tragic and a stupendously ironic effect is achieved by the same means later on. After Little Father Time's hanging of himself and of the children of Sue and Jude, the two miserable parents are aroused from the stupor that had succeeded their first shock of horror by the notes of the organ of the College chapel. Jude recognizes the music as the anthem from the Seventy-third Psalm: "Truly God is loving unto Israel."

The substitution of the single organist for the string-choir in rural communities is a theme that runs through much of Hardy's work, but finds its most complete ex-


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216 their shields they rode through the Bavarian land. A short time thereafter the heroes were assailed. On either side of the highway and in the rear hard by they heard the beat of hoofs. Their foes pressed on too hard. Then spake bold Dankwart: “They purpose to attack us here, so bind on your helmets, for that be well to do.”

They stayed their journey, as though it must needs be; in the gloom they spied the gleam of shining shields. Hagen would no longer keep his peace; he called: “Who chaseth us upon the highway?”

To this Gelfrat must needs give answer. Quoth the margrave of Bavaria: “We seek our foes and have galloped on behind you. I know not who slew my ferryman to-day, but it doth rue me enow, for he was a hero of his hands.”

Then spake Hagen of Troneg: “And was then the ferryman thine? The fault was mine, he would not ferry us over, so I slew the knight. Forsooth I had great need, for I had sheer gained at his hands my death. As meed I offered him gold and trappings, that he ferry me across to thy land, Sir Knight. This angered him so greatly that he smote me with a mighty oar. At this I waxed grim enow. I seized my sword and fended him his anger with a grievous wound. Thus the hero met his death. I’ll make amends, as doth think thee best.”

“Well I wist,” spake Gelfrat, “when Gunther and his fellowship rode hither, that Hagen of Troneg would do us harm. Now he shall not live; the knight must stand for the ferryman’s life.”

Over the bucklers Gelfrat and Hagen couched their spears for the thrust; each would charge the other.


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 equator; his tail is even longer than his neck and curls upward as if he were angry—which he assuredly was when petrified by Perseus into stone. His sides are clear and black with unadorned sky-space and seem quite devoid of even the fainter stars.

Always look for Cetus in the southeast, south or southwest, in front of and below Orion and far below Andromeda. The point of the V-shaped Hyades also directs the eye toward his pentagonal head which extends toward the east.

Just about in the center of the long, giraffe-like neck of Cetus, the villain in our play, lies Myra, a most extraordinary star. This star is called "Myra, the Wonderful" because of its amazing behavior in a period of only eleven months. For three months Myra is visible to the unaided eye; during the other eight it can only be seen in a good telescope. Put in another way—for five months at a time it is completely invisible to the unaided eye; then from a mere speck it slowly brightens until in the course of three months more it has become a star of the 2nd magnitude, although it remains a star of the 2nd magnitude for only a few weeks. This change from a telescopic star of the 9th or 10th magnitude to one of the 2nd magnitude means that Myra must blaze up from 1000 times to 1500 times its ordinary brilliancy! Such a statement may overwhelm the casual reader but we must remember (in order not

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 pression in Under the Greenwood Tree. He loved to think of the old bands of musicians, with their quaint and naive ways, and the beautiful effects achieved by their noels on Christmas-eve. His heart went out to them for their earnestness and zeal in the performance of their tasks, which they did as a real labor of love; and their passing away before the advance of the tastes of "fashionable society" filled him with sadness. His treatment of the old instrumentalists and singers of Mellstock, Longpuddle, and other localities, is not always melancholy or serious,—they provided him at times with material for the most delightfully humorous passages in his works. The curious juxtaposition of religious and profane matter in their music-books calls forth some rather sprightly comment, and the anecdote entitled Absentmindedness in a Parish Choir shows Hardy in his very gayest mood. It is really uproariously funny.

Popular and folk-music always possessed great attractions for him. He used "The Break o' the Hay" and other ditties that were supposed to induce the cows to let down their milk, in Tess, and Donald Farfrae enraptures his audience in "The Golden Crown" with his singing of the emotional Scotch folk-melodies.

Closely allied to Hardy's treatment of music are his references to, and his employment of, the art of the dance. The village choirs, of which he was so fond, play not only psalms, but officiate on festive occasions with the livelier sections of their repertoires. The psychological effect of the crescendo of excitement as produced by the country-dances with which he was familiar, often plays a large part in the development of his stories. The


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 to become unduly excited) that this star is so far away that such a conflagration would only mean the gradual appearance of a star where none had been visible before, and then its gradual disappearance.

Myra is indeed so far away that we are just 23 years behind time in seeing each explosion, for it takes 23 years for its light to travel to our eyes. If the roar of the conflagration could be heard here, however, the sound would not reach the earth for many millions of years, for sound travels much more slowly than light.

Because of the variation of its light, which is very excessive in the case of Myra, this star is called a variable star. Our sun is also a variable star, but it is variable only in a very slight degree as compared with the exuberant combustibility of Myra. But the theory of spots which are believed to be responsible for the almost imperceptible variation in the light intensity of our sun does not altogether explain the phenomenon of Myra's variability and its mystery is still as great as ever.

Thus is ended the story of Perseus and Andromeda and many of the interesting bits of information connected with the constella-

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Rh Else and Dankwart rode full gloriously; they tested who they were, fierce was the fight. How might heroes ever prove each other better? From a mighty thrust Hagen was unhorsed by Gelfrat’s hand. His martingale snapped, he learnt what it was to fall. The crash of shafts resounded from their fellowship. Hagen, who from the thrust afore had come to earth, down on the grass, sprang up again. I trow, he was not gentle of mood towards Gelfrat then. Who held their steeds, I know not; both Hagen and Gelfrat had alighted on the sand and rushed together. Their fellowship helped thereby and became acquaint with strife. Albeit Hagen sprang at Gelfrat fiercely, the noble margrave smote from his shield a mickle piece, so that the sparks flew wide. Full nigh did Gunther’s liegeman die therefrom. He began to call to Dankwart: “O help, dear brother! Certes, a hero of his hands hath matched me, he will not spare my life.”

At this bold Dankwart spake: “I’ll play the umpire here.”

The hero then sprang nearer and with a sharp sword smote Gelfrat such a blow that he fell down dead. Else then would fain avenge the knight, but he and his fellowship parted from the fray with scathe. His brother had been slain, he himself was wounded; full eighty of his knights remained with grim death behind upon the field. Their lord must needs turn in flight from Gunther’s men.

When those from the Bavarian land gave way and fled, one heard the savage blows resound behind them. Those of Troneg chased their foes; they were in passing haste, who had not weened to make amends. Then


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 dance at the "gypsying" in The Return of the Native, for instance, is conceived as one of the most powerful influences that attract Eustacia and Wildeve to each other, and to their own destruction. It is at Paula's first dance that Somerset discovers his affection for her, and it is by his reckless dancing at Etretat that he draws her to him, repentant. The excitement of the dance leads the two Hardcome cousins to exchange life-partners on the eve of their weddings, which rash decisions bring on their inevitable tragic consequences. Mop Ollamoor steals back his child by forcing the unfortunate Carline to dance herself to exhaustion under the influence of the seductive strains of his fiddle. Dancing, even in its more refined forms, was viewed by Hardy less as an esthetic phenomenon, or as an art in the stricter sense, than as a purely physio-psychological phenomenon which carries with it certain ethical considerations.

Before attempting to distill from his writings Hardy's ideas on the function and practice of the art of poetry itself, it might he well to observe the actual extent of his acquaintance with the literature of all times, with the aim of discovering his qualifications as a critic of his own chosen art. In the first place, it will be noticed that he displayed a remarkable, it might almost be said, a phenomenal, familiarity with that fountain-head of forcible and beautiful expression, the Bible. His books are full, not only of quotations from the King James Version, but of innumerable less tangible echoes of the fine old Biblical phraseology—turns of phrase that might have been conceived by the Psalmist. In his very first novel, the references run practically all through the Old Testa-


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 Number Stories, p83-illustration.png

“Now we are getting near the end of our number stories,” said the Story-Teller as the Crowd rushed into the room.

“Which end?” asked the Tease. “A line has two ends.”

“Never mind which is the end of a line. One thing is sure, that I am near the end of my stories.”

“Yes, but which end of the stories?” persisted the Tease.

“The end that we are near,” said the Story-Teller, “and to-morrow night we shall be a great deal nearer.”

“Then there is to be another story tomorrow night?” said the Tease. 83


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 ment: the stories of Adam, Abraham, Joseph and Pharaoh, Samuel and Elijah, are alluded to, and the reader is already made aware of his fondness for the Psalms. In A Pair of Blue Eyes, one comes across Judges, Kings, Ruth, Isaiah, and many other books, of both the Old and the New Testament, and the rhymed Psalter figures again. One might continue to gather such references throughout Hardy's writings. That his language, and, to some extent, his very mode of thought, is saturated with Scriptural flavor, few who read his books can deny. It is perhaps in The Book of Job that he finds most food for his enthusiasm—at any rate the immortal words that he puts into the mouth of the dying Jude, punctuated by the "hurrah's" of the gay crowd outside the house, stir the soul of the reader as nothing else could. The words of King Lemuel in the Proverbs, beginning, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" are used with a remarkable ironical effect in Tess, and in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard's compulsion of the village choir to play the tune of the savage 109th Psalm represents the author's belief in the truth to life of Old Testament doctrines, and his criticism of them, on moral grounds. This seems to indicate that although he probably had no knowledge of Hebrew, he was acquainted with the general trend of Biblical criticism.

With the New Testament Hardy is even more familiar than with the Law and the Prophets. The title of one of his novels was taken from the Revelation. Certain passages in Jude the Obscure and in A Tragedy of Two Ambitions seem to show that he had some acquaintance with


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NUMBER STORIES “That depends,” replied he of the curious book. “Remember the Question Box. What shall it be to-night?”

“I hope that it will be something that we all like,” answered Maude.

“Then it must be fractions,” guessed the Story-Teller, with a smile.

“Fractions!” gasped the Crowd.

“Fractions,” smiled the Story-Teller. “Just listen to the story of Ahmes and Heron (hē'rŏn) and Jakob (yä'kṓp), and see if there is not something interesting about fractions in spite of the fact that you once found them hard.”

The Crowd looked doubtful, but the curious book was closed, a new log was put on the fire, and the Story-Teller began:

When Ahmes had learned from the priest in the temple by the Nile how to read and write numbers, he felt that he knew a great deal about arithmetic; and when the priest had taught him to add and subtract, he felt that there was not much more to learn. As he grew older, however, he found that he needed to know about fractions. But no one in Egypt at that time used any fractions with a 84


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F THE reader will take a map of the world and draw three lines, one from Venice to Danzig, another from Constantinople to the White Sea, and a third from the Erz Mountains, west of Prague, to Kamchatka, he will be able to form some idea of the vast stretch of territory affected by Slavonic civilization.

No confraternity of nations, not even the Anglo-Saxon, occupies so large a portion of the earth’s surface as the rapidly-increasing Slavonic brotherhood.

On this account alone, if for no other reason, any attempt to bring home to English readers something of the inner life of some of these peoples is worthy of attention. Bohemian literature, moreover, has several special claims upon English readers. In the first place more than once the royal families of England and Bohemia have been united. Then again the country to some extent in its configuration and the variety of its strata, still more in its plethora of coal, iron-stone, and other minerals has much in common with England. Bohemia has never broken entirely with the traditions of feudalism, and in the flourishing condition of its principalities and great estates, the richness of its woodland, the abundance of its game, its fine breed of horses, and the excellence of its beer, we seem to see a copy of old England, and are reminded that similar causes produce similar effects: not that this is exactly true of the last item, however, which is at once milder and of purer quality than our own. Lastly, the religious struggles of the Reformation were fought out in Bohemia much on the same lines as in England, and while we may proudly claim some spiritual affinity between our own Protestant martyrs and the victims of papal power in Prague, we are also reminded that in the national hero of Bohemia, John Hus, more than in any other of the great Protestant martyrs, were exhibited the most spotless purity of life, the most complete absence of self-seeking or worldly ambition, the most loyal devotion to duty, and the most simple and ready self-sacrifice in the cause of truth. The literature of a country which has produced the most perfect type of Christian piety which the world has yet seen, a man who of all others approximates most in his life and death to the originator of the Christian cult, merits something better than neglect at the hands of Christians steeped in the flimsy rhetoric of French triviality; and the latest production of a civilization which was of no mean order while England still revelled in barbarism, might occasionally be exchanged with advantage for the endless verbiage of our own school of novels or the edifying lucubrations of Emile Zola. Goethe, in a conversation with Eckermann, speaks with admiration of the simplicity and purity


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OF LONG AGO numerator greater than 1, with the single exception of ⅔. Instead of thinking of ¾ as we do, the priest and Ahmes thought of ½ + ¼; and instead of thinking of ⅞, they thought of ½ + ¼ + ⅛.

So it is no wonder that Ahmes had a great deal of trouble in learning fractions, and it is no wonder that he never learned how to work with fractions as we work with them.

Not only did the people of that time use only fractions with numerators 1, like ½, ⅓, ¼, and 1/5, but for more than two thousand years after Ahmes died these fractions were commonly used in Egypt. They were also used in Babylon and in various other countries.

Nearly two thousand years after Ahmes studied in the temple on the banks of the great river which makes Egypt the fertile country that it is, there lived in Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, a boy named Heron. He was interested in machines and in measuring heights and distances, and he made friends with the scholars in Alexandria who studied the stars. He visited the Great Pyramid, listened to the stories of its building and its purpose, and came in contact with 85


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 the Greek original. Sue Bridehead not only indulges in the usual kind of criticism to which the Song of Solomon and its chapter-headings are usually treated, but also advocates the printing of the books of the New Testament in the order in which she conceives them to have been written, beginning with Romans, and putting the gospels much further on. Hardy is familiar not only with the books in the generally accepted canon of both Testaments, but also with the Apocrypha. Thus, one of the divisions of Jude is headed by an excerpt from the apocryphal Esther, and the rejected books of the New Testament, notably the Gospel of Nicodemus, are discussed by Sue. Even extra-Biblical religious literature, from the writings of the Church Fathers to those of Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Doddridge, Pusey, and Newman, must at some time or other have attracted his interest and attention.

It has often been pointed out that Hardy's work has much in common with that of the more austere of the ancient classical writers. Without following out the important and interesting analogies that suggest themselves in this connection, it might be well to discover first the actual extent of his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages and literatures. Although he was trained in Latin early in life, he picked up his Greek chiefly by his own efforts. At any rate, he displays a considerable first-hand knowledge of Greek, especially Greek tragedy, and, what is more uncommon, a genuine interest in it as well. Æschylus in particular exerted a permanent influence over his work; and this in spite of his


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NUMBER STORIES many travelers at this great port on the Mediterranean. So Heron grew up in very interesting surroundings and at an interesting time in the world's history — about the beginning of the Christian era.

When Heron went to school he found that he needed another kind of fraction than the one used by Ahmes. When he came to the very careful measurements used in making machines or in finding the position of the stars, he found that he needed certain other fractions that had come into use in Alexandria long after the time of Ahmes. These fractions had 60, or 60 x 60, or 60 x 60 x 60 for their denominators, and since everyone knew this, it was not necessary to write the denominators. When we write 0.5 we mean 5/10, and it is not necessary to write the denominator. To use our modern terms we may say that 23 minutes meant 23/60 of something that was being measured, and 23 seconds meant 23/60 of a minute, or 23/3600 of the thing that was being measured. In the same way the next 23 meant 23/60 of a second, and so on. In this way it was possible to have fractions without writing the denominators at all. 86


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OF LONG AGO Do you think that this is about the most impractical thing you ever heard of? If you do, just remember that you use these fractions whenever you speak of the time of day. If it is 2 hr. 25 min. 47 sec. past noon, it is really 2 hr.+ 25/60 hr. + 47/3600 hr. past noon. In other words, you are using the awkward fractions found in the writings of all who needed to use arithmetic for very accurate computation in the time of Heron of Alexandria, one of the great writers of Egypt at the beginning of the Christian era.

There have been many other ways of writing fractions, and I will tell you of one used by a boy named Jakob who lived in Germany about four hundred years ago.

Jakob went to school to an arithmetic teacher and tried his best to learn the new Arab way of writing fractions. The Arabs seemed to have learned these fractions from the Hindus. So Jakob learned how to write ¾ and ⅞ and thought he knew a great deal about fractions.

Jakob’s teacher did not think very highly of what he called “the new-fangled numerals,” meaning the common ones that we use. He 87


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218 spake Dankwart, the knight, in their pursuit: “Let us turn soon on this road and let them ride, for they be wet with blood. Haste we to our friends, this I advise you of a truth.”

When they were come again, where the scathe had happed, Hagen of Troneg spake: “Heroes, prove now what doth fail us here, or whom we have lost in the strife through Gelfrat’s wrath.”

Four they had lost whom they must needs bewail. But they had been paid for dearly; for them a hundred or better from the Bavarian land were slain. From their blood the shields of the men of Troneg were dimmed and wet. Through the clouds there partly broke the gleam of the shining moon, as Hagen spake again: “Let none make known to my dear lords what we have wrought here to-day. Let them rest without care until the morn.”

When those who just had fought were now come again, the fellowship was full weary from the way. “How long must we still ride?” asked many a man.

Then spake the bold Dankwart: “We may not find lodgings here, ye must all ride until the day be come.”

The doughty Folker, who had charge of the fellowship, bade ask the marshal: “Where may we find a place to-night, where our steeds may rest and our dear lords as well?”

Bold Dankwart answered: “I cannot tell you that, we may not rest till it begin to dawn. Wherever then we find a chance, we’ll lay us down upon the grass.”

How loth it was to some when they heard this tale! They remained unmarked with their stains of warm red blood, until the sun shot his gleaming light against


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NUMBER STORIES thought that the old Roman numerals, which were commonly used in Germany at that time, would continue to be used.

Number Stories, p88-illustration.png A PAGE FROM JAKOB KÖBEL’S BOOK This shows Jakob’s strange way of writing fractions

So Jakob learned how to write the Arabic fraction, but he then did a very funny thing — he made up his mind that he would write an Arabic fraction with Roman numerals, and you can imagine how strange it must have looked.

No Roman ever wrote a fraction like that, and no one ever put such an awkward fraction 88


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1832] surer they will be of making a fortune. The original projector of this golden vision first talked himself into the visionary scheme, and then talked twenty others into the same notion. Some of their neighbours and well-wishers thought differently from them; and some of the oldest, and most thoughtful, and prudent endeavoured to dissuade them from so very ardous and hazardous an expedition. But young and single men are for tempting the untried scene; and when either sex has got notion of that sort, the more you try to dissuade them, the more intent they are on their object. Nor is this bent of mind always to be censured, or wondered at. Were every man to be contented to remain in the town in which he was born, and to follow the trade of his father, there would be an end to improvement, and a serious impediment to spreading population. It is difficult to draw the exact line between contentment, and that inactivity [9] which approaches laziness. The disposition either way seems stamped upon us by nature, and therefore innate. This is certainly the case with birds and beasts;—the wild geese emigrate in the Autumn to a southern climate, and return again in the Spring to a northern one, while the owl and several other birds remain all their lives near where they were hatched; whereas man is not so much confined by a natural bias to his native home. He can live in all climates from the equator to very near the dreary poles, which is not the case with others animals; and it would seem that nature intended he should live anywhere;—for whereas other animals are restricted in their articles of food, some living wholly on flesh, and others wholly on vegetables, man is capable of feeding upon every thing that is eatable by any creature, and of mixing every article together, and varying them by his knowledge and art of cookery,—a


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 Atreus." Even in a discussion of realism in literature Hardy was inevitably reminded of Æschylus's masterpiece, when be wrote, "All really true literature directly or indirectly sounds as its refrain the words in the Agamemnon: 'Chant Ælinon, Ælinon! But may the good prevail.

With Latin he was fairly familiar, hut not more so than the average educated Englishman. In his earliest book he quoted, somewhat pedantically, from the Latin poets, later on he occasionally permitted himself a Latin expression, such as solicitus timor, pari passu or casus conscientice. His references to the literature cover a wide field, but they are for the most part allusions of the most casual character. The "golden age" of Roman literature is represented in his novels by Cicero, Horace, Catullus, and Vergil; and Ovid and Marcus Antoninus supply mottoes for sections of Jude the Obscure.

In this account of the artistic influence of the classics, some notice must be taken of Hardy's frequent repudiation of what he terms "the Greek point of view" in art, as it might otherwise seem somewhat audacious, in dealing with the ancient echoes that sound through his greatest work, to attempt to prove a proposition the validity of which the author himself may be said specifically to have denied.

The attitude which he assumed and defended is most clearly shown in two fairly well-known passages; one from The Return of the Native, the other from the preface to The Dynasts. The former attempts to contrast the general Greek attitude towards life with the modern viewpoint; the latter points out the great gulf


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Rh the morn across the hills. Then the king beheld that they had fought. Wrathfully the hero spake: “How now, friend Hagen? I ween, ye scorned to have me with you when your rings grew wet with blood? Who hath done this?”

Quoth he: “This Else did, who encountered us by night. We were attacked because of his ferryman. Then my brother’s hand smote Gelfrat down. Else soon escaped us, constrained thereto by mickle need. A hundred of them and but four of ours lay dead in the strife.”

We cannot tell you where they laid them down to rest. All of the folk of the land learned soon that the sons of the noble Uta rode to court. Later they were well received at Passau. The uncle of the noble king, the Bishop Pilgrim, was blithe of mood, as his nephews came to his land with so many knights. That he bare them good will, they learned full soon. Well were they greeted, too, by friends along the way, sith men could not lodge them all at Passau. They had to cross the stream to where they found a field on which they set up pavilions and costly tents. All one day they must needs stay there, and a full night too. What good cheer men gave them! After that they had to ride to Rüdeger’s land, to whom the tidings were brought full soon. When the way-worn warriors had rested them and came nearer to the Hunnish land, they found a man asleep upon the border, from whom Hagen of Troneg won a sturdy sword. The same good knight hight Eckewart in truth; sad of mood he grew, that he lost his weapon through the journey of the knights. They found Rüdeger’s marches guarded ill.

“Woe is me of this shame,” spake Eckewart. “Certes


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 which, supposedly, separates the purely artistic ideals and methods of the Greeks from those of Hardy:

The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing the zest for existence which was so intense in early civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted as a new artistic departure. . ..

The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has permanently replaced the Hellenic ideal of life, or whatever it may be called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their Æschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary man is in by their operation.

Both of the assumptions upon which the above excerpt is based are very emphatically open to question. In the first place, was the early "zest for existence" any more intense than it is to-day? The truth seems to be that outside of the Far-Eastern countries, which have for century after century clung to their ingrained notions of determinism and the inevitability of destiny, the "love of life" is as strong and universal a trait of mankind as ever. The fatalism expressed by East-Indian soldiers on the western front in the war struck the British with whom they came in contact as something remarkable and as a curiosity worth writing about—not as a view of life that had already become universal. Even a rather superficial acquaintance with the attitude of the latest voices in the poetry of to-day will lead one to believe that the unreasonable and unreasoning zest for existence is growing stronger and stronger in man as the tragedy of one


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220 this journey of the Burgundians rueth me full sore. My joy hath fled, sith I lost Knight Siegfried. Alas, Sir Rüdeger, how I have acted toward thee!”

When Hagen heard the noble warrior’s plight, he gave him back his sword and six red arm bands. “These keep, Sir Knight, as a token that thou art my friend. A bold knight thou art, though thou standest alone upon the marches.”

“God repay you for your arm bands,” Eckewart replied. “Yet your journey to the Huns doth rue me sore. Because ye slew Siegfried, men hate you here. I counsel you in truth, that ye guard you well.”

“Now may God protect us,” answered Hagen.

“These knights, the kings and their liegemen, have forsooth no other care, save for their lodgement, where we may find quarters in this land to-night. Our steeds be spent by the distant way and our food run out,” quoth Hagen, the knight. “We find naught anywhere for sale, and have need of a host, who through his courtesie would give us of his bread to-night.”

Then Eckewart made answer: “I’ll show you a host so good that full seldom have ye been lodged so well in any land, as here may hap you, an’ ye will seek out Rüdeger, ye doughty knights. He dwelleth by the highway and is the best host that ever owned a house. His heart giveth birth to courtesie, as the sweet May doth to grass and flowers. He is aye merry of mood, when he can serve good knights.”

At this King Gunther spake: “Will ye be my messenger and ask whether my dear friend Rüdeger will for my sake keep us, my kinsmen and our men? I will repay thee this, as best I ever can.”


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 3. Two naked infants; the arm of one around the loins of the other. In rising their feet first appear above the horizon. The star in the head of Pollux is of the first magnitude. These stars were considered. propitious to sailors.

4. The head of the Crab is turned to the east. In this constellation there is a small bright nebula called by the ancients, Præsepe, the manger; and on each side of this nebula to the north and south a small star. These two stars were called, Aselli, the Asses. The Phatne consists of five small stars, and the Onoi are scarelyscarcely [sic] perceptible to the naked eye, but they were considered by the ancients of great importance in their prognostications of the weather.

5. The conspicuous star  lies in the heart of Leo, and  at the extremity of his tail.

6. An angelic figure with wings, bearing in her left hand a spike of corn. On which is the bright star. A cluster of small stars, which were originally in Virgo, according to some in Leo, now forms another constellation,.

7. . The foreclaws of Scorpio.

8. On the sphere of Eudoxus the foreclaws of the Scorpion constitute the seventh sign of the Zodiac, and the remaining portion of Scorpio the eighth. Hence Aratus desig-


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Rh “Gladly will I be the messenger,” Eckewart replied. With a right good will he gat him on the road and told Rüdeger the message he had heard, to whom none such pleasing news had come in many a day.

At Bechelaren men saw a knight pricking fast. Rüdeger himself descried him; he spake: “Upon the road yonder hasteth Eckewart, a liegeman of Kriemhild.”

He weened the foes had done him scathe. Before the gate he went to meet the messenger, who ungirt his sword and laid it from his hand. The tales he brought were not hidden from the host and his friends, but were straightway told them. To the margrave he spake: “Gunther, the lord of the Burgundian land, and Giselher, his brother, and Gernot, too, have sent me hither to you. Each of the warriors tendered you his service. Hagen and Folker, too, eagerly did the same in truth. Still more I’ll tell you, that the king’s marshal sendeth you by me the message, that the good knights have passing need of your lodgement.”

Rüdeger answered with a smile: “Now well is me of these tales, that the high-born kings do reck of my service. It shall not be denied them. Merry and blithe shall I be, an’ they come unto my house.”

“Dankwart, the marshal, bade let you know whom ye should lodge in your house with them: sixty doughty champions, a thousand good knights, and nine thousand men-at-arms.”

Merry of mood grew Rüdeger; he spake: “Now well is me of these guests, that these noble warriors be coming to my house, whom I have served as yet full seldom. Now ride ye forth for to meet them, my kinsmen and my men.”


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222 Knights and squires now hied them to their horses; it thought them right, which their lord did bid. All the more they hasted with their service. As yet Lady Gotelind wist it not, who sate within her bower.


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text: The Nibelungenlied (Shumway)/26

title: The Nibelungenlied (Shumway)/26


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Nobody but an imbecile Mistakes Sweet William for Cross Bill: And even I can scarcely claim, The skill to make them look the same. Some other shrubs and vines and trees, Express emotion much like these, You've seen the mad-wort plant I guess, And weeping willows and sigh-press, The passion-flower, at it'sits [sic] climax, The glad-iolus and the smile-ax.


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The sacred Ibis, one might say, Was classified a "Bird-of-Pray" His body, after death, was dried, Embalmed in pitch, and mummyfied, And thus was handed down to us In some old King's sarcophagus. The Mallow, growing in the bogs, ('Ibiscus termed by pedagogues) Is much opposed to dessication, And bears no marks of veneration.


text: Brief Information on the White-pine Weevil and Its Control


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Observe the hybrid Indian Pipe, Likewise the high-bred English Snipe, Who is distinguished, as we see, By his superior pedigree.


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The Blue Jay, as we clearly see, Is so much like the green Bay tree That one might say the only clue, Lies in their dif-fer-ence of hue, And if you have a color sense, You'll see at once this difference.


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The reason why this beetle gay, Is called the Lady-bird, they say, Is just because he wastes his hours, In running after pretty flowers, Who, quite regardless of conventions, Most openly invite attentions. (And hence are aptly termed the Gent-ians.)


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title: Category:White-pine weevils


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Upon this cake of ice is perched,
 * The paddle-footed Puffin:

To find his double I have searched,
 * But have discovered—Nuffin'.


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The Gnu conspicuously wears His coat of gnumerous bristling hairs, While, as we see, the modest Newt Of such a coat is destitute. (I'm only telling this to you, And it is strictly "entre gnu") In point of fact the Newt is nude, And therefore he does not obtrude, But hides in some secluded gnook, Beneath the surface of the brook.


text: Index:How to manage eastern white pine to minimize damage from blister rust and white pine weevil (computer file) (IA CAT10830132).pdf


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 It's almost more than he can bear, To issue slyly from his lair, And snatch a hasty breath of air, His need of which is absolute, Because, you see, he is a pneu-t.


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Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005/Division B/Title VII

=— RESCISSIONS=

Working Capital Fund (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $60,000,000 are rescinded.

Asset Forfeiture Fund (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $61,800,000 are rescinded.

Justice Assistance (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $1,619,000 are rescinded.

State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $29,380,000 are rescinded.

Community Oriented Policing Services (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $99,000,000 are rescinded.

Juvenile Justice (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $3,500,000 are rescinded.

Industrial Technology Services (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading for the Advanced Technology Program, $3,900,000 are rescinded.

Salaries and Expenses (Rescission)

 * Of the unobligated balances available under this heading, $12,000,000 are rescinded.


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I always sing the hymn of hate, When I perceive the Ray (or skate) His ugly mouth I can't abide, His eyes are on the other side, His features are all out of place He hasn't even any face. I do not mind the Raven, though Maligned by Edgar Allan Poe:


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 By his fun-er-ial array We recognize him from the Ray, Whose epiderm is white as snow, Not black as night, like Mr Crow. Though black, morose, and quite unshaven I'm sure we all prefer the Raven.


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The Apes, from whom we are descended, Hang ape-x down from trees suspended, And since we find them in the trees, We term them arbor-ig-i-nes. This quite explains the monkey-shines Cut up by those who pluck from vines The Grape, and then subject its juices, To Bacchanalian abuses.


text: Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/18


text:
The Builder (Buck)

Now these are the writings of Seti, Chancellor and Scribe before the mighty king Khufu, Sovereign of the Land of Khem. The will of the king is a law unto the scribe, and thus, as the king commands, behold, it is set forth.

Now it came to pass that, in the fourth year of his reign, Khufu the king drew from his dominant mind the seed of a stupendous undertaking. Which was to build as none had built before and, mayhap, as none might do again.

And, that his will might be made manifest before all men, the king gathered to his side all the wise men and architects of the kingdom. To them was his plan unfolded, and to them was handed the word to gather from the land all cunning workmen, all whose trade was through the mallet and the square, that they might do the bidding of the king. And to gather likewise great armies of those who labored, that they might draw the stones from the quarries and place them at the builders [sic] hand.

From the great quarries of Mohattan were cut mighty blocks of granite which were drawn over the sands of the desert to the place appointed by the king. And, at his will, there arose upon the level plain a building great and mighty as was due to the will which had created it.

This building was first shaped upon the level, even as a square. But as it rose toward the sky, lo, its sides sloped gently and perfectly inward, until when, at last, it stood—each stone in its appointed place—behold at the summit of the work, there appeared one point reaching out into the space where travel the boats of the gods. Sixteen score of cubits over the earth towered the silent watcher of the plain. And, upon its smooth white sides, were carven by the workers of the king, great truths which but the few might read.

Yet, ere was the building whole, many years passed in the Land of Khem. But, as the years passed, behold even as the king had said, "Let it be," it was.

Now it is the will of the king that these things be written, even as they are.

For when there came the time that this mighty building stood whole in all its parts, the king withdrew from those about him, and went alone to look upon his work. And the heart of the king was hardened as he looked, and there arose within him the thought, "Who, indeed, can build as truly as can I!" Yet withal did the king draw nigh, and pray even with these words:

"O thou mighty ones who, in the mysterious lands, work thy will in all things, even as is just: Thou great spirits whose power no man may judge, whose workings no eye may see: To thee and to thy glory, behold the earth with all its creatures cries aloud.

"Thou ever living ones, whose strength and will on earth has manifested itself through me—the King: accept of my thanks, and hear my words.

"Behold now this tomb, within whose silent depths will my ashes lie, whilst my Ka, silent and patient, watches through the countless ages of the world. Mighty indeed is the work, and to thy glory, as to mine, does it stand—perfect and eternal before all men. Great indeed is Khufu, the King, and now he stands before thee, that thou mayest take from him the justice of thy due."

Now it happened that, as the king prayed, the doors of his understanding were cast wide, and a light which, for long had found no place in him, poured into his heart. For there came to him, through the stillness, a voice. And the voice—gentle as the breeze among the rushes, yet stern as the powers of the gods,—spake thus unto the king:

"Vain mortal who, in the pride of thine earthly might, comes thus with unbended knee before the gods, mark well these words, that they may be written in letters of fire upon thy soul.

"Is it, then, that thou, whose knowledge is so great, thinkest this, the work of thy hands, will endure? Behold these words! For there is to come a time, in far ages, when, upon this plain, will there be nought save a level as true as that which here ye found. And there shall come kings who shall build, even as ye have built, and whose mighty works, even as thine, shall be scattered as dust upon the earth. For it is written that nought upon the earth, lo, nor the earth itself will endure; but that there is to come a time when chaos will again claim all, that form may return to the spirit from whence it came.

"Yet this last word to thee. Thy will is the will of a king, indeed, yet drawn away as such a will may often be. If it is that thou wouldst build, seek no earthly quarries for thy stone, but from the realms of spirit, draw that which is ever ready for the workers [sic] tool. Let thy work rise indeed toward the gods, not as a building of earth, but as a spiritual temple whose glories, all enduring, will outlast even the death of the world and all that round it moves. He who works thus is a builder indeed, and it is written that such a work is never lost, but endureth for ever."

Such were the words which came to the understanding of the king. And, as it is here written, so it came to pass that, from that time, the strength of the king was great as that of a king should be. For the voice of the gods is the voice of Truth, and he who is able to hear—and obeys—is wise indeed.

All these are the writings of Seti, the Scribe, at the will of the king. And all these things are truth. Praise to Thoth and to Osiris, the Righteous Judge.

title: The Builder (Buck)


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The Doe and her phonetic double, No longer are a source of trouble, Because the Dodo, it appears, Has been extinct for many years: She was too haughty to embark, With total strangers in Noah's ark, And we rejoice because her pride, Our nature book has simplified.


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To smoke a herring is to make
 * A most lam- en -table mistake,

Particularly since there are
 * The Pipe-fish and the long Sea-gar.

Bear this in mind when next you wish
 * To smoke your after-dinner fish.


text: Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/20


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 nates Scorpio, "" "Megatherion," "The great beast." (Phænom. 82.) And Ovid says:

His length extended through two-twelfths or one-sixth of the whole zodiac circle. After the time of Aratus,, was substituted for , on the celestial sphere. Virgil suggested this constellation as the proper one for the star of Augustus, when after his death he should be inscribed among the gods, as the 23rd of September was his birth-day, at which time the Sun enters this constellation:

The Poet implies that in honour of Augustus the Scorpion had contracted his claws to make room for Libra, about to be honoured by the Julium Sidus. Manilius also:


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 tions of the various characters after they were transferred to the sky.

Three small constellations lie between Andromeda, Cetus and the Square of Pegasus, and a word about them here will help to impress this part of the sky upon the mind without the trouble of carrying maps every time one feels inclined to gaze at the stars. These constellations are Pisces, the Fish; Triangulum, the Triangle and Aries, the Ram.

Pisces represents two small fish tied by their tails by two long 'star lines' which meet at a common star sometimes called Al Rischa or the "Knot Star."

Although the constellation occupies a large space in the heavens it has no conspicuous stars in it. It is best seen when the parallelogram of Orion is in the sky and may be located above and to the west of Cetus. Look for it on the first of January about 8 P. M.

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, very much out of its proper order, is a theological book, "The Undying Fire." It is modelled very closely upon the Book of Job; most of its characters are obviously the characters of that great dramatic dialogue modernised; like the Book of Job it is a discussion about evil and the will of God. The rest of the volume may be regarded as an explanatory appendix to this dialogue novel. It is a carefully winnowed gathering of the writer's theological discussion for the last fifteen years.

"First and Last Things" was written in 1907-8 under the stimulation of a discussion about fundamental ideas that was going on in the London Fabian Society. Various members read papers entitled "What I Believe;" and "First and Last Things" was, to begin with, one of these papers. But having launched out upon confession, the writer's desire for explicitness and fullness expanded it into a book. It was revised in 1917. The revised version is reprinted here with the exception of eleven sections that were not good enough to reprint. They dealt with the Churches, brotherhoods and the organisations of men and women for mutual help and support in their efforts after righteousness. The writer has no aptitude for such organisation or indeed for any sort of co-operative work, and these sections are not worth reading. Several of these sections simply enlarge


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 although it is also viewed to good advantage when passing the meridian during the evenings of October and November. Pisces lies in a region which in early times was known as "the Sea" because several other sea-creatures such as the Dolphin, which lies west of the Square, the Sea-goat and the Whale are found here.

Some authorities claim that when the fire-breathing giant Typhon appeared in Thessaly, the horrible creature so frightened the inhabitants of Olympus that they fled to the Nile where they concealed themselves under assumed shapes. Here the great god Jupiter

and the fun loving Pan into a sea-goat, now the constellation Capricornus, while the goddess Venus and her son Cupid threw themselves into the river and were changed into two fishes, which are now represented by Pisces, in the sky. The fate of Typhon has already been mentioned, and even modern Sicilians have seen Etna burst its crown to let out his fiery breath.

Just below Andromeda and above the head of Cetus is a long slim triangle-shaped figure called Triangulum, the Triangle, and a crooked line formed by a large star and two smaller ones called Aries, the Ram.

In legend, Aries was a great ram with a golden fleece and possessed the ability to fly. Mercury brought this beautiful creature to Helle and Prixus, the persecuted children of the King of Thessaly, so that they might climb upon its back and escape across the sea from their cruel stepmother. On the way over, Helle lost her hold on the fleece, sank under the waves and was drowned. Commemorating this tragedy, the sea was ever after called the Sea of Helle or the Hellespont but in modern days, the Dardanelles. The Dardanelles is a narrow channel separating Europe from Asia, and is the "Hellespont" that Leander so faithfully swam when

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text: How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and other wood-cuts


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 visiting Hero, his sweetheart. Prixus, coming safely to the end of his journey, dedicated the ram to Jupiter who placed it among the stars. It is now a zodiacal constellation with the horns of the ram for its sign: ♈. The golden fleece, while on earth, was of course very desirable so that it was fastened to an oak tree in the sacred grove of the War-god Mars at the eastern end of the Black Sea and a sleepless dragon was wound around the tree-trunk to protect it. It was to obtain this fleece that, in 936, Jason built a fifty-oared galley—the first of ships—and invited the heroes of Greece to go with him on the expedition. This adventurous undertaking was afterward known as the Argonautic Expedition. The ship Argo was placed in the sky as a southern constellation, or at least a part of it was for the bow is said to have been lost when passing through the Bosporus.

But even the portion that was lifted to the sky is so large that astronomers, for convenience, have divided it into three parts,—Carina, the Keel; Puppis, the Stern; and Vela, the Sail. The beautiful star Canopus lies on the Keel.

Triangulum and Aries, traveling beneath Andromeda, rise in late September and October and pass the meridian in the early evenings during the first weeks of December.

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 upon the idea of the Samurai already given in "A Modern Utopia."

Finally bound up in this volume is "God the Invisible King," which was not written and issued until 1917. It is put here into one cover with "First and Last Things" because the former explains and is necessary to the understanding of the latter work. It is a strenuous attempt to gather up into the recognised forms and terms of contemporary religion the beliefs embodied in the earlier book. The writer has personified and emotionalised to his utmost. He has done all he can in this book to express his ideas on current religious phraseology. Perhaps he has done too much. His religious outlook is in truth Promethean rather than Theistic, Manichean rather than Catholic, Persian rather than either Greek or Hebrew.

Let him insist upon the connection of "God the Invisible King" with the metaphysical sections of "First and Last Things."

In the voluminous discussion that has arisen out of "God the Invisible King" nothing has so impressed him as the impossibility of getting to understandings with people who are unconscious of metaphysical difficulties and who consequently use words with an uncritical confidence. Anyone who would fully understand the reasoning of "God the Invisible King" must grasp the fundamental scepticism about human thought which underlies that discourse.

The writer questions the ultimate validity of human thought—he does not deny it but he questions it; he is saturated with the idea of its incurable in-


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Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/209

 generation is succeeded and exceeded by that of the next—and this applies in almost equal measure to contemporary English novelists, with one notable exception: Hardy himself. Modern drama, however, tells a somewhat different story, with cynicism rampant in comedy and with tragedy saturated, as always, with a pessimism seldom exceeded even by Schopenhauer's intellectual plunges into the depths of human existence. But tragedy by its essential nature presupposes catastrophe, and its success has always been in direct proportion to the violence with which the crack of doom bursts over the heads of the protagonists. It is perhaps true that we are to-day somewhat more familiar with disillusive reasoning, and that pessimistic utterances have a more familiar ring to our ears; but that the average thinking person accepts these ideas and conforms his life to the conclusions they indicate, is highly questionable.

Scholars who have devoted their lives to the study of the all too scanty remains of classical literature will probably be very slow to admit that the average reflective Greek thinker indulged in any "revelling in the general situation" to the degree which Hardy supposed. Of course the Greeks were a sanguine people, particularly after the national will had been stiffened by the successes of the Persian wars, but this great outburst of vitality has since been duplicated by other nations with much the same degree of "high spirits." One need only mention two familiar instances—the great Elizabethan literature, a veritable "revelling" in optimism, which followed the crushing of Spanish sea power by England, and the ascendance of the German drama after the