In this issue: Etext avail: conclusion of Meade's _Brotherhood of the seven kings_ Re: Winter Solstice Ring Out, Solstice Bells Happy Christmas from the antipodes Today in History - December 27, 1999 A little anti-war screed Generalship and Sunday Schools Re: Generalship and Sunday Schools Gaslight themesong: 'Net is slow, 'Net is slow, 'Net is slow CHAT: unreliable folklore Re: CHAT: unreliable folklore Calendar Tidbit Another Robert Eustace collaboration -----------------------------THE POSTS----------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 07:37:45 -0700 From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA Subject: Etext avail: conclusion of Meade's _Brotherhood of the seven kings_ THE mysterious disappearance of Mme. Koluchy was now the universal topic of conversation. Her house was deserted, her numerous satellites were not to be found. The woman herself had gone as it were from the face of the earth. Nearly every detective in London was engaged in her pursuit. Scotland Yard had never been more agog with excitement; but day after day passed, and there was not the most remote tidings of her capture. No clue to her whereabouts could be obtained. That she was alive was certain, however, and my apprehensions never slumbered. I began to see that cruel face in my dreams, and whether I went abroad or whether I stayed at home, it equally haunted me. A few days before Christmas I had a visit from Dufrayer. He found me pacing up and down my laboratory. "What is the matter?" he said. "The old story," I answered. He shook his head. "This won't do, Norman; you must turn your attention to something else." "That is impossible," I replied, raising haggard eyes to his face. He came up and laid his hand on my shoulder. "You want change, Head, and you must have it. I have come in the nick of time with an invitation which ought to suit us both. We have been asked down to Rokesby Rectory to spend Christmas with my old friend, the rector. You have often heard me talk of William Sherwood. He is one of the best fellows I know. Shall I accept the invitation for us both?" (meademen.htm#bro7k) (Fiction, Chronos, Scheds) Meade and Eustace's _The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings _ (1899) Here is the Christmas conclusion to this outlandish serial of the grand femme fatale, Mme. Koluchy. We will begin discussing it on the Monday after Christmas, 99-dec-27. To retrieve all the plain ASCII files send to: ftpmail(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA with no subject heading and completely in lowercase: open aftp.mtroyal.ab.ca cd /gaslight get bro7kX10.srl The previous chapters are available as: get bro7kX01.srl get bro7kX02.srl get bro7kX03.srl get bro7kX04.srl get bro7kX05.srl get bro7kX06.srl get bro7kX07.srl get bro7kX08.srl get bro7kX09.srl or visit the Gaslight website at: http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/meademen.htm#bro7k Stephen D mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 08:24:19 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)alice.gloaming.com> Subject: Re: Winter Solstice >I can report that from a point in Northern Virginia it looks to my >(poor) eyes very bright. As it did in the country of Arizona, out of the city and behind the mountains. For once it looked like an orb foating in the sky instead of a face, too. >The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea > In a beautiful pea-green boat One wonders if they pased Winken, Blynken and Nod in their boat of stars? >They danced by the light of the moon, > The moon, > The moon, > They danced by the light of the moon And lest we forget the cow that jumped over that moon? Happy holidays to all, still to come: Christmas, St. Stephens day (don't forget to sing about the wren), Boxing day, my personal favorite "Hogmanay" (who'll be Bess at your house?), New Years and beyond. Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 12:09:18 -0800 From: Alan Gullette <alang(at)creative.net> Subject: Ring Out, Solstice Bells In hopes of adding to the holiday cheer, though in pagan mode, here's a Solstice song lyric by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, from the album "Songs from the Wood" (progressive English [folk] rock at its best!) Ring Out, Solstice Bells Now is the solstice of the year. Winter is the glad song that you hear. Seven maids move in seven time. Have the lads up ready in the line. Ring out these bells. Ring out, ring Solstice Bells. Ring, Solstice Bells. Join together 'neath the Mistle-toe. By the Holly oak where-on it grows. Seven Druids dance in seven time. Sing the song the Bells call loudly chime. Ring out these bells. Ring out, ring Solstice Bells. Ring, Solstice Bells. Ring out. Ring out the Solstice Bells. Ring out. Ring out the Solstice Bells. Praise be to the distant sister Sun. Joyful as the silver planets run. Seven maids move in seven time. Sing the song the Bells call loudly chime. Ring out those bells. Ring out, ring Solstice Bells. Ring, Solstice Bells. Ring out! Ring out! Ring out! Ring out!
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Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 19:15:11 +1100 From: Lucy Sussex <lsussex(at)netspace.net.au> Subject: Happy Christmas from the antipodes Happy Christmas from an Australian summer, where it is raining and we are picking ripe apricots. I am sorry to take so long to reply to the PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK thread. As far as I know the missing chapter of the novel (which was excised during the editorial process) has not been published with the original text. It appeared separately in the mid-1980s, from HarperCollins Australia, with a commentary from Yvonne Rousseau, author of THE MURDERS AT HANGING ROCK. Whether it appears with the novel text is another matter. Joan Lindsay bequeathed the copyright of the lost chapter to John Taylor, and any reprint would involve his permission. It would be a good idea to do a reprint of text plus extra chapter in conjunction with the Weir director's cut of the film. Whether any publisher has the nous to do it is another matter. Lucy Sussex (whose Grandmother (b. 1876) used to swear she could remember the Hanging Rock disappearances)
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Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 16:53:12 -0500 (EST) From: LoracLegid(at)aol.com Subject: Today in History - December 27, 1999 Radio City Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932. On December 27, 1900, Carry Nation brought her campaign against alcohol to Wichita, Kansas when she smashed the bar at the elegant Carey Hotel. Earlier that year, Nation abandoned the nonviolent agitation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in favor of direct action she called "hachetation." Since the Kansas Constitution prohibited alcohol, Nation argued that destroying saloons was an acceptable means of battling the state's flourishing liquor trade. Read more about these events on the American Memory page of the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html Here is an interesting calendar fact: The change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian involved the change of the simple rule for leap-years to the more complex one in which century years should only be leap-years if they were divisible by 400. For example, 1700,1800 and 1900 were not leap-years whereas 2000 will be. Carol Digel
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Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 16:16:41 -0600 From: James Rogers <jetan(at)ionet.net> Subject: A little anti-war screed I think that you can, with justice, argue that this has little place on a literary mailing list, but I was struck recently by hearing a "Civil War" author as ascribing the union attack by the 1st Minnesota division at Gettysburg to a piece of "audacious" stategy of the General and due to the "gallantry" of the soldiers. Well, it was audacious all right. The division in question is known in history for having incurred an 87% percent casualty rate (the figure belongs to the author) in this one attack - an attack which lasted approximately fifteen minutes. This put me in mind of Eisenhower's apocryphal comment when asked whether he thought Lee a better General than Grant; "I would have court-martialed them both". I had hoped that more sympathetic writers like Fussel, Keegan and Hemingway had put and end to this horrible conceit of "gallantry" when modern soldiers think in terms of terror and agony; lost limbs and balls. The idea that a contemporary writer can applaud a gambit that literally threw away an entire division simply stuns me. I had hoped that we had learned the folly of his sort of stuff at Ypres, but our armchair Generals in the alleged literate community seem to need their heroes. James, the annoyed
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Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 09:41:40 -0500 (EST) From: LoracLegid(at)aol.com Subject: Generalship and Sunday Schools The following is from Our Sunday School and How We Conduct It by Waldo Abbott with an introduction by John S.C. Abbott Boston Henry Hoyt No. 9, Cornhill (1863) The writer of this introduction is John S. C. Abbott, whose brother, Jacob Abbott has frequently appeared in these pages. The brothers Abbott grew up in southern Maine, attended Bowdoin College, and contributed to education -- particularly for women, and popular literature - much of it designed for children. In reading the following, which is full of (fairly apt, no doubt) comparisons of the Sunday School Superintendent's task with that of Napoleon in managing his armies, it is amusing to know that Abbott was taken to task because his 1855 biography of Napoleon was considered much too eulogistic. This Abbott, by the way, was in the Bowdoin class of 1825, along with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and George Barrell Cheever (for Cheever, see Issue #84: June 1, 1999: Fire and Hammer of God's Word Against Slavery). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacksonian Miscellanies, #86 Sept. 21, 1999 Generalship and Sunday Schools The Sabbath School has proved itself to be emphatically the nursery of the church. Wherever there is a well conducted Sabbath School with its system of Bible classes, there one invariably finds the organized church in a flourishing condition. There seems to be here developed almost as regular a progression of cause and effect, as in any of the works of nature. God shows himself as ready to co-operate, with his divine blessing, in this sowing of the seed and gathering in of the harvest of spiritual husbandry, as in any of the more material labors in which men may engage. The skillful superintendence of a Sabbath School is an art of difficult attainment. It is a gift rather than an art. As Horace said of the poet, the superintendent is born such, not made. Some men have the innate capacity to superintend affairs. With comprehensive grasp they can embrace the totality of the School, with all its diversified interests, while, at the same time, not the minutest details of duty can escape their eagle glance. With tact, which God has given, they move, amidst their multifarious duties, unembarrassed, instinctively deciding, in every emergency, just what is to be done. As Caesar chose his generals, always getting the right man for the right place, so they, by the unerring light of an inward consciousness, decide who shall take the infant class, who a class of refined and cultivated young ladies, and who shall tame a set of coarse, vulgar, unruly boys, and who shall guide the mature and thoughtful minds of Christian adults in the highest branches of theology. They know how to classify the pupils, so that congenial and harmonious characters shall be together. Not a ragged boy can peep in at the door of such a school but he finds himself lured to the very class to which he naturally belongs, and to the care of a teacher who will not allow him to slip from his grasp. If there is a teacher absent, the eye of such a superintendent instantly discerns the fact, and the defect is promptly rectified. Or rather, a skillful superintendent inspires his corps of teachers with such zeal, that almost never is a teacher absent from his post without providing a suitable supply. As the efficiency of an army depends mainly upon its general, so does the efficiency of a Sabbath School depend almost entirely upon its superintendent. The first thing to be done in organizing a Sabbath School is to get a good Superintendent. When Marshal Ney, in the retreat from Moscow, performed a wonderful feat of heroism, in which he rescued a division of the army from apparently inevitable destruction, Napoleon grasped him by the hand, exclaiming, "An army of deer, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions led by a deer." As an able general will inspire all his subordinate officers and soldiers with heroism, throwing, as it were his own enthusiastic spirit into their bosoms, so an efficient superintendent, by the energies of his own mind, can inspire a whole school with that ardor which glows and burns in his own heart. Fortunately the free institutions of our land, our noble system of common schools, and the elevating influence of labor, as combined in our manufactories, has developed, in every village of our country, men equal to these responsibilities. Any man who would make a good general, a good colonel of a regiment, a good superintendent of a factory, a good merchant having twenty clerks in his employ, possesses the intellectual qualifications requisite for a good superintendent. He needs only piety and zeal to fit him fully for the office. William Cowper, the poet, as superintendent of the Lee Avenue Sabbath School, in Brooklyn, with its two thousand pupils, would run that magnificent institution into remediless ruin in less than six weeks. But you might search Christendom in vain for a more admirable teacher than he for a Bible Class of refined and highly cultivated young ladies. The reformed and regenerated pugilist, fresh from the ale house and the prize ring, who has just learned to sing the songs of Zion, placed over such a class of young ladies, would drive them out of the church by the second Sabbath. But it is doubtful if one could find a more desirable teacher, for an untamed class of vagabond boys, from any of the streets of our great cities. Our Sabbath Schools are now attracting the attention and enlisting the energies of our ablest men. The future hope of the nation is greatly centering in these nurseries of piety. It is very important that the teachers, in these Sabbath schools, should be familiar with the plans adopted, and with the results of experiments in other schools. The writer of the following treatise has had facilities, such as few have enjoyed, to visit schools widely throughout our land, and particularly to study the organization and the routine of the most celebrated and successful Schools existing among us. The suggestions contained in this volume are so eminently practical, and have proved so successful in actual operation, and they cover so widely all the wants of the Sabbath School, that it may safely be asserted that the book will prove of great value wherever read. The thoughts which are here presented are not visionary theories. The book is founded on the Baconian philosophy, giving facts, and the results of actual experiments. All that is here suggested may not perhaps wisely be introduced into any one school. Each superintendent has his own peculiar characteristics, his own modes of action, and he cannot pursue any administrative policy in a line antagonistic to his own nature.. But he cannot fail to find, in these pages, so rich in the record of the results of the labors of others, much to animate him, and to suggest to him that variety of thoughts and plans essential to the success of the Sabbath School. The writer of this little treatise has, for some time, been the superintendent of a Sabbath School in New Haven, composed mainly of children from the most neglected classes in the community. In this school the principles contained in these pages, have been carried into action, with a degree of success which is quite wonderful, and which effectually invests this book with the character of a safe and practical guide. JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. New Haven, Conn., June, 1863. Copyright by the editor, Hal Morris, Hopatcong, NJ 1999. Permission is granted to copy, but not for sale, nor in multiple copies. Page images and uncorrected scanned text (with typical OCR typos) are available online as part of the Making of America Project. It can most conveniently be found by starting at The "Online Books Page" at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html. Some previous excerpts were taken from The Corner Stone: Issue #4: February 4, 1997 "School Days", and Issue #70: September 22, 1998 "Revival (In the Old Sense) at Amherst". Other material by Jacob Abbott appeared in: Issue #79: March 30, 1999 (Abbott's Gentle Advice to Teachers) Issue #80: April 13, 1999 (More Gentle Advice to Teachers) Issue #81: April 27, 1999 (Rollo Learns to Read) Jacksonian Miscellanies is a biweekly email newsletter presenting roughly chapter length documents from the United States' Jacksonian Era. It is free: send a message with subscribe jmisc as the subject line to hal(at)panix.com. To make a comment or query, send a separate message to the same address. Back issues of Jacksonian Miscellanies are at http://www.EarlyRepublic.net/jmisc. Carol Digel LoracLegid(at)aol.com www.focdarley.org
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Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 10:52:46 -0800 From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu> Subject: Re: Generalship and Sunday Schools Carol wrote: <<The writer of this introduction is John S. C. Abbott, whose brother, Jacob Abbott has frequently appeared in these pages. The brothers Abbott grew up in southern Maine, attended Bowdoin College, and contributed to education -- particularly for women, and popular literature - much of it designed for children.>> Carol, thanks for sending this to Gaslight! I've been reading Jacob Abbot's biography of _Josephine_, 1851 and I knew there was probably a connection to John S.C. Abbott, but was unfamiliar with the family. best regards, Patricia Teter
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Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2000 19:20:35 -0700 From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA Subject: Gaslight themesong: 'Net is slow, 'Net is slow, 'Net is slow Hello Gaslight listmembers, the Gaslight website and the discussion list has been shut down for the past few days. Mount Royal College, the host of Gaslight, took the precaution of verifying its Y2K preparedness before presenting its interactive computer files to the New Year. The email is now working again, and the website should be fully functional by tomorrow (Monday, 00-jan-03) The last year ended with some negative, fin-de-siecle stories of bad futuristic societies and destructive "new women". This year will begin with some stories typical of when the 20th Century was new; certainly, they will be more upbeat. Stephen D mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 02:22:23 -0700 From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA Subject: CHAT: unreliable folklore Persuant to our pre-Christmas discussion of lame folklore, I see it is possible to test one's knowledge of Internet rumours at the CNET site: http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Truth/index.html I didn't score very well. Stephen D mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 05:49:07 -0500 (EST) From: LoracLegid(at)aol.com Subject: Re: CHAT: unreliable folklore CINDERELLA by W.R.S. Ralston Yesterday I happened on an extraordinary article in an old journal. Having just ready Cashdans, The Witch Must Die, I dug right into it. Urban legends are really today's fairy tales. The article concludes with a legend about Pope Gregory the great, the calendar Pope, and precedes a marvelous article on DINNERS IN LITERATURE., page 31. Also see page 72 LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. To print from this series you must set your page set up to 50%. Well worth the trouble. Appletons' Journal: a magazine of general literature/vol. 8 iss. 1 January 1880, New York p 19-31 http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/ SEARCH: Cinderella <A HREF="http://www.hamiltonbook.com/titles/0/0/8/008877.html">THE WITCH MUST DIE: How Fairy Tales Shape Our L </A> http://www.hamiltonbook.com/titles/0/0/8/008877.html Carol Digel LoracLegid(at)aol.com www.focdarley.org
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Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 05:53:02 -0500 (EST) From: LoracLegid(at)aol.com Subject: Calendar Tidbit The change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian involved the change of the simple rule for leap-years to the more complex one in which century years should only be leap-years if they were divisible by 400. For example, 1700,1800 and 1900 were not leap-years whereas 2000 will be. Carol Digel
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Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 09:06:25 -0600 From: Chris Carlisle <CarlislC(at)psychiatry1.wustl.edu> Subject: Another Robert Eustace collaboration The LordPeter list is discussing The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace. This is a MUCH later novel, of course, but if you're a real Eustace fan, you might join us. You can join the list at www.onelist.com. Kiwi ------------------------------ End of Gaslight Digest V1 #125 ******************************