In this issue: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Today in History - June 25 Chat: Ghosts, God, & Science Re: Ghosts, God, & Violins RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Re: Chat: Ghosts, God, & Science Anyone watching RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Anyone watching The Count of Monte Cristo Holmes and pawning Re: The Count of Monte Cristo Re: Holmes and pawning Re: Holmes and pawning Re: Games with Love and Death/and Carroll on Freud Today in History - June 28 Today in History - June 29 CFP: Villainy in Detective Fiction/Film (Collection - 07/31;2000/03) Re: Today in History - June 29 Re: Today in History - June 29 An episode in the life of Hawthorne Today in History - June 30 -----------------------------THE POSTS----------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 09:53:12 -0500 From: Mattingly Conner <muse(at)iland.net> Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins I cannot hold back from jumping in to speak up for that much maligned intelligence of the heart and the human soul, just to allow that perhaps we don't know half of what is happening at any given moment, that our experience is a sampling of events filled in by assumption. Empiricism is a great tool. It's great for taking things apart. The problem comes in fitting the model back together, which seems to be the task of our age, when philosophy and physics marry once again. When physics is sounding like an old mystic. We know how to work heaps of spells in the cauldron now, all right. However, we still know nothing about the cauldron itself, and even less about the Sorcerer who owns it. Yet we all spring from and return to this one thing. Please don't trash wonder. It's one of the best things about being human. Newton serves well for the rubber band target practice we do from moment to moment. That's a little board game, that 'reality' that separates body from soul, 2 foot by 2 foot, with little plastic pieces and the great variable of the die.... all of it folding neatly into a square box. Heraclitus knew that 2,500 years ago. Yet the parts and particulars we perceive dance in strange ways, stranger than we even suspect, I suspect. Really, reality is an illusion of substance cast over vast empty space -- we do know that much, having been inside of atoms for quite awhile now. Harmonic resonance casting its spell. What a grand illusion, our reality, a wily creature sprung from the loins of Light. When I say time and space are properties of matter, I mean that literally. Beyond what Newton is assumed to say (actually, he was a mystic too... a magus who was just working a few tricks in the cauldron by observing the master). More like what Kant actually meant and not just what a lot of English philosophers who needed a teaching job at the uni said he said. None of those concepts exist -- or more likely better to say functions, because 'exist' is an assumption -- independently. Time -- I'm not speaking of the function of measurement. I'm speaking of the chain of change which is all we experience of time -- the possibility of here to there, point to next point, all of it illusion, yet we experience it as moving everybit as much as we 'experience moving' in space. Mushy metaphysics is an honest appraisal of intuitive suspicions. Why shouldn't our thoughts and dreams -- which are part of the thing as much as your foot and the last piece of toast you ate -- have some inkling of what they are and how they fit together, what they were and what they will be? I mean, we all came out of one thing. Even our current mythological model of science tells us that. It was all a little accident, we might say. An imbalance of matter and antimatter after the first big blow up. But it's still one great chain, or maybe a handful of writing illusory wires, be it thing or action or memory. It still all fits back into one unimaginable box in the top of the cosmic closet. Mother will call us for dinner someday, and we will fold it all up and have to lie about doing our homework in study hall. Then we will go downstairs, and see her beautiful miraculous face for the first time and know it as our flesh and soul and all our dreams. But your feet are grounded in that very same printed paper gameboard. Everything is stuck together in there, and your walking from Park Place to Boardwalk is mere supposition. That gameboard to me is the playing field of archetype. You really can't precipitate anything out of the whole, ultimately, except as an idea. And that is illusion, too. Slippery thing, a thought. It flashes and then reverses its spin, sinking down like those goldfish... What was I saying? This: I fall back on intuition which is awhole lots smarter than reason -- the 'if-then' of it -- when looking at any reality. Intuition is just bigger in its grasping and it doesn't feel sharp corners as threatening. What are the odds against anything happening? I'm speaking in terms of since the Singularity that spawned this particular round? Reason shouts that the odds against anything being at all is simply vast. Monstrous on an absurd scale. Yet we continue to stumble on and over. And then we have these predictable little rituals where we know that if we kick someone by planting our foot in their backside that they will holler. Sort of Zen, that moment, when we are in control of the whole universe. Our will counts for something... Our consciousness. Does it come from us or through us? Both, when you know you are part of the whole. The strangest part of all is that our thinking and problem solving is done subliminally (19th C. favorite word for unconsciously) anyway. Sure, you initiate a session and you feed it consciously, but it isn't 'where' you think. No one has ever explained how that (sudden conveyance of a realization) happens. But it does happen. To analyse something scientifically you are always talking about lysis and taking apart: parts, parts, parts... but that doesn't begin to sound the harmonics of the whole. Don't turn your back on the vast universe when you can take it for your soul. The psyche is just as real as the pencil stuck behind your left ear. And that is where my feet are planted, and any system that disregards wonder and intuition is much too limited to move the plot of this vast epic along. You are the spawn of the tides of an unimaginably great ocean that spans any time and space. Forget holy science, holy art, arguments of waves and particles, the resonance of strings like anemones plucking out some Pythagorean suspicion of structure. Embrace mystery. Kiss the moon. She will kiss you back. Sorry to blurt. But a dear friend just slipped beyond the veil and I feel like going down in flames. Very 19th Century, this 'Living Hard." By my soul, Deborah Mattingly Conner muse(at)iland.net http://www.iland.net/~muse . . . ". . . . .the mythical character of a life is just what expresses its universal human validity. It is perfectly possible, psychologically, for the unconscious or an archetype to take complete possession of a man and to determine his fate down to the smallest detail. At the same time objective, nonpsychic parallel phenomena can occur which also represent the archetype. It not only seems so, it simply is so, that archetype fulfils itself not only psychically in the individual, but objectively outside the individual. . . . . " ~CGJUNG answer to job vii " Science has been placing the cart before the horse in approaching Consciousness as though it arose exclusively from matter - it did, but it was directed by Consciousness to incarnate itself in Matter, the meaning of our ?Forgotten Truth.?"...~ Michelle Christides
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 10:07:09 -0500 From: Mattingly Conner <muse(at)iland.net> Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Should add this: My son Eric asks me who CARES about all this spiritual stuff, about reality as illusion, the emptiness of atoms, the hidden substance the real thing. Who cares? I told him 2 things: 1) that all that caring is in him all the time anyway, just that it stays unconscious until you make it conscious, and 2) the more you bring it up into the light, the bigger your world is and the bigger your reality IS... and that means the bigger your life is. As a friend of a friend said, "My cup runneth over and I want more." By my soul, Deborah Mattingly Conner muse(at)iland.net http://www.iland.net/~muse . . . "What is the use of religion without mythos, since religion means, if anything at all, precisely that function which links us back to the eternal myth?" CGJUNG Then, burning, I awake Sore tempted to partake Of dreams that seek thy sight: Until, being greatly stirr'd, I turn to where I heard That whisper of the night; And there a breath of light Shines like a silver star. The same is mine own soul, Which lures me to the goal Of dreams that gaze afar. ~Urbiciani's Canzonetta, trans Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 12:54:55 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Jeff WOULD be pleased to know he's being quoted. I'll forward to him. Darlin', you can't change the world (I know, you ARE changing the world, but AT EASE, you don't have the responsibility to change all these scientific so-called persons and their ilk. Elk. Love Carroll >Should add this: >My son Eric asks me who CARES about all this spiritual stuff, about reality >as illusion, the emptiness of atoms, the hidden substance the real thing. >Who cares? I told him 2 things: > >1) that all that caring is in him all the time anyway, just that it stays >unconscious until you make it conscious, > >and > >2) the more you bring it up into the light, the bigger your world is and the >bigger your reality IS... and that means the bigger your life is. > >As a friend of a friend said, "My cup runneth over and I want more." > >By my soul, >Deborah Mattingly Conner >muse(at)iland.net >http://www.iland.net/~muse >. . . "What is the use of religion without mythos, since religion means, if >anything at all, precisely that function which links us back to the eternal >myth?" CGJUNG > >Then, burning, I awake >Sore tempted to partake >Of dreams that seek thy sight: > Until, being greatly stirr'd, > I turn to where I heard >That whisper of the night; >And there a breath of light >Shines like a silver star. > The same is mine own soul, > Which lures me to the goal >Of dreams that gaze afar. >~Urbiciani's Canzonetta, trans Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 11:09:42 -0600 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: Today in History - June 25 1862 The Seven Days Campaign begins with a reconaissance in force at Oak Grove, Virginia. 1864 Union troops besieging Petersburg, Virginia begin digging a mine tunnel beneath Confederate lines. 1868 The U.S. Congress passes legislation giving an eight-hour day to federal employees. 1876 General George A. Custer and over 260 men of the Seventh Cavalry are killed by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at the Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) River in Montana. 1906 Harry Thaw shoots and kills Stanford White, a prominent architect, for an alleged affair White had had with Thaw's wife, Florence Evelyn Nesbit. Brithdays 1886 General Henry "Hap" Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. 1887 George Abbott, American playwright, director and producer of Three Men on a Horse, Damn Yankees, and other plays. 1900 Lord Louis Mountbatten, last British viceroy of India, later killed by an IRA bomb. 1903 George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair], novelist, essayist and critic who wrote _Animal Farm_ and _1984_ criticizing totalitarianism.
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 10:36:46 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: Chat: Ghosts, God, & Science >Jyou don't have the responsibility >to change all these scientific so-called persons and their ilk. One can be perfectly rational and consider science the answer but still maintain a glorious sense of wonder. Why do people consistently consider scientists to be cold rationalists. All you have to do is read Carl Sagan and discover what a sense of wonder he had. Beauty in a microscopic slide or downloads from the Hubble prove to me that magic is alive and wonder is everywhere. Just because we've been to the moon and know it's not green cheese doesn't lessen it's beauty and make it a cold piece of stone circling our world. Just looking at the night sky lately and seeing the dance of Mars and Spicus around the waxing moon has been a nightly thrill. And the face or the rabbit is still a joy to see on full moon nights. I've never met a science type who couldn't impart this sense of mystery and wonder. Be they botanist, astronomer, physicist, mathematician (and I am surrounded by all of these) they would be greatly insulted that anyone thought they didn't appreciate wonder and beauty at many levels. I know an atmospheric physicist who takes ballet and participates in the symphony. I know a mathemetician who longs to be out in the wilderness every chance he can get. I know a botanist who doesn't dissect flowers just in their scientific categories but also if it will make a nice fairy ring. I don't think anyone needs to change anyone. You will have a sense of wonder or not, whatever your philosophy, depending on who you are and what you care about. I think everyone here qualifies for that since we all like this literature.... Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:38:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu> Subject: Re: Ghosts, God, & Violins On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, R John Hayes wrote: > > I thought I'd jump into this conversation (with a certain delay, but > Prima promised to return to the topic and, as far as I can see, hasn't). > Allow me, for a moment, to come to the defence of science. Thanks, John, for stepping up to the plate. It is sad, indeed, that science has to be defended when it has brought us so much--and especially when people who live well as the result of scientific achievement prefer to ignore or complain about it rather than celebrate it. It is even sadder when they turn to mumbo-jumbo that is in every way inferior to it and not anywhere near as interesting. This is a luxury they indulge in, and a way (paradoxically) for them to feel superior to "mere" science. Behind attacks on science, however, is an agenda: the attempt to bring Western civilization down. Right now our civilization is suffering an onslaught from within. Every value is made to seem meaningless; every achievement destructive, every design oppressive. It is also very much to the advantage of the attackers to say that all of society and its institutions, and indeed human beings themselves, are not natural expressions of the human condition but "constructs," for what can be constructed can be unconstructed. Science is a reminder that this is not true. Science discovers laws and sets limits. And when it discovers limitations imposed by ignorance, it uses laws to overcome them. It is in the business of showing things as they are, not as the imaginations of others want them to be. Science teaches, or should teach, humility; but this is the last value the attackers want to acknowledge. Science also values order and is most wonderful when it helps us see order in the universe. Its attackers are much more interested in chaos. Science is our bulkhead against superstition, and indeed against barbarism. I say, Thank heaven for it! Bob C. _________________________________________________ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Robert L. Champ rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity Whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things Philippians 4:8 rchamp7927(at)aol.com robertchamp(at)netscape.net _________________________________________________ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:35:25 -0500 From: Mattingly Conner <muse(at)iland.net> Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins Must this still be a matter of either or? Truth: My late night ramblings are inspired by Stephen Hawking, John Mathers, David Bohm, Alan Watts, Carl Jung, Lewis Thomas, Rupert Sheldrake, and other scientists who feed our understanding with their humility, generosity, and sense of wonder. Synthesis is the challenge of our age. With heart, Deborah Mattingly Conner muse(at)iland.net http://www.iland.net/~muse "...Where there is no vision, the people perish." ~Proverbs
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 11:49:18 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins >Must this still be a matter of either or? I don't think so. And I've never met a scientist who felt it should be. I have more trouble with those who find their teachings the sole answer to the universe and have no tolerance for other paths. Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 12:13:09 -0700 From: Jack Kolb <kolb(at)UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: Chat: Ghosts, God, & Science >>Jyou don't have the responsibility >>to change all these scientific so-called persons and their ilk. > >One can be perfectly rational and consider science the answer but still >maintain a glorious sense of wonder. Why do people consistently consider >scientists to be cold rationalists. All you have to do is read Carl Sagan >and discover what a sense of wonder he had. Beauty in a microscopic slide >or downloads from the Hubble prove to me that magic is alive and wonder is >everywhere. Just because we've been to the moon and know it's not green >cheese doesn't lessen it's beauty and make it a cold piece of stone >circling our world. Just looking at the night sky lately and seeing the >dance of Mars and Spicus around the waxing moon has been a nightly thrill. >And the face or the rabbit is still a joy to see on full moon nights. > >I've never met a science type who couldn't impart this sense of mystery and >wonder. Be they botanist, astronomer, physicist, mathematician (and I am >surrounded by all of these) they would be greatly insulted that anyone >thought they didn't appreciate wonder and beauty at many levels. I know an >atmospheric physicist who takes ballet and participates in the symphony. I >know a mathemetician who longs to be out in the wilderness every chance he >can get. I know a botanist who doesn't dissect flowers just in their >scientific categories but also if it will make a nice fairy ring. > >I don't think anyone needs to change anyone. You will have a sense of >wonder or not, whatever your philosophy, depending on who you are and what >you care about. I think everyone here qualifies for that since we all like >this literature.... > >Deborah > >Deborah McMillion >deborah(at)gloaming.com >http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html Wonderfully put, Deborah. You said calmly and rationally what I might have put far less temperately. Now, please, could we stop discussing credulity and skepticism and get back to art and society? Jack Kolb Dept. of English, UCLA kolb(at)ucla.edu
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 12:50:08 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: Anyone watching The Bravo channel's "Count of Monte Cristo" with Gerard Depardieu? a quick change of subject ;) I have been sans VCR this week and was unable to catch it. I very much enjoyed his "Cyrano" and wondered how true this was to Dumas' book? So many hours! Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 12:54:11 -0700 From: Jack Kolb <kolb(at)UCLA.EDU> Subject: RE: Ghosts, God, & Violins >Must this still be a matter of either or? Truth: My late night ramblings are >inspired by Stephen Hawking, John Mathers, David Bohm, Alan Watts, Carl Jung, >Lewis Thomas, Rupert Sheldrake, and other scientists who feed our >understanding with their humility, generosity, and sense of wonder. Synthesis >is the challenge of our age. > >With heart, >Deborah Mattingly Conner >muse(at)iland.net >http://www.iland.net/~muse >"...Where there is no vision, the people perish." ~Proverbs See Edward O. Wilson's recent book, Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. Again, I urge us not to pursue this potentially divisive thread. Jack Kolb Dept. of English, UCLA kolb(at)ucla.edu
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 17:03:06 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Anyone watching Sorry if my meant-to-be-private message offended or annoyed any elks scientific or otherwise. I'm split-brained myself. Carroll
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:55:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Ginger Johnson <ferret(at)eskimo.com> Subject: The Count of Monte Cristo Bravo ran a four-part made for television adaptation of the famous Dumas novel this last week. I watched all four episodes and found it good and bad. The good first. Depardieu starred and did a fine, controlled job of it. Sets and costumes wonderful, atmosphere first rate, all the actors more than competent. It was fun seeing three Depardieus, father, daughter Julie (playing Valentine) and son Guillaume in a bit part as the young Edmond Dantes. Like many of us, naturally I turned to the novel, a new translation in Penguin. And oh my, what they did to the screenplay. This after all was not Hollywood, but a French production. It's a very, very long book so there were cuts and changes that one would expect. But the worst changes were these. Haydee was reduced to a mere cameo, whose part as love-interest was replaced by someone called Camille. I'm not far enough along in the book to know if she appears at all, but I suspect not. It ended with the Comte giving up all his money (how politicially correct) and instead of running off with Haydee, going back to an equally self-impoverished Mercedes. What I couldn't figure out was why stick the bogus ending on it at all? I'd rather they stuck to the thorough-going Byronism that fills the novel. The odd thing about the novel I hadn't realized is that it's not a period piece at all. Romantic, yes, but it is set fewer than ten years before it was written, and is very contemporary to the events of 1838. Anyone else see it? Ginger Johnson "It isn't the extravagances of life we regret, it's the economies." - Somerville and Ross
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 14:58:03 -0600 From: sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA Subject: Holmes and pawning I'm helping a member of the Internet community find references to pawnbroking, more specifically how the trade was carried out. I am in the process of etexting _Hagar of the pawnshop_, but have another reference to hand over. This is from a book I am etexting called _The technique of mystery_ (1913), and in chapter ten of which the stories of Sherlock Holmes are discussed. Casn anyone tell which of Holmes' stories this is? (QUOTE) "It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference that your brother was often at low water. (End quote) Stephen D mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 14:05:59 -0700 From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com> Subject: Re: The Count of Monte Cristo >Bravo ran a four-part made for television adaptation of the famous Dumas >novel this last week. Thanks, Ginger, for the review. Since we often rail at Hollywood's changes (and sometimes the BBC) this makes for an interesting counterpoint. I only remember the old 70's version with...er...Richard Chamberlain? And if I remember right, Tony Curtis??? Or am I confusing two versions? I haven't read this book since college so I've completely forgotten the ending but I don't remember it being happy (...didn't Mercedes die?). One of our housemates quirks, bless his heart, is forgetting the ending every time to all of the Sherlock Holmes episodes. He says this is good since he gets to be surprised every time anew. But no fair if the ending isn't the real one! Deborah Deborah McMillion deborah(at)gloaming.com http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 15:15:07 -0600 (MDT) From: "p.h.wood" <woodph(at)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca> Subject: Re: Holmes and pawning On Fri, 25 Jun 1999 sdavies(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA wrote: > I'm helping a member of the Internet community find references to pawnbroking, > more specifically how the trade was carried out. I am in the process of > etexting _Hagar of the pawnshop_, but have another reference to hand over. > This is from a book I am etexting called _The technique of mystery_ (1913), > and in chapter ten of which the stories of Sherlock Holmes are discussed. Casn > anyone tell which of Holmes' stories this is? > (QUOTE) > "It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to > scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. > It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or > transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the > inside of this case. Inference that your brother was often at low water. > (End quote) > > Stephen D > mailto:SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca The Sign of (the) Four, Ch. 1 No charge - professional courtesy! Peter Wood
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 18:29:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Donna Goldthwaite <dgold(at)javanet.com> Subject: Re: Holmes and pawning Hi Stephen, > This is from a book I am etexting called _The technique of mystery_ (1913), >and in chapter ten of which the stories of Sherlock Holmes are discussed. >Casn >anyone tell which of Holmes' stories this is? > >(QUOTE) > "It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to >scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. >It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or >transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the >inside of this case. Inference that your brother was often at low water. >(End quote) This is from _The Sign of Four_, Chapter 1 Something I should have known but didn't; not to worry, there's a Sherlock Holmes Concordance on the web. Why am I not surprised? http://www.dataflight.com/cgitest.htm Concordance Search Results Search: "pawnbrokers AND watch AND scratch" in 68 records. Located 1 records with 24 hits in 0.15000 seconds. The Sign of Four (1 of 1) Best, Donna Goldthwaite dgold(at)javanet.com
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 20:08:33 +0300 From: cbishop(at)interlog.com (Carroll Bishop) Subject: Re: Games with Love and Death/and Carroll on Freud Mac said: > It was really quite good although terribly >fattening in a coffee and chocolate sort of way. Ah Vienna, coffee mit schlage (?), Sachertorte, and didn't the croissant arrive there via Turkey or somewhere to the east? >. And I wonder what the brillant Lou Andreas-Salome so greatly >loved by Nietzsche, Rilke, Schnitzler and of course Freud would have to say >about the "unembarrassed" mind of Freud. SchadenFreud? Irvin Yalom who wrote LYING ON THE COUCH wrote an earlier novel about Nietszsche and Freud and Lou and all. Carroll Bishop (cbishop(at)interlog.com)
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Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1999 12:14:47 -0600 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: Today in History - June 28 1839 Cinque, originally Senghbe, along with other Africans, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in Cuba. They later revolted and took over the slave ship Amistad. 1862 The Seven Day's Battles continue at Garnett's and Golding's farms. 1863 General Meade replaces General Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. 1874 The Freedmen's Bank, founded to assist former American slaves, closes. 1884 Congress declares Labor Day a legal holiday. 1902 Congress passes the Spooner bill, which authorizes a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama. 1911 Samuel J. Battle becomes the first African-American policeman in New York City. 1914 Austria's Archduke Francis Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo, Serbia, sparking World War I. 1919 Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles, under protest. Birthdays 1873 Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and biologist, winner of a Nobel Prize for his development of a blood vessel suture technique. He also worked with Charles Lindbergh to develop an artificial heart.
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 12:10:35 -0600 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: Today in History - June 29 1804 Privates John Collins and Hugh Hall of the Lewis and Clark Expedition are found guilty by a court martial of getting drunk on duty. Collins is sentenced to receive 100 lashes on his back and Hall 50. 1862 While retreating from Richmond, Union forces resist pursuit at Savage's Station. 1880 France annexes Tahiti. 1888 Professor Frederick Treves performs the first appendectomy in England. 1903 The British government officially protests Belgian atrocities in the Congo. 1905 Riots erupt in ports throughout Russia. l 1917 The Ukraine proclaims its independence from Russia. Born on June 29 1858 George Washington Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal 1861 William James Mayo, cofounder of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota 1865 William E. Borah, Republican senator from Idaho, who supported the League of Nations. 1886 James Van Der Zee, African-American photographer
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 19:56:55 +0100 From: Stacy Gillis <stacy.gillis(at)ukonline.co.uk> Subject: CFP: Villainy in Detective Fiction/Film (Collection - 07/31;2000/03) Professor Moriarty, Dr. No, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Blofeld, Count Fosco, Fu Manchu, Keyser Soz?, S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Cruella de Vil, Jaws - from Britain to America, from novel to film, from thug to mastermind, these villains are often more interesting than their heroic opponents. The relationship between the villain and the hero(ine) is often the crux of the entire story. But what makes a villain? What is villainous activity? How have villains changed over the past two centuries? Possible topics include but are not limited to: ? Gender and villainy ? Vicarious appeal of villains ? Villains capturing the public imagination ? Villainy as a reflection of changing social mores ? Relationship between hero and villain ? the difference between villain and hero ? Villain as Other ? Villains as plot devices ? Poweful versus weak villains ? How society deals with villains ? Victims and villains ? Faceless organizations as villains ? Masterminds versus thugs ? Sensation fiction villains ? Villains and violence ? Villains and fate We are soliciting abstracts for a collection focusing on Villainy in Detective Fiction/Film. Abstracts of 500 words, as well as a brief c.v., must be submitted by the end of July, 1999. Final drafts (25 pp., MLA format) must be submitted by March 2000. The full proposal is available upon request. Please send abstracts and queries to: Stacy Gillis/ Philippa Gates School of English Queen's Building University of Exeter Exeter, Devon EX4 4QH United Kingdom E-mail: stacy.gillis(at)ukonline.co.uk p.c.gates(at)exeter.ac.uk --------------------------- Stacy Gillis stacy.gillis(at)ukonline.co.uk http://web.ukonline.co.uk/stacy.gillis/index.htm
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 17:20:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Zozie(at)aol.com Subject: Re: Today in History - June 29 My source says: Born today, in 1893... Helen Elna Hokinson, cartoonist, whose hefty, middle-aged clubwomen cavorted in their own endearing, less-than-liberated way through the pages of *The New Yorker*, a publication Ms Hokinson rarely read but from which she earned enormous income. best phoebe
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 18:32:27 -0400 (EDT) From: LoracLegid(at)aol.com Subject: Re: Today in History - June 29 145 years ago today Charlotte Bronte married Arthur Bell Nicholls June 29, 1854. Carol Digel Darley Society www.focdarley.com
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Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:34:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu> Subject: An episode in the life of Hawthorne Not long ago we seemed to be veering off into a discussion of 19th- century attitudes toward the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. While not necessarily wanting to rouse that topic again, I did want to communicate a reading adventure I had recently that relates to it. I was reading in a memoir by Nathaniel Hawthorne's daughter, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (think of Nathaniel Hawthorne naming his girl Rose!)wherein she tells the story of a woman who was passionately involved in the authorship question, to the point that it caused her considerable hardship. Ms. Lathrop in the passage below not only gives us a sense of what a vital topic this seemed to be but also of what an extraordinarily kind man her father was. Hawthorne was at this time the American consulate at Liverpool, a position he held by virtue of his long friendship with then-President Franklin Pierce. In the story of Hawthorne's life in England, there is nothing more characteristic, nothing more noble, than his care for those Americans who came to him for advice or aid. Besides numerous instances of generosity never heard of by the public, there was a notable one in the case of Miss Delia Bacon, casually mentioned in "Our Old Home," under the head of "Recollections of a Gifted Woman." Without assuming any credit for his action in the case, or even mentioning his disinterested aid to one who had no other claim upon him than that she was a lonely and friendless countrywoman, he describes her patient labor in pursuit of what she devoutly believed to be the true secret of Shakespeare's identity. Whether her theories were wholly visionary or not, she had the courage of her convictions, opposed as they were to the settled belief of the rest of the world, and she lived and died a martyr to the truth of history, as she regarded it. When this singular woman had exhausted all her financial means, when her family and friends declined to assist her unless she would give up her chimerical pursuit and return to America, she--almost despairingly--appealed to Hawthorne; and he responded in a manner that displayed his nobleness of heart, by the way in which he aided the forlorn enthusiast in her direst need. It gives one a higher estimate of human nature to hear of such unselfishness, such unwearied patience, and such rare delicacy as were exhibited by Hawthorne in extending the moral and material aid which she was too proud to solicit. The interesting "Life of Delia Bacon," by Theodore Bacon, published in 1888, contains some twenty letters of Hawthorne--therein for the first time made public--which charmingly display, in the words of Mr. Bacon, "the noble generosity, the unwearying patience, the exquisite considerateness with which for two years he (Hawthorne) gave unstinted help, even of that material sort which she would not ask for, to this lonely countrywoman." In a postscript to one of these letters to Miss Bacon, Hawthorne writes, in almost apologetic terms: "You say nothing about the state of your funds. Pardon me for alluding to the subject, but you promised to apply to me in case of need. I am ready." Could an offer of assistance be more delicately expressed? If there were no other proof of Hawthorne's appreciative regard for the friendless, it shines forth brightly in these private letters. Bob C. _________________________________________________ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Robert L. Champ rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity Whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things Philippians 4:8 rchamp7927(at)aol.com robertchamp(at)netscape.net _________________________________________________ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 12:57:48 -0600 From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org> Subject: Today in History - June 30 1862 Confederate failure to coordinate attacks allows the Union Army of the Potomac to retreat thorough White Oak Swamp to Malvern Hill. 1863 Union and Confederate cavalries meet at Hanover, Pennsylvania. 1859 Charles Blondin walks across Niagara falls on a tightrope. 1894 Korea declares its independence from China and asks for aid from the Japanese. 1908 An explosion in Siberia knocks down trees in a 30-mile radius and strikes people unconscious 40 miles away. Scientists believe it was caused by a meteorite fragment . 1912 Belgian workers strike to demand universal voting rights. 1913 Fighting breaks out between Bulgaria and her former allies Spain and Greece, beginning the Second Balkan War. 1915 The Second Battle of Artois ends with the French failure to take Vimy Ridge. Birthdays 1893 Harold Laski, political scientist , author of Authority in the Modern State and The American President. 1917 Lena Horne, American singer and actress ------------------------------ End of Gaslight Digest V1 #79 *****************************