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18 dealers, who have sufficient independence left in them to desire freedom, to emancipate themselves from the British yoke. Firstly, the establishment of “the orderly government at Khartoum,” otherwise called British supremacy in Eastern Africa, must of necessity be indefinitely postponed. The policy of “butcher and bolt” would have to be pursued—less the “butcher.” For there would be no time to give the Mahdi the chance of inflicting that chastisement on the invader he so richly deserves. But the Soudanese would be at least relieved from the immediate danger of having the blessings of civilisation conferred upon them. It would be well to remember, in this connexion also, that the native movement in Egypt proper is not dead but sleeping.

Next, those wicked Irish might possibly not be inclined to cease from troubling and to leave the weary “Castle” at rest just at this precise juncture. Even the presence of “their prince” might not supply that of a military force in keeping down such discontent—such is human perversity. If the “handful of agitators” of which we are sometimes told “disloyal Ireland” consists, chose to take advantage of the political “situation,” stirring times might be expected across St. George's Channel.

In the rear of the British armies themselves would be the vast Indian populations, which some who know them say are ready for revolt, other that their “loyalty” to their empress has never been firmer. War in Afghanistan would afford an excellent opportunity of deciding this interesting question. It is unnecessary to do more than allude to the possible action of Irish-Americans in Canada, or the probable prospect of “movements” in South Africa. All things considered, we think we are not far wrong in venturing the prognostication that in the event of a Russian war the “British Empire,” speaking generally, is likely to have a warm quarter of an hour.

After all, it is not nice going to war with one's equal or possible superior in strength—so different from those delightful “military operations” which consist in “potting” savages with an amount of danger just sufficient to give a zest to the sport, and no more—and then “nobbling” their territory. Hand the Sultan of Soccatoo or the King of Abyssinia insisted on holding positions when ordered to evacuate them, he would have been thrashed, of course. But then the special line the skill of our ablest and most valiant generals takes is that of “thrashing a cannibal” (pace Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan). Thrashing a Cossack is a different sort of thing.

The strong point of England is her cheap goods. Cheap “glory” is the latest industrial development of the British capitalistic system. The Englishman has discovered an improved method of manufacturing it very cheap, by the application of the latest inventions in war machinery on the raw material of naked savages who can't handle a rifle. Since it is only on these terms that “glory” pays, it is hardly likely that any British Government would care to embark in the perilous speculation of producing it on the old method of personal prowess and equal fighting. This would be retrograde. Much as we hate war, we must confess to a species of eager, expectant curiosity, akin to that one feels at the revival of some defunct art, at the prospect of contemplating the figure cut by the “bold Briton” before the foeman when the odds are something less than a thousand to one in his favour. Would we doubt the valour of Britain's sons? Never! But as yet we live by faith, and not by sight. That is all. E. BELFORT BAX.

imagine some of our comrades smiling bitterly at the above title, and wondering what a Socialist journal can have to do with art; so I begin by saying that I understand only too thoroughly how “unpractical” the subject is while the present system of capital and wages lasts. Indeed that is my text.

What, however, is art? whence does it spring? Art is man's embodied expression of interest in the life of man; it springs from man's pleasure in his life; please we must call it, taking all human life together, however much it may be broken by the grief and trouble of individuals; and as it is the expression of pleasure in life generally, in the memory of the deeds of the past, and the hope of those of the future, so it is especially the expression of man's pleasure in the deeds of the present; in his work.

Yes, that may well seem strange to us at present! Men to-day may see the pleasure of unproductive energy—energy put forth in games and sports; but in productive energy—in the task which must be finished before we can eat, the task which will begin again to-morrow, and many a to-morrow without charge or end till we are ended—pleasure in that?

Yet I repeat that the chief source of art is man's pleasure in his daily necessary work, which expresses itself and is embodied in that work itself; nothing else can make the common surroundings of life beautiful, and whenever they are beautiful it is a sign that men's work has pleasure in it, however they may suffer or otherwise. It is the lack of this pleasure in daily work which has made our towns and habitations sordid and hideous, insults to the beauty of the earth which they disfigure, and all the accessories of life mean, trivial, ugly—in a word, vulgar. Terrible as this is to endure in the present, there is hope in it for the future; for surely it is but just that outward ugliness and disgrace should be the result of the slavery and misery of the people; and that slavery and misery once changed, it is but responsible to expect that external ugliness will give place to beauty, the sign of free and happy work.

Meantime, be sure that nothing else will produce even a reasonable semblance of art; for, think of it! the workers, by means of whose hands the mass of art must be made, are forced by the commercial system to live, even at the best, in places so squalid and hideous that no one could live in them and keep his sanity without losing all sense of beauty and enjoyment in life. The advance of the industrial army under its “captains of industry” (save the mark!) is traced, like the advance of other armies, in the ruin of the peace and loveliness of earth's surface, and nature, who will have us live at any cost, compels us to get used to our degradation at the expense of losing our manhood, and producing children doomed to live less like men than ourselves. Men living amidst such ugliness cannot conceive of beauty, and, therefore, cannot express it.

Nor is it only the workers who feel this misery (and I rejoice over that, at any rate). The higher or more intellectual arts suffer with the industrial ones. The artists, the aim of whose lives it is to produce beauty and interest, are deprived of the materials for their works in real life, since all around them is ugly and vulgar. They are driven into seeking their materials in the imaginations of past ages, or into giving the lie to their own sense of beauty and knowledge of it by sentimentalising and falsifying the life which goes on around them; and so, in spite of all their talent, intellect and enthusiasm, produce little which is not contemptible when matched against the workers of the non-commercial ages. Nor must we forget that whatever is produced that is worth anything is the work of men who are in rebellion against the corrupt society of to-day—rebellion sometimes open, sometimes veiled under cynicism, but by which in any case lives are wasted in a struggle, too often vain, against their fellow-men, which ought to be used for the exercise of special gifts for the benefit of the world.

High and low, therefore, slaveholders and slaves, we lack beauty in our lives, or, in other words, man-like pleasure. This absence of pleasure is the second gift to the world which the development of commercialism has added to its first gift of a propertiless proletariat. Nothing else but the grinding of this iron system could have reduced the civilised world to vulgarity. The theory that art is sick because people have turned their attention to science is without foundation. It is true that science is allowed to live because profit can be made of her, and men, who must find some outlet for their energies, turn to her, since she exists, though only as the slave (but now the rebellious slave) of capital; whereas when art is fairly in the clutch of profit-grinding she dies, and leaves behind her but her phantom of sham art as the futile slave of the capitalist.

Strange as it may seem, therefore, to some people, it is as true as strange, that Socialism, which has been commonly supposed to tend to mere Utilitarianism, is the only hope of the arts. It may be, indeed, that till the social revolution is fully accomplished, and perhaps for a little while afterwards, men's surroundings may go on getting plainer, grimmer, and barer. I say for a little while afterwards, because it may take men some time to shake off the habits of penury on the one hand and inane luxury on the other, which have been forced on them by commercialism. But even in that there is hope; for it is at least possible that all the old superstitions and conventionalities of art have got to be swept away before art can be born again; that before that new birth we shall have to be left bare of everything that has been called art; that we shall have nothing left


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 has had a hand in their personal misfortunes. An eminent writer lately published a book in which he described his numerous failures in business, naïvely admitting, at the same time, that he was ignorant of the multiplication table; and he came to the conclusion that the real cause of his ill-success in life was the money-worshipping spirit of the age. Lamartine also did not hesitate to profess his contempt for arithmetic; but, had it been less, probably we should not have witnessed the unseemly spectacle of the admirers of that distinguished personage engaged in collecting subscriptions for his support in his old age.

Again, some consider themselves born to ill luck, and make up their minds that the world invariably goes against them without any fault on their own part. We have heard of a person of this sort, who went so far as to declare his belief that if he had been a hatter people would have been born without heads! There is, however, a Russian proverb which says that Misfortune is next door to Stupidity; and it will often be found that men who are constantly lamenting their luck are in some way or other reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, improvidence, or want of application. Dr. Johnson, who came up to London with a single guinea in his pocket, and who once accurately described himself in his signature to a letter addressed to a noble lord as Impransus, or Dinnerless, has honestly said, "All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust; I never knew a man of merit neglected; it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success."

Washington Irving, the American author, held

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 or three stivers a sheet, to three hundred florins, equal to about twenty-seven pounds ten shillings of our money. If the stamp is of an inferior price to what the testator ought to have made use of, his succession is confiscated. This is over and above all their other taxes on succession. Except bills of exchange, and some other mercantile bills, all other deeds, bonds and contracts are subject to a stamp duty. This duty, however, does not rise in proportion to the value of the subject. All sales of land and of houses, and all mortgages upon either, must be registered, and, upon registration, pay a duty to the State of two and a half per cent upon the amount of the price of the mortgage. This duty is extended to the sale of all ships and vessels of more than two tons burden, whether decked or undecked. These, it seems, are considered as a sort of houses upon the water. The sale of movables, when it is ordered by a court of justice, is subject to the like duty of two and a half per cent.

In France there are both stamp duties and duties upon registration. The former are considered as a branch of the aides or excise, and in the provinces where those duties take place, are levied by the excise officers. The latter are considered as a branch of the domain of the crown, and are levied by a different set of officers.

Those modes of taxation, by stamp duties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention. In the course of little more than a century, however, stamp duties have, in Europe, become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

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 The extent of the direct influence of Benin away into the forest belt to the east and south I do not think at any time was great. Benin was respected because it was regarded as possessing a big Fetish and great riches. In recent years it was regarded by people discontented with white men as their great hope, from its power to resist these being greater than their own. Nevertheless, the adjacent kingdom of Owarie (Warri), even in the sixteenth century, was an independent kingdom. So different was its Fetish from that of Benin that Warri had not then, and has not to this day, human sacrifice in its religious observances, only judicial and funeral killings.

Considering how very easily Africans superficially adopt the religious ideas of alien people with whom they have commercial intercourse, we must presume that the people who imported the art of working in metals into Benin also imported some of their religion. The relics of religion, alien to Fetish, that show in Benin Fetish are undoubtedly Christian. Whether these relics are entirely those of the Portuguese Roman Catholic missions, or are not also relics of some earlier Christian intercourse with Western Soudan Christianised states existing prior to the Mohammedan invasion of Northern Africa, is again a matter on which we require more information. But just as I believe some of the metal articles found in Benin to be things made in Birmingham, some to be old Portuguese, some to be native castings, copies of things imported from that unknown inland state, and some to be the original inland state articles themselves, so do I believe the relics of Christianity in the Fetish to be varied in origin, all alike suffering absorption by the native Fetish.

There is no doubt that up to the last twenty years the

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 to the living, fall finally as well as immediately upon the person to whom the property is transferred. Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether upon the seller. The seller is almost always under the necessity of selling, and must, therefore, take such a price as he can get. The buyer is scarce ever under the necessity of buying, and will, therefore, only give such a price as he likes. He considers what the land will cost him in tax and price together. The more he is obliged to pay in the way of tax, the less he will be disposed to give in the way of price. Such taxes, therefore, fall almost always upon a necessitous person, and must, therefore, be frequently very cruel and oppressive. Taxes upon the sale of new-built houses, where the building is sold without the ground, fall generally upon the buyer, because the builder must generally have his profit; otherwise he must give up the trade. If he advances the tax, therefore, the buyer must generally repay it to him. Taxes upon the sale of old houses, for the same reason as those upon the sale of land, fall generally upon the seller, whom in most cases either convenience or necessity obliges to sell. The number of new-built houses that are annually brought to market is more or less regulated by the demand. Unless the demand is such as to afford the builder his profit, after paying all expenses, he will build no more houses. The number of old houses which happen at any time to come to market is regulated by accidents of which the greater part have no relation to the demand. Two or three great bankruptcies in a mercantile town will bring many houses to sale, which must be sold for what can be got for them. Taxes upon the sale of ground rents fall altogether upon the seller; for the same reason as those upon the sale of land. Stamp duties, and duties upon the registration of bonds and con-


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 three great Fetish kings in Western Africa were those of Ashantee, Dahomey, and Benin. Each of these kings was alike believed by the whole of the people to have great Fetish power in his own locality. In the time of which we have no historical record—prior to the visits of the first white voyagers in the fifteenth century—there is traditional record of the King of Benin fighting with his cousin of Dahomey. Possibly Dahomey beat him badly; anyhow something went seriously wrong with Benin as a territorial kingdom, before its discovery by modern Europe.

I now turn to the Fetish of the Oil Rivers which I have called the Calabar school. The predominance of the belief there in reincarnation seems to me sufficient to separate it from the Gold Coast and Dahomey Fetish. Funeral customs, important in all Negro Fetish, become in the Calabar school exceedingly so. A certain amount of care anywhere is necessary to successfully establish the human soul after death, for the human soul strongly objects to leaving material pleasures and associations and going to, at best, an uninteresting under-world; but when you have not only got to send the soul down, but to bring it back into the human form again, and not any human form at that, but one of its own social status and family, the thing becomes more complicated still; and to do it so engrosses human attention, and so absorbs human wealth, that you do not find under the Calabar school a multitude of priest- served gods as you do in Dahomey and on the Gold Coast. Mind you, so far as I could make out while in the Calabar districts myself, the equivalents of those same gods, were quite believed in; but they were neglected in a way that would have caused them in Dahomey, where they have been taught to fancy themselves to wreck the place. Not only

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 is care taken to send a soul down, but means are taken to see whether or no it has duly returned; for keeping a valuable soul, like that of a great Fetish proficient who could manage outside spirits, or that of a good trader, is a matter of vital importance to the prosperity of the Houses, so when such a soul has left the House in consequence of some sad accident or another, or some vile witchcraft, the babies that arrive to the House are closely watched. Assortments of articles belonging to deceased members of the house are presented to it, and then, according to the one it picks out, it is decided who that baby really is—See, Uncle so-and-so knows his own pipe, &c.—and I have often heard a mother reproaching a child for some fault say, "Oh, we made a big mistake when we thought you were so-and-so." I must say I think the absence of the idea of the deification of ancestors in West Africa shows up particularly strongly in the Calabar school, for herein you see so clearly that the dead do not pass into a higher, happier state that the soul separate from the body is only a part of that thing we call a human being; and in West Africa the whole is greater than a part, even in this matter.

The pathos of the thing, when you have grasped the underlying idea, is so deep that the strangeness of it passes away, and you almost forget to hate the horrors of the slaughter that hang round Oil River funeral customs, or, at any rate, you understand the tenacity you meet with here of the right to carry out killing at funerals, a greater tenacity than confronted us in Gold Coast or Dahomey regions, because a different idea is involved in the affair. On the Gold Coast, for example, you can substitute wealth for the actual human victim, because with wealth the dead soul could, after all, make itself comfortable

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 in Srahmandazi, but not so in the Rivers. Without slaves, wives, and funds, how can the dead soul you care for speak with the weight of testimony of men as to its resting place or position? Rolls of velvet or satin, and piles of manillas or doubloons alone cannot speak; besides, they may have been stolen stuff, and the soul you care for may be put down by the authorities as a mere thieving slave, a sort of mere American gold bug trying to pass himself off as a duke—or a descendant of General Washington—which would lead to that soul being disgraced and sent back in a vile form. Think how you yourself, if in comfortable circumstances, belonging to a family possessing wealth and power, would like father, mother, sister, or brother of yours who by this change of death had just left these things, to go down through death, and come back into life in a squalid slum!

We meet in this school, however, with a serious problem—namely, what does become of dead chiefs? It is a point I will not dogmatise on, but it certainly looks as if the Calabar under-world was a most aristocratic spot, peopled entirely by important chiefs and the retinues sent down with them—by no means having the fine mixed society of Srahmandazi.

The Oil River deceased chief is clearly kept as a sort of pensioner. The chief who succeeds him in his headship of the House is given to "making his father" annually. It is not necessarily his real father that he makes, but his predecessor in the headmanship—a slave succeeding to a free man would "make his father" to the dead free man, and so on. This function undoubtedly consists in sending his predecessor a big subsidy for his support, and consolation in the shape of slaves and goods. I may as well own I have

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22

it. These scales are usually mounted "dry;" but Hogg recommends the use of Canada Balsam as rendering their structure more definite when illuminated with Wenham's parabolic reflector.—Davies on Preparing and Mounting Microscopic Objects.

.—Successful observation with very high powers is mainly dependent upon illumination. Indeed, by ordinary means it is not possible to obtain a light sufficiently intense to illustrate and object magnified 3,000 diameters. I have tried with greater or less success many different plans, and have used prisms, concave mirrors, and various kinds of condensers. I have, however, arrived at the conclusion that the most satisfactory results by far are obtained by the use of Kelner's eye-piece as a condenser, as suggested by my friend Mr. Brooke. By this means I can obtain a light sufficient for a magnifying power of 10,000 linear. I have tried the lime light, but have not found that it possesses any advantages over the belmontine or paraffin lamp, while the glare from it is much greater.—Dr. Beale's "How to work with the Microscope."

.—A gentleman having forwarded a packet of small stones covered with very minute white objects and acari, to Mr. Westwood, received the following reply:—"The minute white objects on the stones, are the eggs of the mite Trombidium (Tetranychus) lapidum, first figured by Hammer in Hermann's Mémoire Apterologique (pl. 7, fig. 7-8), with the eggs which were discovered in similar situations. Hammer's correspondent found with the eggs which were discovered in similar situations. Hammer's correspondent found with the eggs minute red-coloured six-legged mites which had been hatched from the eggs, and which ran very quickly. Accompanying these mites (with six legs) were always found others, two or three times larger, of a brown colour, and with eight legs, but these latter wanted the long setæ at the end of the four anterior legs of the small individuals. Hammer thought these constituted two distinct species, and that they were not varieties, different in stage or sex, because no metamorphoses had been noticed in these insects, and no individuals intermediate in size had been observed. He also inclined to regard the so-called eggs in consequence of their comparatively large size to that of the insects, as a kind of crysalid enclosing the mite in a sort of nymph state. From what has since been observed of the changes of these mites, however, there can be no doubt that the large specimens are full-grown individuals which had previously borne the appearance of the smaller ones. All this is the more necessary to be explained, because, in his note, Mr. Weatherhead states that the eight-legged mites were produced from the eggs. This, I believe, must be a mistake. Unfortunately I cannot make out the number of legs, the specimens in the small phial having been so battered by the particles of stone, that some of the legs may have been, as some certainly have been, detached in the journey from shaking about. I suppose also that this species is six-legged in the larval state. The eggs are beautiful microscopic objects."—Entomologist's Monthly Magazine.

, Dec. 5.—Mr. J. Weir exhibited some microscopic preparations of the spiral tongues of butterflies, for the purpose of showing the variation in the striation of the tongue in different species, and in the papillæ which exist at the end of the tongue.—Mr. Bond exhibited a coloured drawing of the larvæ of Acronycta strigosa, and a photograph of a remarkable negro variety of Abraxas grossulariata.—Mr. F. Smith exhibited a particoloured wasp's-nest, constructed by two species of wasp, the Vespa Germanica and V. vulgaris.—Mr. W. F. Evans sent for exhibition a box full of fragments of a Lamellicorn beetle, which had been picked out of some New Zealand wool: the insects proved to be Pyronota festiva, and it was conceived that, in the course of their flight, they had come in contact with the sheep and became entangled in the fleeces so as to prevent their escape,—The President exhibited some globular spiders' nests from South Australia, which were remarkable for their resemblance to the fruit of Leptospermum, the tea-plant of Australia, whilst the spiders themselves were described as looking like the excrement of a bird.—Mr. S. Stevens exhibited several pairs of Cheirolasia Burkei, one of the rare Goliath beetles of tropical Africa; he also read a letter from M. Du Chaillu, dated Fernand-Vaz River, Aug. 20, 1864, in which the writer announced the despatch to England of a large collection of insects.

, Dec. 6.—Mr. S. Laing exhibited an interesting collection, and read a Paper on "The Pre-Historic remains of Caithness." Mr. C. C. Blake also read a paper by Mr. Roberts on the discovery of a large Kistraem in the Muckle Hoeg, in the island of North Shetland, with notes upon the human remains discovered therein. An animated discussion on these Papers followed, in which Professor Owen and others took part.

, Dec. 12.—A Paper by Mr. J. Cameron, of Singapore, containing "A Description of the Islands of Kalatoa and Puloweh, north of Flores, in the Malay Archipelago." The former of these islands was said to be uninhabited, the latter to contain a population of 5,000, whose daily life was a repetition of the various stages of intoxication, and that every evening ended in a drunken brawl. Dr. Hector next read a paper on "An Expedition to the West Coast of Otago, New Zealand, and the Discovery of a practicable Route over the Mountains to the Goldfields and the East Coast." Mr. Albert Walker also gave an account of a hazardous journey which he performed, in company with two other young men, along the West Coast of the Middle Island, New Zealand.


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 long had a dark suspicion regarding this matter—a suspicion as to where those goods went. Their proper destination, of course, should be the under-world. Thither undoubtedly on the Gold Coast they would go; but when sent in the Rivers I do not think they go so far. In fact, to make a clean breast of it, I do not believe big chiefs are properly buried in the Oil Rivers at all. I think they are, for political purposes, kept hanging about outside life, but not inside death, by their diplomatic successors. I feel emboldened to say this by what my friend, Major Leonard, Vice-Consul of the Niger Coast Protectorate, recently told me. When he was appointed Vice-Consul, and was introducing himself to his chiefs in this capacity, one chief he visited went aside to a deserted house, opened the door, and talked to somebody inside; there was not any one in material form inside, only the spirit of his deceased predecessor, and all the things left just as they were when he died; the live chief was telling the dead chief that the new Consul was come, &c.

The reason, that is the excuse, for this seemingly unprincipled conduct in not properly burying the chief, so that he may be reincarnated to a complete human form, lies in the fact that he would be a political nuisance to his successor if he came back promptly; therefore he is kept waiting.

From first-class native informants I have had fragments of accounts of making-father ceremonies. Particularly interesting have been their accounts of what the live chief says to the dead one. Much of it, of course, is, for diplomatic reasons, not known outside official circles. But the general tone of these communications is well known to be of a nature to discourage the dead chief from returning,

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 and to reconcile him to his existing state. Things are not what they were here. The price of oil is down, women are ten times more frivolous, slaves ten times more trying, white Consul men abound, also their guns are more deadly than of old, this new Consul looks worse than the last, there is nothing but war and worry for a chief nowadays. The whole country is going to the dogs financially and domestically, in fact, and you are much better off where you are. Then come petitions for such help as the ghost chief and his ghost retinue can give.

This, I think, explains why chiefs' funeral customs in the Rivers differ in kind, not merely in grade, from those of big trade boys or other important people, and also accounts for their repetition at intervals. Big trade boys, and the slaves and women sent down with them, return to a full human form more or less promptly; mere low grade slaves, slaves that cannot pull a canoe, i.e., provide a war canoe for the service of the House out of their own private estate, are not buried at all—they are thrown away, unless they have a mother who will bury them. They will come back again all right as slaves, but then that is all they are fit for.

Then we have left very interesting sections of the community to consider from a funeral rite point of view—namely, those in human form who are not, strictly speaking, human beings, and those who, though human, have committed adultery with spirits—women who bear twins or who die in child-birth. These sinners, I may briefly remark, are neither buried nor just thrown away; they are, as far as possible, destroyed. But with the former class the matter is slightly different. Children, for example, that arrive with ready cut teeth, will in a strict family be killed or thrown away in the bush to die as they please; but the

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 feeling against them is not really keen. They may, if the mother chooses to be bothered with them, be reared; but the interesting point is that any property they may acquire during life has no legal heir whatsoever. It must be dissipated, thrown away. This shows clearly that such individuals are not human, and, moreover, they are not buried nor destroyed at death; they are just thrown away. There is no particular harm in them as there is in the sin-stained twins.

The only class in West Africa I have found that are like these spirit humans is that strange class, the minstrels. I wish I knew more about these people. Were it not that Mr. F. Swanzy possesses material evidence of their existence, in the shape of the most superb song-net, I should hesitate to mention them at all. Some of my French friends, however, tell me they have seen them in Senegal, and I venture to think that region must be their headquarters. I have seen one in Accra, one in Sierra Leone, two on board steamers, and one in Buana town, Cameroon. Briefly, these are minstrels who frequent market towns, and for a fee sing stories. Each minstrel has a song-net—a strongly made net of a fishing net sort. On to this net are tied all manner and sorts of things, pythons' back bones, tobacco pipes, bits of china, feathers, bits of hide, birds' heads, reptiles' heads, bones, &c., &c., and to every one of these objects hangs a tale. You see your minstrel's net, you select an object and say how much that song. He names an exorbitant price; you haggle; no good. He won't be reasonable, say over the python bone, so you price the tobacco pipe—more haggle; finally you settle on some object and its price, and sit down on your heels and listen with rapt attention to the song, or, rather, chant. You

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 usually have another. You sort of dissipate in novels, in fact. I do not say it's quiet reading, because unprincipled people will come headlong and listen when you have got your minstrel started, without paying their subscription. Hence a row, unless you are, like me, indifferent to other people having a little pleasure.

These song-nets, I may remark, are not of a regulation size. I have never seen on the West Coast anything like so superb a collection of stories as Mr. Swanzy has tied on that song-net of his—Woe is me! without the translating minstrel, a cycle of dead songs that must have belonged to a West African Shakespeare. The most impressive song-net that I saw was the one at Buana. Its owner I called Homer on the spot, because his works were a terrific two. Tied on to his small net were a human hand and a human jaw bone. They were his only songs. I heard them both regardless of expense. I did not understand them, because I did not know his language; but they were fascinating things, and the human hand one had a passage in it which caused the singer to crawl on his hands and knees, round and round, stealthily looking this side and that, giving the peculiar leopard questing cough, and making the leopard mark on the earth with his doubled-up fist. Ah! that was something like a song! It would have roused a rock to enthusiasm ; a civilised audience would have smothered its singer with bouquets. I—well, the headman with me had to interfere and counsel moderation in heads of tobacco.

But what I meant to say about these singers was only this. They are not buried as other people are; they are put into trees when they are dead—may be because they are "all same for one" with those singers the birds. I do not know,

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 I only hope Homer is still extant, and that some more intelligent hearer than I will meet with him.

The southern boundary of the Calabar school of Fetish lies in narrower regions than the boundary between it and Ellis's school in the north. I venture to think that this may in a measure arise from there being in the southern region the additional element of difference of race. For immediately below Calabar in the Cameroon territory the true Negro meets the Bantu. In Cameroon in the tribes of the Dualla stem we have a people speaking a Bantu language, and having a Bantu culture, yet nevertheless having a great infusion of pure Negro blood, and largely under the dominion of the true Negro thought form.

I own that of all the schools of Fetish that I know, the Calabar school is the one that fascinates me most. I like it better than Ellis's school, wherein the fate of the soul after death is a life in a shadow land, with shadows for friends, lovers, and kinsfolk, with the shadows of joys for pleasures, the shadows of quarrels for hate—a thing that at its best is inferior to the wretchedest full-life on earth. Yet this settled shadow-land of Srahmandazi or Gboohiadse is a better thing than the homeless drifting state of the soul in the school below Calabar—namely, the school I have ventured to term the Mpongwe school. To the brief consideration of this school we will now turn.

In between the strongly-marked Calabar school and the strongly-marked school of Nkissism of Loango Kacongo, and Bas Congo there exists a school plainly differing from both. This region is interesting for many reasons, chief amongst which is that it is the sea-board region of the great African Forest belt. Tribe after tribe come down into it, flourish awhile, and die, uninfluenced by Mohammedan or European

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 culture. The Mohammedans in Africa as aforesaid have never mastered the western region of the forest belt; and the Europeans have never, in this region between Cameroon and Loango, established themselves in force. It is undoubtedly the wildest bit of West Africa.

The dominant tribes here have, for as far back as we can get evidence—some short four hundred years—been tribes of the Mpongwe stem—the so-called noble tribes. To-day they are dying—going off the face of the earth, leaving behind them nothing to bear testimony in this world to their great ability, save the most marvellously beautiful language, the Greek of Africa, as Dr. Nassau calls it, and the impress of their more elaborate thought-form on the minds of the bush tribes that come into contact with them. Their last pupils are the great Bafangh, now supplanting them in the regions of the Bight of Panavia.

From their influence I think the school of Fetish of this region is perhaps best called the Mpongwe school, though I do not altogether like the term, because I believe the Mpongwe stem to be in origin pure Negro, and the Fetish school they have elaborated and co-ordinated is Bantu in thought-form, just as the language they have raised to so high a pitch of existence is in itself a Bantu language. Yet the Mpongwe are rulers of both these things, and they will thereby leave imprinted on the minds of their supplanters in the land the mark of their intelligence.

I have said the predominant idea in this Mpongwe school is the securing of material prosperity. That is to say this is the part of pure Fetish that receives more attention than other parts of pure Fetish in this school; but it attains to no such definite predominance as funeral rites do in the Calabar school, or the preservation of life in Ellis's school.

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 of the secret balls of Lord Steyne: he leit that to Lady Cardigan. But no one who had read Thackeray's version would be surprised at Lady Cardigan's. But though the great Victorian novelists would not have permitted the impudence of the suggestion that every part of their problem must be wholesome and innocent in itself, it is still tenable (I do not say it is certain) that by yielding to the Philistines on this verbal compromise, they have in the long run worked for impurity rather than purity. In one point I do certainly think that Victorian Bowdlerism did pure harm. This is the simple point that, nine times out of ten, the coarse word is the word that condemns an evil and the refined word the word that excuses it. A common evasion, for instance, substitutes for the word that brands self-sale as the essential sin, a word which weakly suggests that it is no more wicked than walking down the street. The great peril of such soft mystifications is that extreme evils (they that are abnormal


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 One might, however, quite fairly call the Mpongwe school the trade-charm school, great as trade charms are in all West African Fetish.

This lack of a predominance sufficient to dwarf other parts of pure Fetish makes the Mpongwe school particularly interesting and valuable to a student; it is a magnificent school to study your pure Fetish in, as none of it is here thrown by a predominant factor into the background of thought, and left in a neglected state.

It is of this school that you will find Dr. Nassau's classification of spirits, and all the other observations of his that I have quoted of things absolutely believed in by the natives, and also all the Mpongwe, Benga, Igalwa, Ncomi, and Fetish I have attempted to describe.

It has no gods with proper priests. Human beings are here just doing their best to hold their own with the spirit world, getting spirits under their control as far as possible, and dealing with the rest of them diplomatically. This state I venture to think is Fetish in a very early form, a form through which the now elaborate true Negro Fetish must have passed before reaching its present co-ordinated state. How long ago it was when the true Negro was in this stage I will not venture to conjecture. Sir Henry Maine, of whom I am a very humble follower, says, "Nothing moves that is not Greek." This is a hard saying to accept, but the truth of it grows on you when you are studying things such as these, and you are forced to acknowledge that they at any rate have a slow rate of development—sometimes indeed it seems that there is a mere wave motion of thought among all men rising here and there when in the hands of superior tribes, like the Mpongwe for ex-

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 even by the standard of evil) have a very long start. Where ordinary wrong is made unintelligible, extraordinary wrong can count on remaining more unintelligible still; especially among those who live in such an atmosphere of long words. It is a cruel comment on the purity of the Victorian Age, that the age ended (save for the bursting of a single scandal) in a thing being everywhere called "Art," "The Greek Spirit," "The Platonic Ideal " and so on—which any navvy mending the road outside would have stamped with a word as vile and as vulgar as it deserved.

This reticence, right or wrong, may have been connected with the participation of women with men in the matter of fiction. It is an important point: the sexes can only be coarse separately. It was certainly also due, as I have already suggested, to the treaty between the rich bourgeoisie and the old aristocracy, which both had to make, for the common and congenial purpose of keeping


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 the English people down. But it was due much more than this to a general moral atmosphere in the Victorian Age. It is impossible to express that spirit except by the electric bell of a name. It was latitudinarian, and yet it was limited. It could be content with nothing less than the whole cosmos: yet the cosmos with which it was content was small. It is false to say it was without humour: yet there was something by instinct unsmiling in it. It was always saying solidly that things were "enough"; and proving by that sharpness (as of the shutting of a door) that they were not enough. It took, I will not say its pleasures, but even its emancipations, sadly. Definitions seem to escape this way and that in the attempt to locate it as an idea. But every one will understand me if I call it George Eliot.

I begin with this great woman of letters for both the two reasons already mentioned. She represents the rationalism of the old Victorian Age at its highest. She and Mill


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 are like two great mountains at the end of that long, hard chain which is the watershed of the Early Victorian time. They alone rise high enough to be confused among the clouds —or perhaps confused among the stars. They certainly were seeking truth, as Newman and Carlyle were; the slow slope of the later Victorian vulgarity does not lower their precipice and pinnacle. But I begin with this name also because it emphasises the idea of modern fiction as a fresh and largely a female thing. The novel of the nineteenth century was female; as fully as the novel of the eighteenth century was male. It is quite certain that no woman could have written Roderick Random. It is not quite so certain that no woman could have written Esmond. The strength and subtlety of woman had certainly sunk deep into English letters when George Eliot began to write.

Her originals and even her contemporaries had shown the feminine power in fiction as well or better than she. Charlotte Brontë,


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 ample, to a wave crest destined on their extinction to fall again. Now and again as a storm on the sea, the impulse of a revealed religion sweeps down on to this ocean of nature philosophy, elevates it or confuses it according to the initial profundity of it. If you have ever seen the difference between a deep sea storm and an esturial storm, you will know what I mean. Yet this has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the Fetish thought-form, but merely has a bearing on the quality of the minds that deal with it, as it must on all minds not under the influence of a revealed religion; and I now turn, in conclusion of this brief consideration of the schools of Fetish in West Africa, to the next school to the Mpongwe, namely, the school of Nkissism. I need not go into details concerning it here; you have them at your command in the two great works of Bastian, An Expedition under Loango Küste und Besuch in San Salvador, and in Mr. R. E. Dennett's Folk Lore of the Fjorts, published by the liberality of the Folk Lore Society, and also his former book, Seven Years among the Fjorts.

The predominant feature in this school is undoubtedly the extra recognition given to the mystery of the power of the earth, Nkissi 'nsi. Here you find the earth goddess Nzambi the paramount feature in the Fetish; from her the Fetish priests have their knowledge of the proper way to manage and communicate with lower earth spirits, round her circle almost all the legends, in her lies the ultimate human hope of help and protection. Nzambi is too large a sub- ject for us to enter into here. She is the great mother, but she is not absolute in power. She is not one of the forms of the great unheeding over-lord of gods, like

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 understood along her own instincts, was as great; Jane Austen was greater. The latter comes into our present consideration only as that most exasperating thing, an ideal unachieved. It is like leaving an unconquered fortress in the rear. No woman later has captured the complete common sense of Jane Austen. She could keep her head, while all the after women went about looking for their brains. She could describe a man coolly; which neither George Eliot nor Charlotte Brontë could do. She knew what she knew, like a sound dogmatist: she did not know what she did not know—like a sound agnostic. But she belongs to a vanished world before the great progressive age of which I write.

One of the characteristics of the central Victorian spirit was a tendency to substitute a certain more or less satisfied seriousness for the extremes of tragedy and comedy. This is marked by a certain change in George Eliot; as it is marked by a certain limitation or moderation in Dickens. Dickens was the


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 People, as it was in the eighteenth century and still largely is, in spite of all the talk for and against Board School Education: comic, tragic, realistic, free-spoken, far looser in words than in deeds. It marks the silent strength and pressure of the spirit of the Victorian middle class that even to Dickens it never occurred to revive the verbal coarseness of Smollett or Swift. The other proof of the same pressure is the change in George Eliot. She was not a genius in the elemental sense of Dickens; she could never have been either so strong or so soft. But she did originally represent some of the same popular realities: and her first books (at least as compared with her latest) were full of sound fun and bitter pathos. Mr. Max Beerbohm has remarked (in his glorious essay called Ichabod, I think), that Silas Marner would not have forgotten his miserliness if George Eliot had written of him in her maturity. I have a great regard for Mr. Beerbohm's literary judgments; and it may be so. But


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read the newspapers next morning with unusual interest and a mounting fury. "GANG LEADER FLEES" was the big, black headline on all of them. Beneath that was a chronicle of Johnny Lovo's abdication and departure and of the succession of Tony Camonte, a young, little known gangster to his place as commander of the mob. And all the papers carried an interview with Captain Flanagan, chief of detectives, in which he calmly assumed credit for having run Lovo out of the city. The captain also intimated in the interview that the Lovo mob had been so thoroughly harassed by the men in his department that it was completely disorganized and would soon be a thing of the past. The captain closed with a trite, high-sounding but really meaningless statement as to the inevitable triumph of law and order when properly administered and promised the people that he would continue to exert his utmost efforts to rid the city of gangs. It was easy to see where the papers had received their information; the temptation to

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 if literature means anything more than a cold calculation of the chances, if there is in it, as I believe, any deeper idea of detaching the spirit of life from the dull obstacles of life, of permitting human nature really to reveal itself as human, if (to put it shortly) literature has anything on earth to do with being interesting—then I think we would rather have a few more Marners than that rich maturity that gave us the analysed dustheaps of Daniel Deronda.

In her best novels there is real humour, of a cool sparkling sort; there is a strong sense of substantial character that has not yet degenerated into psychology; there is a great deal of wisdom, chiefly about women; indeed there is almost every element of literature except a certain indescribable thing called glamour; which was the whole stockin-trade of the Brontës, which we feel in Dickens when Quilp clambers amid rotten wood by the desolate river; and even in Thackeray when Esmond with his


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 eyes wanders like some swarthy crow about the dismal avenues of Castlewood. Of this quality (which some have called, but hastily, the essential of literature) George Eliot had not little but nothing. Her air is bright and intellectually even exciting; but it is like the air of a cloudless day on the parade at Brighton. She sees people clearly, but not through an atmosphere. And she can conjure up storms in the conscious, but not in the subconscious mind.

It is true (though the idea should not be exaggerated) that this deficiency was largely due to her being cut off from all those conceptions that had made the fiction of a Muse; the deep idea that there are really demons and angels behind men. Certainly the increasing atheism of her school spoilt her own particular imaginative talent: she was far less free when she thought like Ladislaw than when she thought like Casaubon. It also betrayed her on a matter specially requiring common sense; I mean sex. There is nothing that is so


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 false as rationalist flirtation. Each sex is trying to be both sexes at once; and the result is a confusion more untruthful than any conventions. This can easily be seen by comparing her with a greater woman who died before the beginning of our present problem. Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told) protected woman from truth, were burst by the Brontës or elaborately untied by George Eliot. Yet the fact remains that Jane Austen knew much more about men than either of them. Jane Austen may have been protected from truth: but it was precious little of truth that was protected from her. When Darcy, in finally confessing his faults, says, "I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice though not in theory," he gets nearer to a complete confession of the intelligent male than ever was even hinted by the Byronic lapses of the Brontës' heroes or the elaborate exculpations of George Eliot's. Jane Austen, of course, covered an infinitely smaller field than any


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 of her later rivals; but I have always believed in the victory of small nationalities.

The Brontës suggest themselves here; because their superficial qualities, the qualities that can be seized upon in satire, were in this an exaggeration of what was, in George Eliot, hardly more than an omission. There was perhaps a time when Mr. Rawjester was more widely known than Mr. Rochester. And certainly Mr. Rochester (to adopt the diction of that other eminent country gentleman, Mr. Darcy) was simply individualistic not only in practice, but in theory. Now any one may be so in practice: but a man who is simply individualistic in theory must merely be an ass. Undoubtedly the Brontés exposed themselves to some misunderstanding by thus perpetually making the masculine creature much more masculine than he wants to be. Thackeray (a man of strong though sleepy virility) asked in his exquisite plaintive way: "Why do our lady novelists make the men bully the women?" It is, I think,


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 ooner perceived, than the Softnes of her Sex prevailed over her Rage, and he preently diolved in Tears, which oon after concluded in a Fit.

That mall Share of Sene which Mr. Partridge had hitherto preerved, through this Scene of Fury, of the Caue of which he was hitherto ignorant, now utterly abandoned him. He ran intantly into the Street, hollowing out, that his Wife was in the Agonies of Death, and beeeching the Neighbours to fly with the utmot Hate to her Aitance. Several good Women obeyed his Summons, who entering his Houe, and applying the uual Remedies on uch Occaions, Mrs. Partridge was, at length, to the great Joy of her Huband, brought to herelf.

As oon as he had a little recollected her Spirits, and omewhat compoed herelf with a Cordial, he began to inform the Company of the manifold Injuries he had received from her Huband; who, he aid, was not contented to injure her in her Bed; but, upon her upbraiding him with it, had treated her in the cruelet Manner imaginable; had tore her Cap and Hair from her Head, and her Stays from her Body, giving her, at


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 the ame Time, everal Blows, the Marks of which he hould carry to the Grave.

The poor Man, who bore on his Face many more viible Marks of the Indignation of his Wife, tood in ilent Atonihment at this Accuation; which the Reader will, I believe, bear Witnes for him, had greatly exceeded the Truth; for indeed he had not truck her once; and this Silence being interpreted to be a Confeion of the Charge, by the whole Court, they all began at once, una voce, to rebuke and revile him, repeating often, that none but a Coward ever truck a Woman.

Mr. Partridge bore all this patiently; but when his Wife appealed to the Blood on her Face, as an Evidence of his Barbarity, he could not help laying Claim to his own Blood, for o it really was; as he thought it very unnatural, that this hould rie up (as we are taught that of a murdered Peron often doth) in Vengeance againt him.

To this the Women made no other Anwer, than that it was Pity it had not come from his Heart, intead of his Face; all declaring, that if their Hubands hould lift their Hands againt them, they would


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Talk:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hodges, William (1744-1797)

William Hodges Art
Is there anyway to find the name of a Cherokee Indian painted by William Hodges. It is predominantly shown to be John (Kunokeski) "Young Tassel" Watts 1753–1808, one of my ancestors? I’d like to know if it truly is him and if not I’d like other family members to know. Any help is appreciated. I don’t see a way to add the image but it can be seen here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/159700208/john-watts Tassel33 (talk) 02:51, 7 March 2024 (UTC)


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 a day's journey from here, but the sun was hot and I grew tried." His remark certainly did not convey much information to us, but before an hour had elapsed we set out, guided only by the forest, which could be seen far away in the distance. Hour after hour passed until at last evening came, and even then we were only entering upon the fringe of the great forest which rose before us, and seemed to shut out the sky as we wandered into the thickness of the undergrowth and gazed up at the lofty tops of the trees which bent each other's branches as they interlaced one with another.

We stopped at last to rest and to refresh ourselves, after which we reclined upon the ground, facing a wide clearing the forest, where we laid talking idly for some time, until the voice of Hassan warned us that someone was approaching. We listened attentively for a minute, but no sound could be heard by us save that of the fluttering of the wings og some bird among the branches above.

"You heard nothing, Hassan," said Denviers, "or else you mistook the rustling above for someone wandering in the forest glade." The Arab turned to my companion and then responded:—

"Hassan has long been accustomed to distinguish different sounds from a distance; the one which was heard a minute ago was caused by a human foot." He pointed to a tangled clump a little to the right of us, as he continued:—

"Listen, sahibs, for the sound of footsteps is surely drawing near. From yonder thicket the wanderer will doubtless emerge." Presently a sound fell upon our ears, a moment afterwards we heard the crackling of dead twigs as if someone was passing over then.

"The feet of the one who is approaching us are uncovered," volunteered our guide, whose keen sense of hearing was vastly superior to our own, and its accuracy was again proved fully, for, pushing aside the undergrowth which hindered his path, there stepped out upon the level track before us a singularly well-formed being, whose whole appearance was that of a man in his primitive, savage state. He was fully six feet in height, and wonderfully erect, his nut-brown skin forming a warm setting for the rich, dark eyes which so distinguish Eastern races. His black hair clustered thickly above his forehead, on which we observed a circular spot, crimson in colour, and much resembling the pottu which Shiva women daily paint above their brows as a religious emblem. As Hassan had already said, the man's feet were bare of covering, while the single garment which he wore was a brightly spotted panther skin, which passed over the left shoulder to the right side, and then hung down carelessly to the knees. In one hand he carried a stout bow, and the band which crossed his body over the right shoulder supported a quiver which hung gracefully behind. A savage, and in such a rude garb, the man seemed almost grand in his very simplicity.

"A Dhah!" exxlaimed Hassan, quietly.


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 have their Heart’s Bloods out of their Bodies.

After much Admonition for what was pat, and much good Advice to Mr. Partridge for his future Behaviour, the Company, at length, departed, and left the Huband and Wife to a peronal Conference together, in which Mr. Partridge oon learned the Caue of all his Sufferings.  Containing much Matter to exercie the Judgment and Reflection of the Reader.

Believe it is a true Obervation, that few Secrets are divulged to one Peron only; but certainly, it would be next to a Miracle, that a Fact of this Kind hould be known to a whole Parih, and not tranpire any farther.

And, indeed, a very few Days had pat, before the Country, to ue a common Phrae, rung of the Schoolmater of Little Baddington; who was aid to have beaten his Wife in the mot cruel Manner. Nay, in ome Places, it was reported he had mur-


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 dered her; in others, that he had broke her Arms; in others, her Legs; in hort, there was carce an Injury which can be done to a human Creature, but what Mrs. Partridge was omewhere or other affirmed to have received from her Huband.

The Caue of this Quarrel was likewie variouly reported; for, as ome People aid that Mrs. Partridge had caught her Huband in Bed with his Maid, o many other Reaons, of a very different Kind, went abroad. Nay, ome transferred the Guilt to the Wife, and the Jealouy to the Huband.

Mrs. Wilkins had long ago heard of this Quarrel; but, as a different Caue from the true one had reached her Ears, he thought proper to conceal it; and the rather, perhaps, as the Blame was univerally laid on Mr. Partridge; and his Wife, when he was Servant to Mr. Allworthy, had in omething offended Mrs. Wilkins, who was not of a very forgiving Temper.

But Mrs. Wilkins, whoe Eyes could ee Objects at a Ditance, and who could very well look forward a few Years into Futurity, had perceived a trong Likelihood of Cap


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 tain Blifil’s being hereafter her Mater; and, as he plainly dicerned, that the Captain bore no great Good-will to the little Foundling, he fancied it would be rendering him an agreeable Service, if he could make any Dicoveries that might leen the Affection which Mr. Allworthy eemed to have contracted for this Child, and which gave viible Uneaines to the Captain; who could not entirely conceal it even before Allworthy himelf; though his Wife, who acted her Part much better in public, frequently recommended to him her own Example, of conniving at the Folly of her Brother, which, he aid, he at leat as well perceived, and as much reented as any other poibly could.

Mrs. Wilkins having therefore, by Accident, gotten a true Scent of the above Story, though long after it had happened, failed not to atisfy herelf thoroughly of all the Particulars, and then acquainted the Captain, that he had at lat dicovered the true Father of the little Batard, which he was orry, he faid, to ee her Mater loe his Reputation in the Country, by taking o much Notice of.


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 The Captain chid her for the Concluion of her Speech, as an improper Aurance in judging of her Mater’s Actions: For if his Honour, or his Undertanding, would have uffered the Captain to make an Alliance with Mrs. Wilkins, his Pride would by no means have admitted it. And, to ay the Truth, there is no Conduct les politic, than to enter into any Confederacy with your Friend’s Servants, againt their Mater. For, by thee Means, you afterwards become the Slave of thee very Servants; by whom you are contantly liable to be betrayed. And this Conideration, perhaps, it was which prevented Captain Blifilfrom being more explicite with Mrs. Wilkins; or from encouraging the Abue which he had betowed on Allworthy.

But though he declared no Satisfaction to Mrs. Wilkins at this Dicovery, he enjoyed not a little from it in his own Mind, and reolved to make the bet Ue of it he was able.

He kept this Matter a long Time concealed within his own Breat, in Hopes that Mr. Allworthy might hear it from ome other


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 like views. "As for the talk," said he, "about modest merit being neglected, it is too often a cant, by which indolent and irresolute men seek to lay their want of success at the door of the public. Modest merit is, however, too apt to be inactive, or negligent, or uninstructed merit. Well matured and well disciplined talent is always sure of a market, provided it exerts itself; but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought for. There is a good deal of cant, too, about the success of forward and impudent men, while men of retiring worth are passed over with neglect. But it usually happens that those forward men have that valuable quality of promptness and activity without which worth is a mere inoperative property. A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion."

Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, and despatch are the principal qualities required for the efficient conduct of business of any sort. These, at first sight, may appear to be small matters; and yet they are of essential importance to human happiness, well-being, and usefulness. They are little things, it is true; but human life is made up of comparative trifles. It is the repetition of little acts which constitute not only the sum of human character, but which determine the character of nations. And where men or nations have broken down, it will almost invariably be found that neglect of little things was the rock on which they split. Every human being has duties to be performed, and, therefore, has need of cultivating the capacity for doing them; whether the sphere of action be the management of a household, the conduct of a trade or profession, or the government of a nation.


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 Peron; but Mrs. Wilkins, whether he reented the Captain’s Behaviour, or whether his Cunning was beyond her, and he feared the Dicovery might dipleae him, never afterwards opened her Lips about the Matter.

I have thought it omewhat trange, upon Reflection, that the Houe-keeper never acquainted Mrs. Blifil with this News, as Women are more inclined to communicate all Pieces of Intelligence to their own Sex, than to ours. The only Way, as it appears to me, of olving this Difficulty, is, by imputing it to that Ditance which was now grown between the Lady and the Houe-keeper: Whether this aroe from a Jealouy in Mrs. Blifil, that Wilkins hewed too great a Repect to the Foundling; for while he was endeavouring to ruin the little Infant, in order to ingratiate herelf with the Captain, he was every Day more and more commending it before Allworthy, as his Fondnes for it every Day encreaed. This, notwithtanding all the Care he took at other Times to expres the direct contrary to Mrs. Blifil, perhaps offended that delicate Lady, who certainly now hated Mrs. Wilkins; and though he did not, or


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 the promoter explained how greatly his lordship had changed, they unanimously appointed him chairman. It was passingly suggested that his lordship's growing evil reputation might prejudice the concern in the eyes of the public; but the promoter, who knew the public well, reassuringly explained that investors were so hopelessly idiotic that a board composed entirely of burglars would not prevent their investing so long as the prospectus contamned sufficiently impossible promises of profit; so the ghost of Lord Pimblekin officiated as chairman and assisted in causing several suicides.

Then the night came for the cracking of his own crib, and he continued to give vent to a succession of boisterous chuckles very one of which nearly killed him; only a ghost is a difficult thing to kill. Arrived at his palatial suburban residence, he directed the burglars to the outhouse where the ladders were kept; and the three first ascended to her ladyship's dressing-room where the jewels were. The door between the dressing-room and her ladyship's bedroom being open, the ghost undertook to stand over her with a phantom bludgeon to prevent any noise in the event of her waking. She woke, stared at his lordship, looked at the burglars at work at her bureau, gazed once more at the ghost with a look which froze him, murmured "Peter," and sank back with closed eyes.

Half mad with misery, the ghost directed the burglars to the plate and other valuables, and then looked on chuckling while they tore the silk curtains, jumped on her ladyship's favourite violin, ripped the carpet with a clasp-knife, cut the throat of the pug, and twisted the necks of the canaries and linnets and doves.

Then they left quietly; and, as the ghost followed them out, he was conscious of an immaterial form similar to his own standing at his side. "Come with me," said the form; and they whirled through space until they arrived in the same court in which sentence had been passed upon him. The three Mahatmas were still sitting on the bench, and the chief Mahatma said:—

"Prisoner, your case is one of the worst which it has ever been our painful task to pass sentence upon. Your reckless disregard of what you recognised as your duty and of the consequences of your misdemeanours on the bench render mercy in your case entirely out of place. It is our duty to give you the benefit of the full seven thousand years to which you have been sentenced; we will, however, release you on your own recognisances and allow you to return to earthly existence and again fill your former judicial sphere, with a view to observing how you go on for the future. You will be bound over to come up for judgment if called upon."

Instantly our judge found himself in the flesh once more, and robing for his accustomed seat on the bench. His reappearance caused great surprise, as his evil reputation was now public property and the authorities had removed his cenotaph from Westminster Abbey and sold it to a rag-shop.

However, as it is impossible to remove a judge from the bench even if he murders the Queen, the Royal Family, and the Bench of Bishops, steals the watches of the whole Houses of Lords and Commons, and even defrauds the Inland Revenue, Lord Justice Pimblekin was allowed to remain on the bench: and, as he was a socially influential person, bygones were allowed to be bygones.

But he was a reformed judge. He did his duty, and gave irredeemable criminals what they deserved; fraudulent company directors got the cat, and diseased meat purveyors a lifer, until there was hardly any crime left. Lord Justice Pimblekin's twin brother and wife recovered, and forgave him; and his lordship has not been called up for judgment yet.


text: Index:The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.pdf


text: Page:The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.pdf/5


text:
Page:The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.pdf/2

 THE PICTORIAL KEY TO THE TAROT


text:
Author:Arthur Tysilio Johnson

Works

 * In the land of the beautiful trout (1907)
 * California; an Englishman's impressions of the Golden state (1913)

title: Author:Arthur Tysilio Johnson


text:
Page talk:Poems Osgood.djvu/93

Format
There should be a space between the italic sub-heading and the actual poem, but I don't see how to do that with this template. -- Beardo (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Currently manually adding dhr at the beginning of the text if there was a quote. I might put it in the template, but it would make two dhrs in pages I've already done. I think I'll switch the module to lua and add dhr at the beginning of if  exists and  doesnt already start by a dhr. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 06:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅, normally now it adjusts spacing — Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 07:31, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Page talk:Poems Osgood.djvu/93


text: Poems (Osgood)/Love's Mistake

title: Poems (Osgood)/Love's Mistake


text: Poems (Osgood)/To a Dear Little Truant

title: Poems (Osgood)/To a Dear Little Truant


text: Poems (Osgood)/Lulu

title: Poems (Osgood)/Lulu


text: Poems (Osgood)/A Reply to one who said, "Write from your Heart"


text: Poems (Osgood)/To My Mother

title: Poems (Osgood)/To My Mother


text: Poems (Osgood)/The Broken Lyre

title: Poems (Osgood)/The Broken Lyre


text:
Author:Sean Eric Richey

Works

 * "Sexism, racism, and nationalism: Factors associated with the 2016 U.S. presidential election results?" (editor) (2020)

title: Author:Sean Eric Richey


text:
Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/325

 communicates in some modified form to the men of the Church. The analogy is complete.

It is interesting to observe with what frequency clouds are mentioned in the Word in connection with Divine things, and to notice that in all cases they are symbols of that obscurity with which spiritual light is presented in the letter of revelation. The psalmist says, "Sing unto God . . . that rideth upon the heavens;" He "maketh the clouds His chariots:" His "truth reacheth unto the clouds." The prophet, also, says, "The Lord rideth upon a swift cloud." Evidently, in those cases, by clouds are not meant physical vapours, but those literal statements of the Divine Word in which spiritual things are expressed by natural terms. The Lord is said to ride upon those clouds and to make them His chariots, because they are the mediums by which He comes down to convey spiritual light to men. His faithfulness is said to reach unto the clouds, because the fidelity of the Divine character is declared in the letter of the Word. The letter presents conflicting statements concerning the Lord, and therefore it is said that clouds are round about Him. His strength is said to be in the clouds, because the power of Divine teaching is in the letter of the Word, the strength of pure truth must lie in its appropriate utterance. It is by


text:
Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/700

660

Herbs, either terrestrial and tuberous-rooted, with annual herbaceous stems; or epiphytes with creeping rhizomes emitting fibrous or fleshy roots and bearing simple or branched leafy stems often thickened into pseudobulbs. Flowers hermaphrodite, solitary or in spikes or racemes or panicles, often large and showy. Perianth superior, irregular, of 6 free or more or less combined segments, in 2 series; the 3 outer (sepals) all similar or the dorsal one larger and more concave than the 2 lateral which are always alike; the 3 inner (petals) always dissimilar (except in Thelymitra), the 2 lateral alike, but the third (called the lip, or labellum) usually exceedingly different, often spurred, lobed, fringed, or furnished with glands or other appendages. Stamens and style confluent into a fleshy variously shaped central body facing the lip, called the column; anther usually solitary (2 in Cypripedium), placed on the front, top, or back of the column, and either free or adnate to it, persistent or deciduous, usually 2-celled; pollen granular or waxy, usually cohering in each cell into 1, 2, or 4 pairs of pollen-masses (pollinia), which are either free or attached, directly or by a caudicle, to a gland on the apex of the stigma (rostellum). Ovary inferior, 1-celled; ovules numerous, on 3 parietal placentas; stigma a viscid depression towards the top or on the front of the column, below the anther, facing the lip, upper margin often produced into a beak or point called the rostellum. Fruit a 1-celled 3-valved capsule; seeds numerous, very minute; testa loose, reticulate; albumen wanting; embryo solid, fleshy.


text:
Page:Brewster's millions (IA brewstersmillion00greaiala).pdf/61

 A fortnight later Montgomery Brewster had a new home. In strict obedience to his chief's command, "Nopper" Harrison had leased until the September following one of the most expensive apartments to be found in New York City. The rental was $23,000, and the shrewd financial representative had saved $1,000 for his employer by paying the sum in advance. But when he reported this bit of economy to Mr. Brewster he was surprised that it brought forth a frown. "I never saw a man who had less sense about money," muttered "Nopper" to himself. "Why, he spends it like a Chicago millionaire trying to get into New York society. If it were not for the rest of us he'd be a pauper in six months."

Paul Pettingill, to his own intense surprise and, it must be said, consternation, was engaged to redecorate certain rooms according to a plan suggested by the tenant. The rising young artist, in a great flurry of excitement, agreed to do the work for $500, and then


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Rh


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 blushed like a schoolgirl when he was informed by the practical Brewster that the paints and material for one room alone would cost twice as much.

"Petty, you have no more idea of business than a goat," criticised Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession. "That man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work with more intelligence than you reveal. I'll pay $2,500. It's only a fair price, and I can't afford anything cheap in this place."

"At this rate you won't be able to afford anything," said Pettingill to himself.

And so it was that Pettingill and a corps of decorators soon turned the rooms into a confusion of scaffoldings and paint buckets, out of which in the end emerged something very distinguished. No one had ever thought Pettingill deficient in ideas, and this was his opportunity. The only drawback was the time limit which Brewster so remorselessly fixed. Without that he felt that he could have done something splendid in the way of decorative panels—something that would make even the glory of Puvis de Chavannes turn pallid. With it he was obliged to curb his turbulent ideas, and he decided that a rich simplicity was the proper note. The result was gorgeous, but


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662


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 not too gorgeous,—it had depth and distinction.

Elated and eager, he assisted Brewster in selecting furniture and hangings for each room, but he did not know that his employer was making conditional purchases of everything. Mr. Brewster had agreements with all the dealers to the effect that they were to buy everything back at a fair price, if he desired to give up his establishment within a year. He adhered to this rule in all cases that called for the purchase outright of substantial necessities. The bump of calculativeness in Monty Brewster's head was growing to abnormal proportions.

In retaining his rooms at Mrs. Gray's, he gave the flimsy but pathetic excuse that he wanted a place in which he might find occasional seasons of peace and quiet. When Mrs. Gray protested against this useless bit of extravagance, his grief was so obviously genuine that her heart was touched, and there was a deep, fervent joy in her soul. She loved this fair-faced boy, and tears of happiness came to her eyes when she was given this new proof of his loyalty and devotion. His rooms were kept for him just as if he had expected to occupy them every day and every night, not-


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 withstanding the luxurious apartments he was to maintain elsewhere. The Oliver Optic books still lay in the attic, all tattered and torn, but to Margaret the embodiment of prospective riches, promises of sweet hours to come. She knew Monty well enough to feel that he would not forget the dark little attic of old for all the splendors that might come with the new dispensation.

There was no little surprise when he sent out invitations for a large dinner. His grandfather had been dead less than a month, and society was somewhat scandalized by the plain symptoms of disrespect he was showing. No one had expected him to observe a prolonged season of mourning, but that he should disregard the formalities completely was rather shocking. Some of the older people, who had not long to live and who had heirs-apparent, openly denounced his heartlessness. It was not very gratifying to think of what might be in store for them if all memories were as short as Brewster's. Old Mrs. Ketchell changed her will, and two nephews were cut off entirely; a very modest and impecunious grandson of Joseph Garrity also was to sustain a severe change of fortune in the near future, if the cards spoke correctly. Judge Van Woort, who was not


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 expected to live through the night, got better immediately after hearing some one in the sick-room whisper that Montgomery Brewster was to give a big dinner. Naturally, the heirs-to-be condemned young Brewster in no uncertain terms.

Nevertheless, the dinner to be given by the grandson of old Edwin Peter Brewster was the talk of the town, and not one of the sixty invited guests could have been persuaded to miss it. Reports as to its magnificence were abroad long before the night set for the dinner. One of them had it that it was to cost $3,000 a plate. From that figure the legendary price receded to a mark as low as $500. Montgomery would have been only too glad to pay $3,000 or more, but some mysterious force conveyed to his mind a perfect portrait of Swearengen Jones in the act of putting down a large black mark against him, and he forbore.

"I wish I knew whether I had to abide by the New York or the Montana standard of extravagance," Brewster said to himself. "I wonder if he ever sees the New York papers."

Late each night the last of the grand old Brewster family went to his bedroom where, after dismissing his man, he settled down at his desk, with a pencil and a pad of paper.


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 Lighting the candles, which were more easily managed, he found, than lamps, and much more costly, he thoughtfully and religiously calculated the expenses for the day. "Nopper" Harrison and Elon Gardner had the receipts for all moneys spent, and Joe Bragdon was keeping an official report, but the "chief," as they called him, could not go to sleep until he was satisfied in his own mind that he was keeping up the average. For the first two weeks it had been easy—in fact, he seemed to have quite a comfortable lead in the race. He had spent almost $100,000 in the fortnight, but he realized that the greater part of it had gone into the yearly and not the daily expense-account. He kept a "profit and loss" entry in his little private ledger, but it was not like any other account of the kind in the world. What the ordinary merchant would have charged to "loss" he jotted down on the "profit" side, and he was continually looking for opportunities to swell the total.

Rawles, who had been his grandfather's butler since the day after he landed in New York, came over to the grandson's establishment, greatly to the wrath and confusion of the latter's Aunt Emmeline. The chef came from Paris and his name was Detuit. Ellis, the foot-


text:
Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/703

Dendrobium.]

Epiphytes. Stems long and branching, or short and simple and thick, sometimes reduced to pseudobulbs. Leaves coriaceous or fleshy, never plaited. Flowers often large and handsome, rarely small. Sepals nearly equal, the lateral ones dilated at the base, and obliquely adnate to the foot of the column, forming a short spur or pouch. Petals about as long as the upper sepal. Lip contracted at the base and adnate to the produced foot of the column, rarely clawed, usually 3-lobed; lateral lobes embracing the column or spreading; middle lobe broad or narrow, spreading or recurved; disc often lamellate. Column short, produced at the base, winged or angled or toothed at the top. Anther terminal, lid-like, 2-celled; pollinia 4, free, compressed, in collateral pairs in each cell.

1. D. Cunninghamii, ''Lindl. Bot. Reg.'' sub. t. 1756.—Stems usually much branched, slender, rigid, wiry, terete, polished, 1–4 ft. long; usually pendulous, but small specimens growing on rocks or in exposed places are often erect. Leaves numerous, distichous, alternate, ¾–2 in. long, ⅙–⅕ in. broad, linear-lanceolate, acute, rigid and coriaceous, striate and more or less conspicuously 3-nerved; sheaths truncate, grooved and transversely corrugated. Peduncles shorter or longer than the leaves, usually 1–3-flowered, rarely 3–6-flowered; pedicels slender; bracts short. Flowers ¾ in. diam., white and pink. Upper sepal oblong-lanceolate, acute; lateral rather larger, broader at the base. Petals about equalling the sepals, oblong, obtuse. Lip attached by a short claw to the foot of the column, 3-lobed; lateral lobes small, ascending; middle lobe spreading, large, almost as broad as long; margins undulate; disc with 4 or 5 thin lamellæ. Capsule oblong, ⅓ in. long.—''A. Cunn. Precur. n. 316; Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 240; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 262. D. biflorum, ''A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 167, t. 26 (not of Swartz)''. D. Lessonii, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xv. (1883) 326.

Epiphytes. Rhizome creeping, often matted, usually more or less clothed with scarious sheathing scales. Pseudobulbs sessile in the axils of the scales, each crowned with 1 or rarely 2 leaves.


text:
Author talk:Ernie Erdman

Personal Life
Does anyone have information to add about the personal life of Ernie Erdman? Maryarmmc (talk) 08:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Author talk:Ernie Erdman


text:
Page:Brewster's millions (IA brewstersmillion00greaiala).pdf/67

 man, also found a much better berth with Monty than he had had in the house on the avenue. Aunt Emmeline never forgave her nephew for these base and disturbing acts of treachery, as she called them.

One of Monty's most extraordinary financial feats grew out of the purchase of a $14,000 automobile. He blandly admitted to "Nopper" Harrison and the two secretaries that he intended to use it to practice with only, and that as soon as he learned how to run an "auto" as it should be run he expected to buy a good, sensible, durable machine for $7,000.

His staff officers frequently put their heads together to devise ways and means of curbing Monty's reckless extravagance. They were worried.

"He's like a sailor in port," protested Harrison. "Money is no object if he wants a thing, and—damn it—he seems to want everything he sees."

"It won't last long," Gardner said, reassuringly. "Like his namesake, Monte Cristo, the world is his just now and he wants to enjoy it."

"He wants to get rid of it, it seems to me."

Whenever they reproached Brewster about the matter he disarmed them by saying, "Now that I've got money I mean to give my friends


text:
User:Scil100(2)

Scil100 here - I no longer have the password for that account.

title: User:Scil100(2)


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 a good time. Just what you'd do if you were in my place. What's money for, anyway?"

"But this $3,000-a-plate dinner"

"I'm going to give a dozen of them, and even then I can't pay my just debts. For years I've been entertained at people's houses and have been taken cruising on their yachts. They have always been bully to me, and what have I ever done for them? Nothing. Now that I can afford it, I am going to return some of those favors and square myself. Doesn't it sound reasonable?"

And so preparations for Monty's dinner went on. In addition to what he called his "efficient corps of gentlemanly aids" he had secured the services of Mrs. Dan DeMille as "social mentor and utility chaperon." Mrs. DeMille was known in the papers as the leader of the fast younger married set. She was one of the cleverest and best-looking young women in town, and her husband was of those who did not have to be "invited too." Mr. DeMille lived at the club and visited his home. Some one said that he was so slow and his wife so fast that when she invited him to dinner he usually was two or three days late. Altogether Mrs. DeMille was a decided acquisition to Brewster's campaign committee. It


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 required just her touch to make his parties fun instead of funny.

It was on October 18th that the dinner was given. With the skill of a general Mrs. Dan had seated the guests in such a way that from the beginning things went off with zest. Colonel Drew took in Mrs. Valentine and his content was assured; Mr. Van Winkle and the beautiful Miss Valentine were side by side, and no one could say he looked unhappy; Mr. Cromwell went in with Mrs. Savage; and the same delicate tact—in some cases it was almost indelicate—was displayed in the disposition of other guests.

Somehow they had come with the expectation of being bored. Curiosity prompted them to accept, but it did not prevent the subsequent inevitable lassitude. Socially Monty Brewster had yet to make himself felt. He and his dinners were something to talk about, but they were accepted hesitatingly, haltingly. People wondered how he had secured the coöperation of Mrs. Dan, but then Mrs. Dan always did go in for a new toy. To her was inevitably attributed whatever success the dinner achieved. And it was no small measure. Yet there was nothing startling about the affair. Monty had decided to begin conserva-


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/U-Boat's Prisoner Swam Across Rhine


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/For War Fund Supervision


text: Clermont/Chapter 20

title: Clermont/Chapter 20


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Great Lakes Navy Station Enlarged


text: Clermont/Chapter 21

title: Clermont/Chapter 21


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/All Saved from the Saetia


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Says Germans Only Yearned for Peace


text: Clermont/Chapter 22

title: Clermont/Chapter 22


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Pershing Writes to Baby


text: Clermont/Chapter 23

title: Clermont/Chapter 23


text: Clermont/Chapter 24

title: Clermont/Chapter 24


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Want Building Ban Raised


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Reconstruction in Britain


text: Clermont/Chapter 25

title: Clermont/Chapter 25


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Serbs Sweep Northward


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Coal Output Drops More


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/War Fliers Get Medals


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Havana Labor Leaders Jailed


text: Clermont/Chapter 26

title: Clermont/Chapter 26


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/China Extends Loan


text: Clermont/Chapter 27

title: Clermont/Chapter 27


text: The New York Times/1918/11/11/Open Hut in Seward Park


text: Clermont/Chapter 28

title: Clermont/Chapter 28


text: Clermont/Chapter 29

title: Clermont/Chapter 29


text: Clermont/Chapter 30

title: Clermont/Chapter 30


text: Clermont/Chapter 31

title: Clermont/Chapter 31


text: Clermont/Chapter 32

title: Clermont/Chapter 32


text: Clermont/Chapter 33

title: Clermont/Chapter 33


text: Clermont/Chapter 34

title: Clermont/Chapter 34


text:
Module:Tpp

local p = {} local _ppoem = require("Module:Ppoem")._ppoem local getArgs = require("Module:Arguments").getArgs function p._tpp(args) local res = "" args.text = args.text or args[2] local notitle = false local notext = false if not args.text then notitle = true args.text = args[1] end if not args.text then notext = true end if not notitle then args.title = args.title or args[1] end args["end"] = args["end"] or args.e	args.start = args.start or args.st -- s used to be taken args.quote = args.quote or args.q	if args.title and args.title ~= "" then res = res .. ' ' .. args.title .. ' '	end if args.quote then args.text = args.quote .. "\n>><<\n" .. args.text end if args.text then local newArgs = {} for k, v in pairs(args) do			if not (k == "text" or k == "title" or k == 1 or k == "quote" or k == "q" or k == "e" or k == "s" or k == "size" or k == "st" or k == 2 or k == "start" or k == "end") then newArgs[k] = v -- pass on every other parameter (ppoem's got a lot of them) end end local poems = mw.text.split(args.text, "\n>><<\n", true) for k, v in pairs(poems) do			local paddingleft = 0 v = (v:gsub("%^>", "+2>")):gsub("+>", "+1>") local t = mw.text.split(v, "\n", true) newArgs.class = args.class or "" if k == 1 then newArgs.start = args.start else newArgs.start = nil newArgs.class = newArgs.class .. " wst-tpp-not-first-poem" end if k == #poems then newArgs["end"] = args["end"] else newArgs["end"] = nil end local parsed = {} for a, b in pairs(t) do				if b:sub(1, 1) == "+" and b:sub(3, 3) == ">" and tonumber(b:sub(2, 2)) and #parsed > tonumber(b:sub(2, 2)) then table.insert(parsed, ' ' .. parsed[#parsed-tonumber(b:sub(2, 2))+1] .. ' ' .. b:sub(4, #b)) elseif mw.ustring.find(b, "^_+$") then for i=1,#b-1,1 do						table.insert(parsed, ' ') end table.insert(parsed, "") elseif b:find('^;+') then local i, j = b:find('^;+') table.insert(parsed, '' .. b:sub(j+1, #b) .. " ") paddingleft = math.max(paddingleft, j)				elseif k == 1 and a == 1 and newArgs.start == nil and not (b:match("[><{}]") or b:match("''")) then -- very hacky, not doing it if there's already HTML/mw/ppoem formatting local _, firstletter = b:find("^[^%a]*") firstletter = (firstletter or 0) + 1 local _, enough = b:find("^.-%a.-%a.- ") enough = enough or #b table.insert(parsed, b:sub(1, firstletter-1) .. ' ' .. b:sub(firstletter, enough) .. ' ' .. b:sub(enough+1, #b)) else table.insert(parsed, b)				end end if paddingleft ~= 0 then if args.style then if args.style:find("padding%-left") then local oldpadding = mw.text.trim(mw.text.split(mw.text.split(args.style, "padding%-left *:")[2], ";")[1]) newArgs.style = args.style:gsub("padding%-left:.-;", "") .. ";padding-left:calc(" .. tostring(paddingleft) .. "em + " .. oldpadding .. ");" else newArgs.style = args.style .. ";padding-left:" .. tostring(paddingleft) .. "em;" end else newArgs.style = "padding-left:" .. tostring(paddingleft) .. "em;" end else newArgs.style = args.style end newArgs[1] = table.concat(parsed, "\n") if newArgs[1] ~= "" then res = res .. _ppoem(newArgs) end end end return res end function p.tpp(frame) local args = getArgs(frame) return p._tpp(args) end return p

title: Module:Tpp


text: Index:Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 (UKPGA 1968-2 qp).pdf


text:
Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 8).djvu/653

HERE is nothing peculiarly malignant in the appearance of a pair of "ski." They are two slips of elm-wood, 8ft. long, 4in. broad, with a square heel, turned-up toes, and straps in the centre to secure your feet. No one to look at them would guess at the possibilities which lurk in them. But you put them on, and you turn with a smile to see whether your friends are looking at you, and then the next moment you are boring your head madly into a snow-bank, and kicking frantically with both feet, and half rising only to butt viciously into that snow-bank again, and your friends are getting more entertainment. than they had ever thought you capable of giving.

This is when you are beginning. You naturally expect trouble then, and you are not likely to be disappointed. But as you get on a little the thing becomes more irritating. The "ski" are the most capricious things upon earth. One day you cannot go wrong with them. On another, with the same weather and the same snow, you cannot go right. And it is when you least expect it that things begin to happen. You stand on the crown of a slope and you adjust your body for a rapid slide, but your "ski" stick motionless, and over you go upon your face. Or you stand upon a plateau which seems to you to be as level as a billiard-table, and in an instant, without cause or warning, away they shoot, and you are left behind staring at the sky. For a man who suffers from too much dignity, a course of Norwegian snow-shoes would have a fine moral effect.

Whenever you brace yourself for a fall it never comes off. Whenever you think yourself absolutely secure it is all over with you. You come to a hard ice slope at an angle of 75deg. and you zig-zag up it, digging the side of your "ski" into it, and feeling that if a mosquito settles upon you you are gone. But nothing ever happens, and you reach the top in safety. Then you stop upon the level to congratulate your companion, and you have just time to say, "What a lovely view is this!" when you find yourself standing on your two shoulder-blades, with your "ski" tied tightly round your neck. Or, again, you may have had a long outing without any misfortune at all, and as you shuffle back along the road, you stop for an instant to tell a group in the hotel veranda how well you are getting on. Something happens and they suddenly find that their congratulations are addressed to the soles of your "ski." Then, if your mouth is not full of snow, you find yourself muttering the names of a few Swiss villages to relieve your feelings. "Ragatz!" is a very handy word, and may save a scandal.

But all this is in the early stage of "ski"-ing. You have to shuffle along the level, to zig-zag or move crab fashion up the hills, to slide down without losing your balance, and, above all, to turn with facility. The first time you try to turn, your friends think it is part of your fun. The great "ski" flapping in the air has the queerest appearance, like an exaggerated nigger dance. But this sudden whish round Vol. viii.—87.