In this issue: Armistice Day Re: CHAT: Reading by Candlelight Re: CHAT: Reading by Candlelight Today in History - November 11 Today in History - Nov. 12 Rodin/Claudel (WAS: Today in History - Nov. 12) Re: Rodin/Claudel seasonal story? Re: Rodin/Claudel Re: Today in History - Nov. 12 Re: Re: Rodin/Claudel Re: seasonal story? Re: seasonal story? Etext avail: Waif Wander's "The white maniac" Today in History - Nov. 13 CHAT: Zebulon Pike (re: Today in History) Re: seasonal story? "The Sting of Conscience" Re: "The Sting of Conscience" Re: "The Sting of Conscience" Burns's "Frank Lloyd Wright" -----------------------------THE POSTS----------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 12:13:40 -0500 From: "Kevin J. Clement" <clementk(at)alink.com> Subject: Armistice Day Since this is the 80th anniversary of Armistice Day here are some related articles from the BBC site WWI Fallen remembered http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_211000/211976.stm 80th armistice anniversary live http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_210000/210280.stm World War I remembered http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/newsi d_197000/197437.stm Britain falls silent for the dead http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_212000/212285.stm These are all from http://news.bbc.co.uk/default.htm and are currently all available from the link above. Granted this is all from one British source but it's a good starting point. Check the right hand side of the webpages for related links. "We are going over the top this afternoon and only God in Heaven knows who will come out of it alive... We may move at any minute. When this reaches you for me there will be no more war, only eternal peace and waiting for you." Company Sergeant-Major James Milne (who survived the war and this letter was undelivered) July 20, 1918
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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:28:41 -0500 From: "Kevin J. Clement" <clementk(at)alink.com> Subject: Re: CHAT: Reading by Candlelight At 09:23 PM 11/10/98 -0500, Linda Anderson received this dream from Cthulhu in sunken R'yleh: >OOh, and missed buff Giles chasing Buffy's mom! dig that low class Brit >accent! yummy! <G> > >Linda Anderson > > > >At 09:12 PM 11/10/1998 -0500, you wrote: >>We're expecting the storm in Massachusetts tomorrow... >> >>I love reading by candlelight. Just glad it isn't here tonight. Would have >>missed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. >> >>lightly, >>phoebe Well the power came back on about 3am, for 5 minutes. Came back on around 6am and it's stayed on since. Wind's still howling though only at 20mph now, gusts of 30mph. (34-46kph) I plan to start on a book of Algernon Blackwood ghost stories tonight as well as catching up on Gaslight lists. Off topic bigtime: Ok, I missed Buffy, what episode was it? (rerun or new; I've been out of the loop for a while) I'm more of a Willow fan myself... Though I was quite moved last season when wotshername got killed by Angel. Poor Giles! Kevin Clement clementk(at)alink.com
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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 12:22:48 -0600 From: Marsha Valance <tributefarm(at)MIXCOM.COM> Subject: Re: CHAT: Reading by Candlelight Kevin, I was one of 60,000 in Milwaukee County to suffer an outage last night at 6:30pm--power didn't come back on until 8:45am this morning. We were having wind gusts of up to 70mph, with the main speed at 45mph, so my entire driveway and front yard were covered with branches from my willow this morning. I didn't think to read ghost stories--just continued reading John Ford's _Growing Up Weighless_. I found 6 candles is optimal for preventing eyestrain. Marsha [happy to have heat and light after our "Wisconsin hurricane"] in Milwaukee - ---------- > From: Kevin J. Clement <clementk(at)alink.com> > To: gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA > Subject: CHAT: Reading by Candlelight > Date: Tuesday, November 10, 1998 4:10 PM > > Welp, I'm using my old notebook to write this email, as my power went > out about half an hour ago. I'll be using this opportunity (sorry for any > spelling mistakes; little light to see by) to read some stories from a > Algernon Blackwood collection of ghost stories and a M.R. James book. I'll > try reading by candles and lamps. The wind is still blowing quite strong > outside and while the rain's subsided a bit, it's still raining hard enough. > Since I live outside of the main village I probably won't have power until > tommorow am, especially with other power outages in the area. Might be too > scary for reading Shirley Jackson, though I'll try that as well. > I'll let you know if I survive reading. ^_^ I can still email or browse > until my battery runs out or use the phone, but that's pretty much it, as > it'll be dark in about a half hour. (except try to read a bit) Well, I'd > better go feed the dog before it gets any darker out. Hope the rest of you > are doing ok today as this seems like one of the first big storms of the > season. (little early from what I hear; and about the same type of storm > that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald if you know about that) > Electric power's ok, but it's a major problem when it goes out. > > Kevin Clement > clementk(at)alink.com
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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:33:19 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - November 11
1831
Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is
hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.
1889
Washington becomes the 42nd state.
1909
Construction begins on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
1918
Germans sign armistice ending World War I.
1919
The first 2-minutes' silence is observed in Britain to
commemorate those who died in the
Great War.
1921
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is
dedicated.
Born on November 11
1821
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist who wrote The
Brothers Karamazov
1885
George Patton, U.S. Army commander in World War II
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 14:21:59 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - Nov. 12
1863
Confederate General James Longstreet arrives at Loudon,
Tennessee to assist the attack
on Union General Ambrose Burnside's troops at Knoxville.
1867
Mount Vesuvius erupts.
1903
The Lebaudy brothers of France set an air-travel distance
record of 34 miles in a dirigible.
Born on November 12
1815
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights reformer.
1840
Auguste Rodin, French sculptor who created The Kiss
1866
Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary who founded the Nationalist
Party
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 14:28:57 -0700
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: Rodin/Claudel (WAS: Today in History - Nov. 12)
> 1840
> Auguste Rodin, French sculptor who created The Kiss
This reminds me that we had decided at our house to watch the _Camille
Claudel_ movie that came out a few years ago. Has anyone else seen it?
Stephen
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:41:39 -0600 From: athan chilton <ayc(at)UIUC.EDU> Subject: Re: Rodin/Claudel >> 1840 > > Auguste Rodin, French sculptor who created The Kiss > > This reminds me that we had decided at our house to watch the _Camille >Claudel_ movie that came out a few years ago. Has anyone else seen it? > Some years back I saw a film about Rodin's life. I don't remember, though, who was in it, though I remember thinking it was good. If it's the same one you're talking about, I'd like to see it again. If you do watch it, please let the list know a synopsis or something--I'd probably recognize it if it's the one I saw... Athan (who once created a fictional character named Rodin du Baisser, and his son Rene de Baisser [reborn in the kiss])! ayc(at)uiuc.edu
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 16:38:46 -0700 (MST)
From: "p.h.wood" <woodph(at)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>
Subject: seasonal story?
As I have just finished the following short story, and it was written
between Oct 31 and Nov 11th, I thought Gaslighters with a few minutes to
spare, whether suffering from power-cuts or not, might be interested in
it. It's in ACSII format, and thus lacks some necessary typographical
signs for foreign-language words, for which I duly apologise.
Peter Wood
Chain of Command
A slow whistling noise and a bumping sensation beneath me were all I
needed to decide that the day's ride was over. I dismounted, leaned my
trusty bicycle against a convenient milestone, and sat down in the
hedgerow, looking at the familiar scenery. On the side nearest to me the
milestone read "A Albert 2KM". Maybe, I thought, there'll be a
blacksmith's shop there I can buy another box of patches; or even, if I'm
lucky, a "pneu a velocipede".
I got to my feet and set off, pushing the overloaded bike beside me. At
least the weather was holding up... I felt a cool breeze over my shoulder,
and realised I'd made a second mistake. A dark, unpleasant-looking cloud
with the promise of a rainstorm was rapidly drifting up from the West. I
accelerated from a stroll to a quick march, and unconsciously found myself
humming the regimental march. It seemed the right thing to do in the
surroundings.
Five minutes later I saw a gateway on the left beside me. The white French
road stretched away into the distance before dipping down towards the
river valley. The dark cloud was drawing ever closer. Beside the gateway
was a newly-painted sign. It read "Monastere de Saint-Sulpice a Albert".
A quick search of my guidebook confirmed that the monastery, rebuilt after
its total destruction in the War, accepted guests. A spot of rain splashed
in the dust beside me. I hesitated no longer, but turned off the road, and
made my way towards the newly-finished brick wall and the wooden door with
a an old iron knocker. I rapped firmly twice, and from within heard the
shuffle of sandalled feet. A small window opened in the door, and a cowled
face looked out. A voice I had not heard for ten years said in an
astonished tone "Bless me, it's Mr. Maitland! Come in, sir, come in! Wait
here, and I'll tell the abbot there's a visitor."
The door opened, and I stepped into the stone-flagged room. The walls were
a mixture of old stone and new brick with even newer plaster shining
whitely everywhere. I sat down on a plain wooden bench, and waited. as I
sat there, I wondered what had brought ex-corporal Baxter to this of all
places. For some reason, I could only think of the Volunteer.
The "Volunteer" - his name in the regimental records was "John Smith" -
was what we would call "unfinished business". He'd come with a draft of
conscripts under Lord Derby's scheme in 1916, just in time for Haig's Big
Push at the Somme. As the only volunteer amongst them, the name had been
given him as a distinguishing mark, I suppose, by some embittered N.C.O.
who looked back on the good old days when a County regiment like ours drew
its enrollment from a well-defined neighbourhood. That, of course, all
went by the board by the end of the war's second year. Now we took what we
could where we could get it, and thanked God if we weren't like the
outfits who'd replaced their establishments twice over already.
"Smith" was what you call a good soldier by the usual military standards.
His uniform, boots, and brasses were always spick-and-span, or at least,
as much as they can be in the trenches. His rifle was spotless; even the
RSM agreed on that. He himself was keen, willing, efficient but he
possessed one fault. He thought - by which I mean he used the intelligence
Nature has given us. Worse, he encouraged others to do the same by his
example. Worst of all, as far as some of the regiment were concerned, was
that he is right in his conclusions. If you believe, as some of us did,
that "A soldier's job is to obey orders without question" - and not only
must the questions be unspoken, but not even thought - he represented a
whole layer of bad apples in the barrel. And bad apples can only be dealt
with in one way; they must be got rid of without delay, lest they corrupt
everything they come in contact with.
The most outspoken advocate of this solution was his platoon lieutenant,
2/Lt. Charteris. Poor lad, he was very young, straight from public school,
and terrified of showing how scared he was, and so "Letting Mummy and
Daddy down". One day in the Mess he came up with the subject for the n-th
time. I was bored beyond description with his nonsense, and was having
great difficulty with a poem I hoped to complete for my publisher's
approval next time I was on leave in Town. His rabbity little voice
wouldn't let me think, so I assumed my best senior subaltern tone and said
frostily "I've never heard the man question one of my orders, Charteris.
Have you?"
The little idiot actually blushed, and muttered something into his
Kitchener moustache, which had about six inches of growth needed before it
would look anything like the original.
"Well?" I snapped. "have you?"
"No. Not really. It's just..."
"Just what, man?"
Charteris took a deep breath and blurted it out."It's the way he looks! He
says 'Yes, sir!' salutes, and does what I tell him, and all the time he
makes me feel like old Prodgers used to when I made a poor translation in
Virgil in the Third. As though I was an utter ass who couldn't put two
thoughts together in what I was pleased to call a brain. Damn it, I'm not
having it! Someone like that's, well, destroying all discipline!"
"You mean he's thinking about what you said?"
Charteris went red. "Maitland, if the men start thinking for themselves,
the next thing you know, they'll all turn Bolshevist!"
I looked across the table at him, interestedly.
"Charteris, are you by any chance saying that the result of having
intelligence is that it makes you become a Bolshevik? Because that surely
means that only stupid people vote Conservative."
Charteris went white, and stuttered "N-no, of course not, Maitland. I only
meant that the men should leave all the thinking to us. After all, we're
their officers, so it's up to us to do it for them."
The company commander, who'd long since given up listening to anything
said in the Mess except if he was offered a drink, came out of his
after-luncheon doze just in time to catch these last words. He couldn't
stand young Charteris either, so with a sardonic smile he leaned across
the table and remarked "Well, Mr. Charteris, remind me to pass those words
of wisdom on to the General the next time he inspects us. I'm sure he'll
be glad henceforward to leave the thinking in the capable hands of his
junior officers.
"Meanwhile, Mr. Charteris, I believe you're the Orderly Officer, and the
company latrines require your presence for their weekly inspection."
Charteris dashed out of the Mess, hastily pulling his Sam Browne belt
tight, and cramming his cap onto his head. The major sank back in his
chair, and went back to dreaming of afternoons on the Spey with his
favourite salmon rod. I managed to find a rhyme for "Bapaume". But
Charteris apparently wouldn't give up. If anything, it must have become an
obsession.
That night, after a very plain but extremely well-cooked dinner with the
monks as a guest at the Abbot's table, I went back to the guest-room. It
was small, plainly furnished, but there was a warm fire. As I sat waiting,
there was a knock on the door. I called "Come in!" and Baxter -
ex-corporal Baxter - entered. I offered him a chair, and asked how he had
come to be there; I must admit, of all the people I had thought I might
meet in France on this trip, he was the last. For some reason I knew what
he would say in reply.
"Well, sir, I suppose it was the Volunteer."
I offered him a glass of wine - the monastery bottled its own vintages,
and most considerately provided guests with a bottle for their use - and
listened as the story came out piece by piece.
I'd been seconded to Intelligence shortly after the above conversation,
owing to a youth mis-spent in learning languages, which someone at HQ must
have discovered. In consequence, I'd left the Regiment, and, as you might
say fortunately, had been interrogating high-ranking prisoners when the
went over the top on the first day of the Somme, and were a part of the
casualty-roll.
One of the dead had been, as you might expect, the Volunteer. Charteris
had clearly let the obsession grow to a mania, and homicidal mania at
that. According to Baxter, who'd been promoted to squad sergeant the month
before, Charteris had taken him aside one day, and raised the subject of
the Volunteer. Baxter had agreed that the man was a nuisance, though he
was a good soldier. He, too was unsettled by the way every order he gave
Smith seemed to be subjected to some kind of internal appraisal in the
fraction of a second before he obeyed it. Charteris hummed and hawed, and
finally asked Baxter if he thought Smith was a danger to the Regiment's
honour.
"I was beginning to get his drift, sir", he said "but I didn't like to say
it outright, so I said nothing at first, and then asked him if the Big
Push was next week. He looked a bit startled, and then seemed to catch on,
and said 'Yes, he'd heard it might be.' I said that I thought a fair
number of the Regiment might cop a Blighty or worse when it came off. He
looked at me sharpish, and said 'Yes, Sergeant, they might'.
"I laughed and said that 'Of course, we could spare some more than others,
couldn't we, sir?' He laughed a bit grimly and said 'Yes, we could.' So I
looked at him carefully, and said a bit off-hand 'Y'know, sir, it's hard
to tell who a bloke's been shot by when you go over the top like that. I
recall hearing about the ----shire's losing a sergeant before he'd gone
five yards into no-man's-land. Nobody regretted it, either; 'e was the
best-hated man in the sergeant's mess, they said.'"
"Mr. Charteris nodded, thoughtfully. I asked 'O'course, you carry your
revolver when you go over the top with us, don't you, sir?' He looked at
me again, and then said, more to himself than to me. 'Yes. That's it.' And
then 'Thank you, Sergeant. Carry on.' and went off."
I looked at Baxter, and asked "And did it happen that way?"
Baxter nodded. "Yes, sir, it did. Only it wasn't the way you'd expect.
Smith, 'e was the first man over the top. As we went into no-man's-land,
with the barrage rolling away ahead of us, I saw Mr. Charteris take aim
carefully, and shoot him in the back.
"So it wouldn't look odd, I went over to him and rolled him over, just as
Mr. Charteris gave a scream and fell over right beside us. I only took one
look at him, because there wasn't anything there from his right hip down,
and next minute he was a goner. I turned my head back to Smith as he
opened his eyes and looked at me. He gave a smile, and said quietly 'I
wondered which of you it would be'. And then he was gone, too."
After a pause, I said "And that was all?" Baxter shook his head.
"From then on, sir, I seemed to have a charmed life, as they say. Not even
a scratch, for the next two years. Then on the last day of the war, the
tenth of November it was, something odd happened to me.
"We'd been moved up North, and were in in a small village, where the
church had been partly destroyed. Things were pretty quiet in our sector,
and out of curiosity I goes into the church, just to think about things, I
suppose, with everyone knowing that in the next few days it'd all be over.
There was a painting of the crucifixion on the wall - o'course, I'm a
Catholic, so I went over to pay it my respects. Well, sir, something about
the face of Christ was familiar. I looked at it closely, and I realised it
was the face of Smith, the volunteer, just as I'd seen him as he died in
no-man's-land." He fell silent. At last I said "What happened then?"
He shrugged. The War ended, and he was demobilised. He couldn't settle to
anything in civilian life in England, and drifted back to France where he
tramped the roads, arriving one night at the rebuilt monastery near the
village of Albert. Here he was fed and sheltered, and became a lay brother
acting as the door-porter, and helping with the garden and odd jobs. And
there, I supposed, he was going to continue for the rest of his life.
Finally he took a deep breath, and summed up for my benefit.
"That chap Smith used to say that there was nothing wrong in being a
sheep, but being human meant that you were a sheep by your own choice."
"Yes?"
"Well, sir, me and the others, we wanted to be sheep without having to
make a choice. That way, it wasn't our fault when things went wrong, and
we got killed. You could always die swearing at old Haig, or the
Government, or Jerry, who'd done it to you. What he wanted you to do was
to accept that it was your own decision that had got you where you were.
And I wasn't going to do that, nor was Mr. Charteris. Smith told us we
could be men and think for ourselves. And we didn't see why we should have
to."
He fell silent, and I looked at him. After a while, I asked "Do you still
think that it was his face on that painting of Christ?"
He shook his head. "Oh yes."
"But surely that means he was right? If he was a reincarnation of Our
Lord..."
He smiled, and interrupted me. "Oh, no, sir. I told the whole story to the
Abbot here, and he gave a sad sort of smile, and said I'd seen a vision,
all right, but it was sent by the Devil. That's his message, that we can
follow or not as we choose. In the Church, you take orders from your
superiors, just as we did in the Army. Only heretics say they can think
for themselves. The chain of command, he said to me, isn't just the way
the people at the top and those at the bottom are connected. It's the
burden we all of us bear, and it keeps us from breaking away on our own."
--oOo--
I don't know what the moral, if any, of this story is. It just came into
my mind very clearly as I wrote it.
Peter Wood
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 17:33:46 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: Re: Rodin/Claudel >> This reminds me that we had decided at our house to watch the _Camille >>Claudel_ movie that came out a few years ago. Has anyone else seen it? Yes, I read the book first though Stephen and the movie was a tad overdone in some places (the digging clay scenes) and perhaps a tad more blame was put on Rodin for Camille's "problems" than was true according to the book. But it was a good movie...another Depardiue film and the actress (forgotten her name now) was extremely good. Very evocative art movie. Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 20:52:04 -0500
From: JDS Books <jdsbooks(at)ameritech.net>
Subject: Re: Today in History - Nov. 12
- -----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
To: gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA <gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA>
Date: Thursday, November 12, 1998 4:19 PM
Subject: Today in History - Nov. 12
> 1866
> Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary who founded the
Nationalist Party
>
As a minor literary footnote, Sun Yat-Sen, who died in 1925, was
probably the
inspiration for M. P. Shiel's Oriental masterminds Dr. Yen How [in "The
Empress
of the Earth" aka "The Yellow Danger" (1898)] and Li Ku Yu [in "The Dragon"
(1913), revised as "The Yellow Peril" (1929).]
John Squires
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 21:28:37 -0500 (EST) From: Zozie(at)aol.com Subject: Re: Re: Rodin/Claudel In a message dated 11/13/98 12:35:24 AM, Deborah wrote: <<But it was a good movie...another Depardiue film and the actress (forgotten her name now) was extremely good. >> Aaargh, ain't it always the way? I can't remember it either. I agree with Deborah's assessment. Claudel dragged a chains a bit. But on the whole an interesting movie. phoebe
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 22:01:20 -0500
From: JDS Books <jdsbooks(at)ameritech.net>
Subject: Re: seasonal story?
Peter,
Thanks for sharing your story with us. It fit my mood
of the last few days, brooding over the losses of
that war.
Best,
John Squires
- -----Original Message-----
From: p.h.wood <woodph(at)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>
To: gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA <gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA>
Date: Thursday, November 12, 1998 6:33 PM
Subject: seasonal story?
>As I have just finished the following short story, and it was written
>between Oct 31 and Nov 11th, I thought Gaslighters with a few minutes to
>spare, whether suffering from power-cuts or not, might be interested in
>it. It's in ACSII format, and thus lacks some necessary typographical
>signs for foreign-language words, for which I duly apologise.
>Peter Wood
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 00:38:26 -0500 From: "Kevin J. Clement" <clementk(at)alink.com> Subject: Re: seasonal story? >As I have just finished the following short story, and it was written >between Oct 31 and Nov 11th, I thought Gaslighters with a few minutes to >spare, whether suffering from power-cuts or not, might be interested in >it. It's in ACSII format, and thus lacks some necessary typographical >signs for foreign-language words, for which I duly apologise. >Peter Wood > > >Chain of Command A fitting and well done story. Thank you very much for sharing it with us. >I don't know what the moral, if any, of this story is. It just came into >my mind very clearly as I wrote it. I don't know if there could be a moral for such a tale. I finished reading it with a bittersweet taste and a sense of the loss/waste/change due to the War. (and from all wars) Kevin Clement clementk(at)alink.com
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 07:23:29 -0700
From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
Subject: Etext avail: Waif Wander's "The white maniac"
(WHTMANIC.HTM) (Fiction, Chronos, SCHEDS)
Waif Wander's "The white maniac; a doctor's tale" (Year?)
whtmanic.sht
Next week's Australian story is by Waif Wander, and is
called "The white maniac; a doctor's tale". The story
opens with a strange puzzle, occuring near London, which
lures a young doctor to its perilous solution.
Thanks to Lucy Sussex for providing this story.
It is now available on the website and as an ASCII etext
thru FTPmail.
To retrieve the plain ASCII file with admittedly skewed centering,
send to: ftpmail(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA
with no subject heading and completely in lowercase:
open aftp.mtroyal.ab.ca
cd /gaslight
get whtmanic.sht
or visit the Gaslight website at:
http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/whtmanic.htm
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:31:11 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - Nov. 13
1806
Pike's Peak is discovered, but not climbed, by Lieutenant
Zebulon Montgomery Pike during
an expedition to locate the source of the Mississippi.
1835
Texans officially proclaim independence from Mexico, and calls
itself the Lone Star Republic,
after its flag, until its admission to the Union in 1845.
1851
The London-to-Paris telegraph opens.
1860
South Carolina's legislature calls a special convention to
discuss secession from the Union.
1878
New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace (Jerry: Author of _Ben Hur_.
It gave him something to do out in the
desert between range wars) offers amnesty to many participants
of the Lincoln County War, but not to
gunfighter Billy the Kid.
1897
The first metal dirigible is flown from Tempelhof Field in
Berlin.
1907
Paul Corno achieves the first helicopter flight.
Born on November 13:
1850
Robert Lewis Stevenson, novelist who wrote, among other books,
_Treasure Island_ and _The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:48:23 -0700 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: CHAT: Zebulon Pike (re: Today in History) A few years ago my statewide medical library association hosted a regional conference in Colorado Springs; the theme of the conference was "Challenges". I wrote the following verses to advertise it at the previous year's convention: (To the tune of "Sweet Betsy From Pike") Oh say, have you heard of old Zebulon Pike, Who decided in old Colorado he'd hike? Crossed rivers and prairies in only eight days, Then he found a big mountain right smack in his way. That Peak was a challenge he just couldn't pass, So he started to climb but he fell on his ***. His second try up brought a greater alarm, For it caused several breaks in the bones of his arm. His men took him down to a medicine man, Who said, "Your big problem I don't understand." So he prodded and poked and ran expensive tests, Then said, "Drink lots of fluids and get plenty of rest." As then down the mountain old Pike they were carryin', They met up with a bunch of medical librarians; Their books had the answer to Zebulon's plight, And his problem was cured in a day and a night. Jerry Carlson E-mail: gmc(at)libra.pvh.org Medical Librarian Phone: (970) 495-7323 Poudre Valley Hospital Fax: (970) 495-7652 1024 Lemay Avenue Fort Collins, CO 80524 "The Librarian's secret weapon - Book Tape!"
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 18:34:39 -0500 (EST) From: Zozie(at)aol.com Subject: Re: seasonal story? Peter -- what a lovely sad and provocative story. Thanks for sharing it. best phoebe
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 23:56:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: "The Sting of Conscience"
It wasn?t particularly a surprise to discover that Robert Graham and
Lindsey were one and the same person. But Gordon?s pursuit of
the solution to Arthur Graham?s murder is wonderful to follow. One
would almost think that his is the guilty conscience (and perhaps
there is some form of "survivors? guilt" at work here). I was much more
surprised to find that the old man Gordon follows around Perth
and elsewhere was Drummond. I honestly expected it to be Colton.
Once you get over the coincidences (and I suspect that this is a little
harder to do in this kind of tale than it is in a Shakespeare play),
the story is enjoyable, even if over-written. I did object to the
description of the fatal drubbing Lindsey takes from the horse--not
only does our author have the horse trampling the man but rolling
over on him too. Since Lindsey was a consumptive (a symbolic disease,
certainly), one would have thought the trampling would have
been enough. But since Arthur Graham was a bookmaker, there is
a good deal of justice in it, and perhaps Robert saw it that way
too.
I found the doublings not, in retrospect, to be so aesthetically
troublesome as I thought they would be when I first cottoned on to
what our author was doing. I mean here the death-bed scenes of
Drummond and Graham/Lindsey, as well as the fact that Arthur
makes two women-in-love unhappy, Lillian Campbell and Lucy.
The death-bed scene with Drummond does prolong the suspense
nicely. And I suppose that Lucy is, in a way, compensation for
Robert?s early loss of Lillian to Arthur; but, really, Lillian?s grief
over Robert?s death is only made bearable by the fact that she will
never know the truth about him. Indeed it is hard to discern
(perhaps I?ve forgotten it) whether or not Lucy even knows that
Robert is not her father.
There is a sin of omission that it seems to me our author doesn?t
account for: Robert leaves his sister Emily to believe all these years
that he is dead. I would think that this would be on his conscience
as much as Arthur?s murder and that he couldn?t bear letting
her know in some way that he was alive.
I enjoyed the Australian feel of the story, both in the diction and
the author?s description of Perth, Fremantle, and other places on
?totherside.
Bob C.
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Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity
Those who are alive receive a mandate from those
who are silent forever. They can fulfill their
duties only by trying to reconstruct precisely
things as they were and by wresting the past
from fictions and legends.
--Czeslaw Milosz
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Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 07:39:40 +1000 From: Toni Johnson-Woods <t.johnsonwoods(at)mailbox.uq.edu.au> Subject: Re: "The Sting of Conscience" I am working on a section about Australian "heroines" at the moment and Robert's remarks about the two women strike a note. I thought Robert's (Lindsey not Champ :)) callous treatment of Emily a bit cruel too...but then I have found that in Australian stories women are relegated off-stage roles. So I am curious if others have opinions how women are treated in this story. As an aside few stories describe Perth and I thought this aspect of the story particulary interesting Cheers and thanks Robert for your insights.... toni Lecturer Bachelor of Contemporary Studies Faculty of Arts University of Queensland Brisbane. 4072. Australia
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Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 18:26:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Re: "The Sting of Conscience"
It is true, of course, that Robert would have had a difficult
time explaining to Emily just why he was in hiding, and he may have feared
that she would put together his disappearance and the murder of
their brother, Arthur. As in the case of Gordon himself, this knowledge
might have been a greater source of sorrow than not knowing for her.
Gordon, in any case, is definitely not going to tell the facts of
the case to anyone, _perhaps_ because they would hurt Emily--but that is
only conjecture on the reader's part. I still believe that Robert
could have let Emily know that he was among the living--the man is
a writer, after all, and possessed of some imagination).
All the women in the story, despite being innocent of any offense,
get treated shabbily by Robert, and all because of his jealousy over
Lillian. Is that why he never married afterwards, though he did
become a father to Lucy? What happens to a man when love becomes
so entertwined with horrible guilt? Here again, McColl gives us
a symbolic answer in Robert's loss of an eye (reminiscent, for me,
of the fate of Oedipus). Half the light has gone out of his life;
and no doubt he would have lost all of it had it not been for the
appearance of Lucy. Now, at the end of the story he is losing
Lucy too, to Gordon's nephew. Although he seems very happy for the
couple, one never knows the depths their marriage stirred up in
him. McColl leaves much for the reader to decide.
Thanks for the story, Toni!
Bob C.
On Sun, 15 Nov 1998, Toni Johnson-Woods wrote:
>
> I am working on a section about Australian "heroines" at the moment and
> Robert's remarks about the two women strike a note. I thought Robert's
> (Lindsey not Champ :)) callous treatment of Emily a bit cruel too...but
> then I have found that in Australian stories women are relegated off-stage
> roles. So I am curious if others have opinions how women are treated in
> this story.
>
> As an aside few stories describe Perth and I thought this aspect of the
> story particulary interesting
>
> Cheers and thanks Robert for your insights....
> toni
> Lecturer
> Bachelor of Contemporary Studies
> Faculty of Arts
> University of Queensland
> Brisbane. 4072. Australia
>
_________________________________________________
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Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity
Those who are alive receive a mandate from those
who are silent forever. They can fulfill their
duties only by trying to reconstruct precisely
things as they were and by wresting the past
from fictions and legends.
--Czeslaw Milosz
_________________________________________________
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Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 22:28:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Burns's "Frank Lloyd Wright"
Tonight our local PBS station (WETA) ran Ken Burns?s film on Frank Lloyd
Wright (with some justifiable pride, since it was produced at the
station). I hope that Gaslighters get a chance to see the program, which
lays out the facts of Wright?s often turbulent life unsentimentally, but
also demonstrates, or tries hard to, why Wright?s genius continues to
intrigue and awe us.
The one word that kept coming up in the comments of the architects,
former Wright students, architectural historians and critics who made up
the guest list of the show was "transcendent." Wright intended for his
buildings to be spiritual experiences, and for the people who saw, lived
and worked in them to be uplifted, even transformed. So contrary was
this vision to that of most of the modernist architects (people like Mies
Van Der Rohe and Walter Gropius) that for many years he simply did not
work and was considered hopelessly out of touch. And yet Wright
prevailed. He managed to build on his own terms buildings that were
different from anything he had done and more daring than anything the
modernists were doing. Thus, genius always acts.
Wright, btw, certainly knew that he was a genius. When someone said words
to the effect that he was the greatest American architect of his day,
Wright took umbrage: "What is this about ?American?? he wanted to know.
"And about ?of his day??" He had a monumental ego, in other words, and yet
in his work the ego disappears. As proof of his genius, Ken Burns tells
the story of how he created one of his most famous houses, "Falling
Water," built for the Kaufman family. Wright got the commission, and then
did no work for three months. One day, one of his assistants told him
that Mr. Kaufman was on the phone, and wanted to come to talk about his
house. Kaufman was about three hours drive away. Wright immediately went
to work, and in that three hours produced all the drawings for the
house--a masterwork of design. Obviously those three months of doing
nothing were highly fruitful; an artist is rarely doing nothing, though he
sometimes appears to be simply fiddling around.
Anyway, if "Frank Lloyd Wright" comes to your local PBS station, try to
take it in. It is well worth watching.
Bob C. (who certainly hopes that Mike Keating, wherever he is, takes
in this program, since he is a great admirer of Wright)
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Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity
Those who are alive receive a mandate from those
who are silent forever. They can fulfill their
duties only by trying to reconstruct precisely
things as they were and by wresting the past
from fictions and legends.
--Czeslaw Milosz
_________________________________________________
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End of Gaslight Digest V1 #20
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