ï»¿The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Condition of the Working-Class in Englandin 1844, by Frederick Engels, Translated by Florence Kelley WischnewetzkyThiseBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of theProject Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.netTitle: The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844       with a Prefacewritten in 1892Author: Frederick EngelsRelease Date: December 13, 2005  [eBook #17306]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-646-US(US-ASCII)***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASSIN ENGLAND IN 1844***Transcribed from the January1943 George Allen & Unwin reprint of theMarch 1892 edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.ukThe Condition of the Working-Class in England in1844With a Preface written in 1892byFREDERICK ENGELS_Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky__London_GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD_MuseumStreet_PREFACEThe book, an English translation of which is here republished, was firstissued in Germany in 1845.  The author, at that time, was young,twenty-four years of age, and his production bears the stamp of his youth withits good and its faulty features, of neither of which he feels ashamed.It wastranslated into English, in 1885, by an American lady, Mrs. F.Kelley Wischnewetzky, and published in the following year in New York.The American edition beingas good as exhausted, and having never beenextensively circulated on this side of the Atlantic, the present Englishcopyright edition is brought out with the fullconsent of all partiesinterested.For the American edition, a new Preface and an Appendix were written inEnglish by the author.  The first had little to do with thebook itself;it discussed the American Working-Class Movement of the day, and is,therefore, here omitted as irrelevant, the second--the originalpreface--is largelymade use of in the present introductory remarks.The state of things described in this book belongs to-day, in manyrespects, to the past, as far as England isconcerned.  Though notexpressly stated in our recognised treatises, it is still a law of modernPolitical Economy that the larger the scale on whichCapitalisticProduction is carried on, the less can it support the petty devices ofswindling and pilfering which characterise its early stages.  Thepettifoggingbusiness tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative inEurope of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that serve him sowell in his own country, and aregenerally practised there, he finds tobe out of date and out of place when he comes to Hamburg or Berlin; and,again, the commission agent, who hails from Berlinor Hamburg, Jew orChristian, after frequenting the Manchester Exchange for a few months,finds out that, in order to buy cotton yarn or cloth cheap, he, too,hadbetter drop those slightly more refined but still miserable wiles andsubterfuges which are considered the acme of cleverness in his nativecountry.  The fact is,those tricks do not pay any longer in a largemarket, where time is money, and where a certain standard of commercialmorality is unavoidably developed, purelyas a means of saving time andtrouble.  And it is the same with the relation between the manufacturerand his "hands."The revival of trade, after the crisis of 1847,was the dawn of a newindustrial epoch.  The repeal of the Corn Laws and the financial reformssubsequent thereon gave to English industry and commerce all theelbow-room they had asked for.  The discovery of the Californian and Australiangold-fields followed in rapid succession.  The Colonial markets developedat anincreasing rate their capacity for absorbing English manufacturedgoods.  In India millions of hand-weavers were finally crushed out by theLancashirepower-loom.  China was more and more being opened up.  Aboveall, the United States--then, commercially speaking, a mere colonialmarket, but by far thebiggest of them all--underwent an economicdevelopment astounding even for that rapidly progressive country.  And,finally, the new means of communicationintroduced at the close of thepreceding period--railways and ocean steamers--were now worked out on aninternational scale; they realised actually, what hadhitherto existedonly potentially, a world-market.  This world-market, at first, wascomposed of a number of chiefly or entirely agricultural countriesgrouped aroundone manufacturing centre--England--which consumed thegreater part of their surplus raw produce, and supplied them in returnwith the greater part of theirrequirements in manufactured articles.  Nowonder England's industrial progress was colossal and unparalleled, andsuch that the status of 1844 now appears to usas comparatively primitiveand insignificant.  And in proportion as this increase took place, in thesame proportion did manufacturing industry become apparentlymoralised.The competition of manufacturer against manufacturer by means of pettythefts upon the workpeople did no longer pay.  Trade had outgrown suchlowmeans of making money; they were not worth while practising for themanufacturing millionaire, and served merely to keep alive thecompetition of smallertraders, thankful to pick up a penny wherever theycould.  Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten Hours' Bill wasenacted, and a number of othersecondary reforms introduced--much againstthe spirit of Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much infavour of the giant-capitalist in hiscompetition with his less favouredbrother.  Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number ofhands, the greater the loss and inconvenience caused byevery conflictbetween master and men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters,especially the large ones, which taught them to avoidunnecessarysquabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades' Unions, andfinally even to discover in strikes--at opportune times--a powerful meanstoserve their own ends.  The largest manufacturers, formerly the leadersof the war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preachpeace andharmony.  And for a very good reason.  The fact is, that allthese concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but meansto accelerate theconcentration of capital in the hands of the few, forwhom the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost allimportance and had become actual nuisances;and to crush all the quickerand all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both endsmeet without such perquisites.  Thus the development ofproduction on thebasis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed--at least in theleading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far frombeingthe case--to do away with all those minor grievances whichaggravated the workman's fate during its earlier stages.  And thus itrenders more and more evidentthe great central fact, that the cause ofthe miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought, not inthese minor grievances, but _in the Capitalistic Systemitself_.  Thewage-worker sells to the capitalist his labour-force for a certain dailysum.  After a few hours' work he has reproduced the value of that sum;but thesubstance of his contract is, that he has to work another seriesof hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces duringthese additional hours ofsurplus labour is surplus value, which cost thecapitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket.  That is the basis ofthe system which tends more and more to splitup civilised society into afew Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means ofproduction and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense numberofwage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labour-force, on the other.And that this result is caused, not by this or that secondary grievance,but by thesystem itself--this fact has been brought out in bold reliefby the development of Capitalism in England since 1847.Again, the repeated visitations of cholera,typhus, smallpox, and otherepidemics have shown the British bourgeois the urgent necessity ofsanitation in his towns and cities, if he wishes to save himselfandfamily from falling victims to such diseases.  Accordingly, the mostcrying abuses described in this book have either disappeared or have beenmade lessconspicuous.  Drainage has been introduced or improved, wideavenues have been opened out athwart many of the worst "slums" I had todescribe.  "LittleIreland" has disappeared, and the "Seven Dials" arenext on the list for sweeping away.  But what of that?  Whole districtswhich in 1844 I could describe as almostidyllic, have now, with thegrowth of the towns, fallen into the same state of dilapidation,discomfort, and misery.  Only the pigs and the heaps of refuse arenolonger tolerated.  The bourgeoisie have made further progress in the artof hiding the distress of the working-class.  But that, in regard totheir dwellings, nosubstantial improvement has taken place, is amplyproved by the Report of the Royal Commission "on the Housing of thePoor," 1885.  And this is the case, too, inother respects.  Policeregulations have been plentiful as blackberries; but they can only hedgein the distress of the workers, they cannot remove it.But whileEngland has thus outgrown the juvenile state of capitalistexploitation described by me, other countries have only just attained it.France, Germany, and especiallyAmerica, are the formidable competitorswho, at this moment--as foreseen by me in 1844--are more and morebreaking up England's industrial monopoly.  Theirmanufactures are youngas compared with those of England, but increasing at a far more rapidrate than the latter; and, curious enough, they have at thismomentarrived at about the same phase of development as English manufacture in1844.  With regard to America, the parallel is indeed most striking.True, theexternal surroundings in which the working-class is placed inAmerica are very different, but the same economical laws are at work, andthe results, if not identicalin every respect, must still be of the sameorder.  Hence we find in America the same struggles for a shorter working-day, for a legal limitation of theworking-time, especially of women andchildren in factories; we find the truck-system in full blossom, and thecottage-system, in rural districts, made use of by the"bosses" as ameans of domination over the workers.  When I received, in 1886, theAmerican papers with accounts of the great strike of 12,000Pennsylvaniancoal-miners in the Connellsville district, I seemed but to read my owndescription of the North of England colliers' strike of 1844.  The samecheatingof the workpeople by false measure; the same truck-system; thesame attempt to break the miners' resistance by the capitalists' last,but crushing, resource,--theeviction of the men out of their dwellings,the cottages owned by the companies.I have not attempted, in this translation, to bring the book up to date,or to pointout in detail all the changes that have taken place since1844.  And for two reasons: Firstly, to do this properly, the size of thebook must be about doubled; and,secondly, the first volume of "DasKapital," by Karl Marx, an English translation of which is before thepublic, contains a very ample description of the state of the


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Wives' Tale, by Arnold BennettThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.netTitle: The Old Wives' TaleAuthor: Arnold BennettPosting Date: November 28, 2011 [EBook #5247]Release Date: March, 2004First Posted:June 10, 2002[Last Updated: December 8, 2011]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD WIVES' TALE ***Produced byCharles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamThe Old Wives' TaleArnold BennettTo W. W. K.PREFACE TO THIS EDITIONIn the autumn of 1903 Iused to dine frequently in a restaurant in theRue de Clichy, Paris. Here were, among others, two waitresses thatattracted my attention. One was a beautiful, paleyoung girl, to whom Inever spoke, for she was employed far away from the table which Iaffected. The other, a stout, middle-aged managing Breton woman,hadsole command over my table and me, and gradually she began to assumesuch a maternal tone towards me that I saw I should be compelled toleave thatrestaurant. If I was absent for a couple of nights runningshe would reproach me sharply: "What! you are unfaithful to me?" Once,when I complained about someFrench beans, she informed me roundly thatFrench beans were a subject which I did not understand. I then decidedto be eternally unfaithful to her, and Iabandoned the restaurant. Afew nights before the final parting an old woman came into therestaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque.Shehad a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to seethat she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years she haddeveloped the kind ofpeculiarity which induces guffaws among thethoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, which shekept dropping. She chose one seat; and then,not liking it, choseanother; and then another. In a few moments she had the wholerestaurant laughing at her. That my middle-aged Breton should laughwasindifferent to me, but I was pained to see a coarse grimace of gigglingon the pale face of the beautiful young waitress to whom I had neverspoken.I reflected,concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was onceyoung, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculousmannerisms. Very probably she isunconscious of her singularities. Hercase is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novelout of the history of a woman such as she." Every stout,ageing womanis not grotesque--far from it!--but there is an extreme pathos in themere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with theuniquecharm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. Andthe fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing womanis made up of an infinitenumber of infinitesimal changes, eachunperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.It was at this instant that I was visited by the idea of writing thebook whichultimately became "The Old Wives' Tale." Of course I feltthat the woman who caused the ignoble mirth in the restaurant would notserve me as a type of heroine.For she was much too old and obviouslyunsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal character of anovel must not be unsympathetic, and the wholemodern tendency ofrealistic fiction is against oddness in a prominent figure. I knew thatI must choose the sort of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd.Iput the idea aside for a long time, but it was never very distantfrom me. For several reasons it made a special appeal to me. I hadalways been a convincedadmirer of Mrs. W. K. Clifford's most preciousnovel, "Aunt Anne," but I wanted to see in the story of an old womanmany things that Mrs. W. K. Clifford hadomitted from "Aunt Anne."Moreover, I had always revolted against the absurd youthfulness, theunfading youthfulness of the average heroine. And as a protestagainstthis fashion, I was already, in 1903, planning a novel ("Leonora") ofwhich the heroine was aged forty, and had daughters old enough to be inlove. Thereviewers, by the way, were staggered by my hardihood inoffering a woman of forty as a subject of serious interest to thepublic. But I meant to go much fartherthan forty! Finally as a supremereason, I had the example and the challenge of Guy de Maupassant's "UneVie." In the nineties we used to regard "Une Vie" withmute awe, asbeing the summit of achievement in fiction. And I remember being verycross with Mr. Bernard Shaw because, having read "Une Vie" atthesuggestion (I think) of Mr. William Archer, he failed to see in itanything very remarkable. Here I must confess that, in 1908, I read"Une Vie" again, and in spiteof a natural anxiety to differ from Mr.Bernard Shaw, I was gravely disappointed with it. It is a fine novel,but decidedly inferior to "Pierre et Jean" or even "FortComme laMort." To return to the year 1903. "Une Vie" relates the entire lifehistory of a woman. I settled in the privacy of my own head that mybook about thedevelopment of a young girl into a stout old lady mustbe the English "Une Vie." I have been accused of every fault except alack of self-confidence, and in a fewweeks I settled a further point,namely, that my book must "go one better" than "Une Vie," and that tothis end it must be the life-history of two women instead ofonly one.Hence, "The Old Wives' Tale" has two heroines. Constance was theoriginal; Sophia was created out of bravado, just to indicate that Ideclined to considerGuy de Maupassant as the last forerunner of thedeluge. I was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I hadsworn to carry it out. For several years I lookedit squarely in theface at intervals, and then walked away to write novels of smallerscope, of which I produced five or six. But I could not dally forever,and in theautumn of 1907 I actually began to write it, in a villagenear Fontainebleau, where I rented half a house from a retired railwayservant. I calculated that it would be200,000 words long (which itexactly proved to be), and I had a vague notion that no novel of suchdimensions (except Richardson's) had ever been written before.So Icounted the words in several famous Victorian novels, and discovered tomy relief that the famous Victorian novels average 400,000 wordsapiece. I wrote thefirst part of the novel in six weeks. It was fairlyeasy to me, because, in the seventies, in the first decade of my life,I had lived in the actual draper's shop of theBaines's, and knew it asonly a child could know it. Then I went to London on a visit. I triedto continue the book in a London hotel, but London was toodistracting,and I put the thing away, and during January and February of 1908, Iwrote "Buried Alive," which was published immediately, and was receivedwithmajestic indifference by the English public, an indifference whichhas persisted to this day.I then returned to the Fontainebleau region and gave "The OldWives'Tale" no rest till I finished it at the end of July, 1908. It waspublished in the autumn of the same year, and for six weeks afterwardthe English publicsteadily confirmed an opinion expressed by a certainperson in whose judgment I had confidence, to the effect that the workwas honest but dull, and that when itwas not dull it had a regrettabletendency to facetiousness. My publishers, though brave fellows, weresomewhat disheartened; however, the reception of the bookgraduallybecame less and less frigid.With regard to the French portion of the story, it was not until I hadwritten the first part that I saw from a study of mychronologicalbasis that the Siege of Paris might be brought into the tale. The ideawas seductive; but I hated, and still hate, the awful business ofresearch; and Ionly knew the Paris of the Twentieth Century. Now I wasaware that my railway servant and his wife had been living in Paris atthe time of the war. I said to the oldman, "By the way, you wentthrough the Siege of Paris, didn't you?" He turned to his old wife andsaid, uncertainly, "The Siege of Paris? Yes, we did, didn't we?"TheSiege of Paris had been only one incident among many in their lives. Ofcourse, they remembered it well, though not vividly, and I gained muchinformationfrom them. But the most useful thing which I gained fromthem was the perception, startling at first, that ordinary people wenton living very ordinary lives in Parisduring the siege, and that tothe vast mass of the population the siege was not the dramatic,spectacular, thrilling, ecstatic affair that is described inhistory.Encouraged by this perception, I decided to include the siege in myscheme. I read Sarcey's diary of the siege aloud to my wife, and Ilooked at the picturesin Jules Claretie's popular work on the siegeand the commune, and I glanced at the printed collection of officialdocuments, and there my research ended.It hasbeen asserted that unless I had actually been present at apublic execution, I could not have written the chapter in which Sophiawas at the Auxerre solemnity. Ihave not been present at a publicexecution, as the whole of my information about public executions wasderived from a series of articles on them which I read inthe ParisMatin. Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in "Vanity Fair," said itwas clear that I had not seen an execution, (or words to that effect),and he proceededto give his own description of an execution. It was abrief but terribly convincing bit of writing, quite characteristic andquite worthy of the author of "Montes theMatador" and of a man who hasbeen almost everywhere and seen almost everything. I comprehended howfar short I had fallen of the truth! I wrote to Mr. FrankHarris,regretting that his description had not been printed before I wrotemine, as I should assuredly have utilized it, and, of course, Iadmitted that I had neverwitnessed an execution. He simply replied:"Neither have I." This detail is worth preserving, for it is a reproofto that large body of readers, who, when a novelisthas really carriedconviction to them, assert off hand: "O, that must be autobiography!"ARNOLD BENNETT.CONTENTSBOOK I.MRS. BAINES   I. THE SQUARE  II.THE TOOTH III. A BATTLE  IV. ELEPHANT   V. THE TRAVELLER  VI. ESCAPADE VII. A DEFEATBOOK II.CONSTANCE   I. REVOLUTION  II. CHRISTMAS AND THEFUTURE III. CYRIL  IV. CRIME   V. ANOTHER CRIME  VI. THE WIDOW VII. BRICKS AND MORTARVIII. THE PROUDEST MOTHERBOOK III.SOPHIA   I. THEELOPEMENT  II. SUPPER III. AN AMBITION SATISFIED  IV. A CRISIS FOR GERALD   V. FEVER  VI. THE SIEGE VII. SUCCESSBOOK IV.WHAT LIFE IS   I.FRENSHAM'S  II. THE MEETING III. TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE  IV. END OF SOPHIA   V. END OF CONSTANCEBOOK IMRS. BAINESCHAPTER ITHE SQUAREIThose twogirls, Constance and Sophia Baines, paid no heed to themanifold interest of their situation, of which, indeed, they had neverbeen conscious. They were, forexample, established almost precisely onthe fifty-third parallel of latitude. A little way to the north ofthem, in the creases of a hill famous for its religious orgies,rosethe river Trent, the calm and characteristic stream of middle England.Somewhat further northwards, in the near neighbourhood of the highestpublic-house inthe realm, rose two lesser rivers, the Dane and theDove, which, quarrelling in early infancy, turned their backs on eachother, and, the one by favour of the


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                                                                          THEWOODSMAN                                       Based on the play by                                                 StevenFechter                                            Written by                                 Steven Fechter & NicoleKassell                                          Winner 1st Prize 2001 Slamdance ScreenplayCompetition                                                                                July 30,2002                                        BEGIN TITLES - OPENING SEQUENCE MONTAGE                      Over black weHEAR the rhythmic sound of machinery. This          sound will continue throughout the title sequence as other          sounds fade in and out. We move forwardand back in time.                    EXT. APARTMENT - DAY                    A sparrow flutters in birdseed on a window sill. Morebirds          crowd a bird feeder that hangs above.                    EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND - DAY                    A lone child swingslazily on a swing. Other children tear          about in a wild game of chase.                    INT. LUMBERYARD WAREHOUSE -DAY                    CLOSE on a piece of wood as it is fed through a wood chipper.                    A man finishes feeding the log into the


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Louis Lambert, by Honore de BalzacThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.orgTitle: Louis LambertAuthor: Honore de BalzacTranslator: Clara Bell and James WaringRelease Date: October, 1999  [Etext #1943]PostingDate: March 6, 2010Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIS LAMBERT ***Produced by John Bickers, and DagnyLOUISLAMBERTBy Honore De BalzacTranslated by Clara Bell and James Waring                              DEDICATION                "Et nunc et semper dilectoe dicatum."LOUISLAMBERTLouis Lambert was born at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois,where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intendedthat his sonshould succeed him; but his precocious bent for studymodified the paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wifeadored Louis, their only child, and nevercontradicted him in anything.At the age of five Louis had begun by reading the Old and NewTestaments; and these two Books, including so many books, hadsealed hisfate. Could that childish imagination understand the mystical depths ofthe Scriptures? Could it so early follow the flight of the Holy Spiritacross theworlds? Or was it merely attracted by the romantic toucheswhich abound in those Oriental poems! Our narrative will answer thesequestions to some readers.Onething resulted from this first reading of the Bible: Louis went allover Montoire begging for books, and he obtained them by those winningways peculiar to children,which no one can resist. While devotinghimself to these studies under no sort of guidance, he reached the ageof ten.At that period substitutes for the army werescarce; rich familiessecured them long beforehand to have them ready when the lots weredrawn. The poor tanner's modest fortune did not allow oftheirpurchasing a substitute for their son, and they saw no means allowed bylaw for evading the conscription but that of making him a priest; so,in 1807, theysent him to his maternal uncle, the parish priest of Mer,another small town on the Loire, not far from Blois. This arrangement atonce satisfied Louis' passion forknowledge, and his parents' wish notto expose him to the dreadful chances of war; and, indeed, his taste forstudy and precocious intelligence gave grounds forhoping that he mightrise to high fortunes in the Church.After remaining for about three years with his uncle, an old and notuncultured Oratorian, Louis left himearly in 1811 to enter the collegeat Vendome, where he was maintained at the cost of Madame de Stael.Lambert owed the favor and patronage of this celebratedlady to chance,or shall we not say to Providence, who can smooth the path of forlorngenius? To us, indeed, who do not see below the surface of humanthings,such vicissitudes, of which we find many examples in the lives of greatmen, appear to be merely the result of physical phenomena; to mostbiographers thehead of a man of genius rises above the herd assome noble plant in the fields attracts the eye of a botanist inits splendor. This comparison may well be applied toLouis Lambert'sadventure; he was accustomed to spend the time allowed him by his unclefor holidays at his father's house; but instead of indulging, afterthemanner of schoolboys, in the sweets of the delightful _far niente_ thattempts us at every age, he set out every morning with part of a loafand his books, andwent to read and meditate in the woods, to escapehis mother's remonstrances, for she believed such persistent study to beinjurious. How admirable is a mother'sinstinct! From that time readingwas in Louis a sort of appetite which nothing could satisfy; he devouredbooks of every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religiousworks,history, philosophy, and physics. He has told me that he foundindescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books,and I readily believedhim. What scholar has not many a time foundpleasure in seeking the probable meaning of some unknown word? Theanalysis of a word, its physiognomy andhistory, would be to Lambertmatter for long dreaming. But these were not the instinctive dreams bywhich a boy accustoms himself to the phenomena of life,steels himselfto every moral or physical perception--an involuntary education whichsubsequently brings forth fruit both in the understanding and characterof aman; no, Louis mastered the facts, and he accounted for them afterseeking out both the principle and the end with the mother wit of asavage. Indeed, from theage of fourteen, by one of those startlingfreaks in which nature sometimes indulges, and which proved howanomalous was his temperament, he would utter quitesimply ideas ofwhich the depth was not revealed to me till a long time after."Often," he has said to me when speaking of his studies, "often have Imade the mostdelightful voyage, floating on a word down the abyss ofthe past, like an insect embarked on a blade of grass tossing on theripples of a stream. Starting fromGreece, I would get to Rome, andtraverse the whole extent of modern ages. What a fine book mightbe written of the life and adventures of a word! It has, ofcourse,received various stamps from the occasions on which it has served itspurpose; it has conveyed different ideas in different places; but is itnot still granderto think of it under the three aspects of soul,body, and motion? Merely to regard it in the abstract, apart from itsfunctions, its effects, and its influence, is enoughto cast one intoan ocean of meditations? Are not most words colored by the idea theyrepresent? Then, to whose genius are they due? If it takes greatintelligenceto create a word, how old may human speech be? Thecombination of letters, their shapes, and the look they give to theword, are the exact reflection, inaccordance with the character of eachnation, of the unknown beings whose traces survive in us."Who can philosophically explain the transition from sensationtothought, from thought to word, from the word to its hieroglyphicpresentment, from hieroglyphics to the alphabet, from the alphabet towritten language, ofwhich the eloquent beauty resides in a seriesof images, classified by rhetoric, and forming, in a sense, thehieroglyphics of thought? Was it not the ancient modeof representinghuman ideas as embodied in the forms of animals that gave rise to theshapes of the first signs used in the East for writing down language?Thenhas it not left its traces by tradition on our modern languages,which have all seized some remnant of the primitive speech of nations,a majestic and solemntongue whose grandeur and solemnity decrease ascommunities grow old; whose sonorous tones ring in the Hebrew Bible,and still are noble in Greece, but growweaker under the progress ofsuccessive phases of civilization?"Is it to this time-honored spirit that we owe the mysteries lyingburied in every human word? In theword _True_ do we not discern acertain imaginary rectitude? Does not the compact brevity of its soundsuggest a vague image of chaste nudity and the simplicityof Truth inall things? The syllable seems to me singularly crisp and fresh."I chose the formula of an abstract idea on purpose, not wishing toillustrate the case by aword which should make it too obvious to theapprehension, as the word _Flight_ for instance, which is a directappeal to the senses."But is it not so with everyroot word? They are all stamped with aliving power that comes from the soul, and which they restore to thesoul through the mysterious and wonderful action andreaction betweenthought and speech. Might we not speak of it as a lover who finds onhis mistress' lips as much love as he gives? Thus, by theirmerephysiognomy, words call to life in our brain the beings which theyserve to clothe. Like all beings, there is but one place where theirproperties are at fullliberty to act and develop. But the subjectdemands a science to itself perhaps!"And he would shrug his shoulders as much as to say, "But we are too highand toolow!"Louis' passion for reading had on the whole been very well satisfied.The cure of Mer had two or three thousand volumes. This treasure hadbeen derived fromthe plunder committed during the Revolution in theneighboring chateaux and abbeys. As a priest who had taken the oath,the worthy man had been able tochoose the best books from among theseprecious libraries, which were sold by the pound. In three years LouisLambert had assimilated the contents of all thebooks in his uncle'slibrary that were worth reading. The process of absorbing ideas by meansof reading had become in him a very strange phenomenon. His eyetookin six or seven lines at once, and his mind grasped the sense with aswiftness as remarkable as that of his eye; sometimes even one word in asentence wasenough to enable him to seize the gist of the matter.His memory was prodigious. He remembered with equal exactitude the ideashe had derived from reading,and those which had occurred to him inthe course of meditation or conversation. Indeed, he had every form ofmemory--for places, for names, for words, things,and faces. He notonly recalled any object at will, but he saw them in his mind, situated,lighted, and colored as he had originally seen them. And this powerhecould exert with equal effect with regard to the most abstract effortsof the intellect. He could remember, as he said, not merely the positionof a sentence in thebook where he had met with it, but the frame ofmind he had been in at remote dates. Thus his was the singular privilegeof being able to retrace in memory thewhole life and progress of hismind, from the ideas he had first acquired to the last thought evolvedin it, from the most obscure to the clearest. His brain,accustomed inearly youth to the mysterious mechanism by which human faculties areconcentrated, drew from this rich treasury endless images full of lifeandfreshness, on which he fed his spirit during those lucid spells ofcontemplation."Whenever I wish it," said he to me in his own language, to which a fundofremembrance gave precocious originality, "I can draw a veil overmy eyes. Then I suddenly see within me a camera obscura, where naturalobjects are reproducedin purer forms than those under which they firstappeared to my external sense."At the age of twelve his imagination, stimulated by the perpetualexercise of hisfaculties, had developed to a point which permitted himto have such precise concepts of things which he knew only from readingabout them, that the imagestamped on his mind could not have beenclearer if he had actually seen them, whether this was by a process ofanalogy or that he was gifted with a sort of secondsight by which hecould command all nature."When I read the story of the battle of Austerlitz," said he to me oneday, "I saw every incident. The roar of thecannon, the cries of thefighting men rang in my ears, and made my inmost self quiver; I couldsmell the powder; I heard the clatter of horses and the voices ofmen; Ilooked down on the plain where armed nations were in collision, just asif I had been on the heights of Santon. The scene was as terrifying asa passagefrom the Apocalypse." On the occasions when he brought all hispowers into play, and in some degree lost consciousness of his physicalexistence, and lived on


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 Alien III Screenplay byJohn Fasano     Story by Vincent Ward & John Fasano  FIRST DRAFT March 29, 1990"But how will you die when your timecomes, Narcissus,since you have nomother?  Without a mother, one cannotlove.  Without a mother, one cannot die." - HesseALIEN IIITHE SCREEN IS BLACKApinpoint of light appears.Red.  An ember. Unseen BELLOWS blow.GLASS FURNACEThe embers glow.  Flame.The fire GROWS.A RIVER OF MOLTENGLASSHeated by the furnace to over 1,300 degrees fahrenheit. White Hot.GLASS FACTORYFlickering flame casts dancing shadows on woodenwalls.  Coarsely grained wood.  Moisture blasted out by years ofintense heat.  Timbers split.  Patched with new wood,it too now old anddry.SMOKEBillows up the walls.Hangs as an angry, black cloud amongst the rafters and beams ofthe vaulted ceiling.  Almost obscures --AMANOn a narrow LEDGE, twenty feet about the Glassworks' floor. His clothing is Medieval.  A rough textured cassock. He is a MONK.LOUVERS are set intothe wall.  He angles them open.The smoke begins to escape.The Monk turns, raises arms and LEAPS from his lofty perch --Gently gliding down to the floor withthe aid of a FLOWING FOX --a primitive hand-held pulley that runs down a rope.He lands next to the glass furnace, surrounded by --MORE MONKSBytheir dress.  With Blowing Iron and Pontil.They blow and shape the molten glass.  Crack off the finishedpieces.  The old way.ONE PARTICULARMONKBlack skinned, early fifties.Stirs his five foot long blowing iron in the molten glass, buthe is watching something else.  It moves him to song.Lilting


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                             12 YEARS A SLAVE                               Written by                              JohnRidley                              CARD: 1841                               FADE IN:                                   1 INT. TOWNHOUSE/STUDY - DAY1           -EARLY APRIL, 1841-           We are close on a PAIR OF BLACK HANDS as they open A           FINELY WRAPPED PACKET OF VIOLINSTRINGS.           WE CUT TO the hands stringing a VIOLIN. It's not a high           end piece, but it is quite nice.           WE CUT TO a wide shot of the study.Sitting in a chair           with violin in hand is SOLOMON NORTHUP; a man in his late           twenties. Everything about Solomon, his mien and manner,           isdistinguished. But he, too, seems a hardy individual.           Someone who has known manual labor in his time.           Solomon begins to lightly play his violin, asif testing           the strings, their tuning. Satisfied, Solomon begins to           play vigorously. As he does, we make a HARD CUTTO:                                    INT. HOUSE/LIVING ROOM - EVENING           We come in on a lively affair. A dinner party is being           thrown within theconfines of a fairly stately house. In           attendance are EIGHT COUPLES. All are WHITE and all are           FAIRLY YOUNG, in their early twenties. The men andwomen           are dressed in very fine attire. We should get the sense           that for the most part they are people of means.           The furniture has been setaside in the living room. At           the moment the couples are engaged in the dancing of a           REEL.           The music they are dancing to is being


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                                                                       MEET JOHNDOE                                                                  Written by Robert Riskin                                                    based on a story byRichard Connell and Robert Presnell                                                               Ext. Bulletin Office -Sidewalk.                                                              Close-up: Of a time-worn plaque against                          the side of a building. It reads:                                                                                THE BULLETIN                                                              "A freepress for a free people."                                                              While we read this, a pair of hands                          come in holding pneumaticchisel which                          immediately attacks the sign. As the                          lettering is beingobliterated,                                                               Dissolve to: Close-up: A new plaque                          on which the lettering has beenchanged                          to:                                                               THE NEWBULLETIN                                                              "A streamlined newspaper for astreamlined                          era."                                                               Cut to: Int. Bulletin outer office.                          Full shot: Of a


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   <title>"L.A. Confidential", by Brian Helgeland</title><bodybgcolor="#FFFFFF">
                             L.A. CONFIDENTIAL                                    by                              BrianHelgeland                     Based on the novel by James Ellroy                                                 November 16, 1995                                                 MinorRevisions        FADE IN:        OVER the opening strains of "I LOVE YOU, CALIFORNIA," a        MONTAGE:  a mixture of headlines, newsreel footageand        live action.  Economy Booming!  Postwar Optimism!  L.A.:        City of the Future!  But most prominent amongthem:        GANGLAND!  Police photographers document crime scenes.        The meat wagon hauls ex-button men to the morgue.  Where        will itend?        EXT. L.A. SKYLINE - SUNSET        Palm trees in silhouette against a cherry sky.  City        lights twinkle.  Los Angeles.  A place whereanything is        possible.  A place where dreams come true.  As the sky        darkens, triple-kleig lights begin to sweep back and        forth.        EXT.MANSION (HANCOCK PARK) - NIGHT        The KLEIG LIGHTS are out front.  Valets hurry to park a        line of elegantcars.                                MAYOR (V.O.)                  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you                  the future of Los Angeles!        INT. HANCOCKPARK MANSION - BALLROOM - NIGHT        The MAYOR yanks a cloth to reveal a MODEL of L.A. criss-        crossed by an elaborate FREEWAY SYSTEM.  The


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May AlcottThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.orgTitle: Rose in Bloom       A Sequel to "Eight Cousins"Author: Louisa May AlcottPosting Date: December 31, 2008 [EBook #2804]Release Date:September, 2001Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE IN BLOOM ***Produced by David ReedROSE IN BLOOMA Sequel to"Eight Cousins"By Louisa May AlcottPrefaceAs authors may be supposed to know better than anyone else what theyintended to do when writing a book, I begleave to say that there isno moral to this story. Rose is not designed for a model girl, and theSequel was simply written in fulfillment of a promise, hoping toaffordsome amusement, and perhaps here and there a helpful hint, to otherroses getting ready to bloom.L. M. AlcottSeptember 1876Contents     Chapter  1.Coming Home     Chapter  2.  Old Friends with New Faces     Chapter  3.  Miss Campbell     Chapter  4.  Thorns Among the Roses     Chapter  5.  PrinceCharming     Chapter  6.  Polishing Mac     Chapter  7.  Phebe     Chapter  8.  Breakers Ahead     Chapter  9.  New Year's Calls     Chapter  10.  The Sad and SoberPart     Chapter  11.  Small Temptations     Chapter  12.  At Kitty's Ball     Chapter  13.  Both Sides     Chapter  14.  Aunt Clara's Plan     Chapter  15.  Alas forCharlie!     Chapter  16.  Good Works     Chapter  17.  Among the Haycocks     Chapter  18.  Which Was It?     Chapter  19.  Behind theFountain     Chapter  20.  What Mac Did     Chapter  21.  How Phebe Earned Her Welcome     Chapter  22.  Short and SweetChapter 1 COMING HOMEThree youngmen stood together on a wharf one bright October dayawaiting the arrival of an ocean steamer with an impatience which founda vent in lively skirmishes with asmall lad, who pervaded the premiseslike a will-o'-the-wisp and afforded much amusement to the other groupsassembled there."They are the Campbells, waitingfor their cousin, who has been abroadseveral years with her uncle, the doctor," whispered one lady to anotheras the handsomest of the young men touched hishat to her as he passed,lugging the boy, whom he had just rescued from a little expedition downamong the piles."Which is that?" asked the stranger."PrinceCharlie, as he's called a fine fellow, the most promising of theseven, but a little fast, people say," answered the first speaker with ashake of the head."Are theothers his brothers?""No, cousins. The elder is Archie, a most exemplary young man. He hasjust gone into business with the merchant uncle and bids fair to beanhonor to his family. The other, with the eyeglasses and no gloves, isMac, the odd one, just out of college.""And the boy?""Oh, he is Jamie, the youngest brotherof Archibald, and the pet of thewhole family. Mercy on us he'll be in if they don't hold on to him!"The ladies' chat came to a sudden end just there, for by thetimeJamie had been fished out of a hogshead, the steamer hove in sight andeverything else was forgotten. As it swung slowly around to enter thedock, a boyishvoice shouted, "There she is! I see her and Uncle andPhebe! Hooray for Cousin Rose!" And three small cheers were given witha will by Jamie as he stood on apost waving his arms like a windmillwhile his brother held onto the tail of his jacket.Yes, there they were Uncle Alec swinging his hat like a boy, with Phebesmilingand nodding on one side and Rose kissing both hands delightedlyon the other as she recognized familiar faces and heard familiar voiceswelcoming herhome."Bless her dear heart, she's bonnier than ever! Looks like a Madonnadoesn't she? with that blue cloak round her, and her bright hair flyingin the wind!" saidCharlie excitedly as they watched the group upon thedeck with eager eyes."Madonnas don't wear hats like that. Rose hasn't changed much, but Phebehas. Why,she's a regular beauty!" answered Archie, staring with all hismight at the dark-eyed young woman with the brilliant color and glossyblack braids shining in thesun."Dear old Uncle! Doesn't it seem good to have him back?" was all Macsaid, but he was not looking at "dear old uncle" as he made the ferventremark, for hesaw only the slender blond girl nearby and stretched outhis hands to meet hers, forgetful of the green water tumbling betweenthem.During the confusion thatreigned for a moment as the steamer settled toher moorings, Rose looked down into the four faces upturned to hers andseemed to read in them something thatboth pleased and pained her. Itwas only a glance, and her own eyes were full, but through the mist ofhappy tears she received the impression that Archie wasabout the same,that Mac had decidedly improved, and that something was amiss withCharlie. There was no time for observation, however, for in a momenttheshoreward rush began, and before she could grasp her traveling bag,Jamie was clinging to her like an ecstatic young bear. She was withdifficulty released fromhis embrace to fall into the gentler onesof the elder cousins, who took advantage of the general excitement towelcome both blooming girls with affectionateimpartiality. Then thewanderers were borne ashore in a triumphal procession, while Jamiedanced rapturous jigs before them even on the gangway.Archieremained to help his uncle get the luggage through the CustomHouse, and the others escorted the damsels home. No sooner were theyshut up in a carriage,however, than a new and curious constraint seemedto fall upon the young people, for they realized, all at once, thattheir former playmates were men and womennow. Fortunately, Jamiewas quite free from this feeling of restraint and, sitting bodkinwisebetween the ladies, took all sorts of liberties with them andtheirbelongings."Well, my mannikin, what do you think of us?" asked Rose, to break anawkward pause."You've both grown so pretty, I can't decide which I likebest. Phebe isthe biggest and brightest-looking, and I was always fond of Phebe, butsomehow you are so kind of sweet and precious, I really think I must hugyouagain," and the small youth did it tempestuously."If you love me best, I shall not mind a bit about your thinking Phebethe handsomest, because she is. Isn't she,boys?" asked Rose, with amischievous look at the gentlemen opposite, whose faces expressed arespectful admiration which much amused her."I'm so dazzled bythe brilliancy and beauty that has suddenly burstupon me, I have no words to express my emotions," answered Charlie,gallantly dodging the dangerousquestion."I can't say yet, for I have not had time to look at anyone. I will now,if you don't mind." And, to the great amusement of the rest, Mac gravelyadjustedhis eyeglasses and took an observation."Well?" said Phebe, smiling and blushing under his honest stare, yetseeming not to resent it as she did the lordly sort ofapproval whichmade her answer the glance of Charlie's audacious blue eyes with a flashof her black ones."I think if you were my sister, I should be very proud ofyou, becauseyour face shows what I admire more than its beauty truth and courage,Phebe," answered Mac with a little bow full of such genuine respectthatsurprise and pleasure brought a sudden dew to quench the fire of thegirl's eyes and soothe the sensitive pride of the girl's heart.Rose clapped her hands justas she used to do when anything delightedher, and beamed at Mac approvingly as she said: "Now that's a criticismworth having, and we are much obliged. I wassure you'd admire my Phebewhen you knew her, but I didn't believe you would be wise enough to seeit at once, and you have gone up many pegs in myestimation, I assureyou.""I was always fond of mineralogy you remember, and I've been tappinground a good deal lately, so I've learned to know precious metalswhen Isee them," Mac said with his shrewd smile."That is the latest hobby, then? Your letters have amused us immensely,for each one had a new theory orexperiment, and the latest wasalways the best. I thought Uncle would have died of laughter over thevegetarian mania it was so funny to imagine you living onbread andmilk, baked apples, and potatoes roasted in your own fire," continuedRose, changing the subject again."This old chap was the laughingstock of hisclass. They called him DonQuixote, and the way he went at windmills of all sorts was a sight tosee," put in Charlie, evidently feeling that Mac had been patted onthehead quite as much as was good for him."But in spite of that the Don got through college with all the honors.Oh, wasn't I proud when Aunt Jane wrote to usabout it and didn't sherejoice that her boy kept at the head of his class and won the medal!"cried Rose, shaking Mac by both hands in a way that caused Charlietowish "the old chap" had been left behind with Dr. Alec."Oh, come, that's all Mother's nonsense. I began earlier than the otherfellows and liked it better, so Idon't deserve any praise. Prince isright, though. I did make a regular jack of myself, but on the wholeI'm not sure that my wild oats weren't better than some I'veseen sowed.Anyway, they didn't cost much, and I'm none the worse for them," saidMac placidly."I know what 'wild oats' means. I heard Uncle Mac say Charliewas sowing'em too fast, and I asked Mama, so she told me. And I know that he wassuspelled or expended, I don't remember which, but it was somethingbad,and Aunt Clara cried," added Jamie all in one breath, for he possessed afatal gift of making malapropos remarks, which caused him to be a terrorto hisfamily."Do you want to go on the box again?" demanded Prince with a warningfrown."No, I don't.""Then hold your tongue.""Well, Mac needn't kick me, for I wasonly..." began the culprit,innocently trying to make a bad matter worse."That will do," interrupted Charlie sternly, and James subsided, acrushed boy, consolinghimself with Rose's new watch for the indignitieshe suffered at the hands of the "old fellows" as he vengefully calledhis elders.Mac and Charlie immediately beganto talk as hard as their tongues couldwag, bringing up all sorts of pleasant subjects so successfullythat peals of laughter made passersby look after the merry loadwithsympathetic smiles.An avalanche of aunts fell upon Rose as soon as she reached home, andfor the rest of the day the old house buzzed like a beehive.Eveningfound the whole tribe collected in the drawing rooms, with the exceptionof Aunt Peace, whose place was empty now.Naturally enough, the elders settledinto one group after a while, andthe young fellows clustered about the girls like butterflies around twoattractive flowers. Dr. Alec was the central figure in oneroom and Rosein the other, for the little girl, whom they had all loved and petted,had bloomed into a woman, and two years of absence had wrought acuriouschange in the relative positions of the cousins, especially the threeelder ones, who eyed her with a mixture of boyish affection and manlyadmiration thatwas both new and pleasant.Something sweet yet spirited about her charmed them and piqued theircuriosity, for she was not quite like other girls, and ratherstartledthem now and then by some independent little speech or act which madethem look at one another with a sly smile, as if reminded that Rose was"Uncle's


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony FroudeExplained by J. J. Thomas, by J. J. (John Jacob) ThomasThis eBook is for the useof anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project GutenbergLicense includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.netTitle: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. ThomasAuthor: J. J. (JohnJacob) ThomasPosting Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #4068]Release Date: May, 2003First Posted: November 1, 2001Language: English*** START OF THISPROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES ***Produced by Alfred J. Drake.  HTML version by Al Haines.FROUDACITY (1889)J.J. ThomasWEST INDIANFABLES BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDEEXPLAINED BY J. J. THOMASContentsPreface by J.J. ThomasBOOK I.  Introduction: 27-33  Voyage out: 34-41  Barbados:41-44  St. Vincent: 44-48  Grenada: 48-50BOOK II.  Trinidad: 53-55  Reform in Trinidad: 55-80  Negro Felicity in the West Indies: 81-110BOOK III.  SocialRevolution: 113-174  West Indian Confederation: 175-200  The Negro as a Worker: 201-206  Religion for Negroes: 207-230BOOK IV.  Historical Summary orRÃ©sumÃ©: 233-261, endFROUDACITYPREFACE[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it wasalready April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's bookof travels in the WestIndies became known and generally accessible to readers in thoseColonies.My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioneddisclosed,thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme tothwart political aspiration in the Antilles.  That project is sought tobe realized bydeterring the home authorities from granting an electivelocal legislature, however restricted in character, to any of theColonies not yet enjoying such anadvantage. An argument based on thecomposition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently reliedupon to confirm the inexorable mood of DowningStreet.[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the Africanelement in the population of the West Indies is, from its past historyand its actualtendencies, a standing menace to the continuance ofcivilization and religion.  An immediate catastrophe, social,political, and moral, would most assuredly bebrought about by thegranting of full elective rights to dependencies thus inhabited.Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the immense benefitthatwould ultimately result from such refusal of the franchise.  Thecardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it would avertdefinitively the political domination ofthe Blacks, which mustinevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum of right soearnestly desired.  The exclusion of the Negro vote beinginexpedient,if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by the Blacks mustlead to their returning candidates of their own race to the locallegislatures, andthat, too, in numbers preponderating according to themajority of the Negro electors.  The Negro legislators thus supreme inthe councils of the Colonies wouldstraightway proceed to passvindictive and retaliatory laws against their white fellow- [7]colonists.  For it is only fifty years since the White man and theBlack manstood in the reciprocal relations of master and slave.Whilst those relations subsisted, the white masters inflicted, and theblack slaves had to endure, the hideousatrocities that are inseparablefrom the system of slavery.  Since Emancipation, the enormous stridesmade in self-advancement by the ex-slaves have only hadthe effect ofprovoking a resentful uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters.  Theformer bondsmen, on their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, areeaten upwith implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their formerlords and owners.  The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet ofpolitical and social object lessons which,in the eyes of Britishstatesmen, should be invaluable in showing the true method of dealingwith Ethiopic subjects of the Crown.  The Negro race in Hayti, inorderto obtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged everyhumane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope.  The slave-ownersthere had notbeen a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the otherislands.  But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] howrelentless against them has thevengeance of the Blacks been in theirhour of mastery!  A century has passed away since then, and,notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles intheirsouls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide ofconduct.  Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, thelesson which Historyhas taught and yet continues to teach you in Haytias to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists liespatent, blood-stained and terrible before you,and should be takendefinitively to heart.  But if you are willing that Civilization andReligion--in short, all the highest developments of individual andsociallife--should at once be swept away by a desolating vandalism ofAfrican birth; if you do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness thatwould stain your consciencesthrough the massacre of ourfellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of their race,complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire thosemodernHesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs wherein theBlacks, who, but a short while before, had been ostensibly civilized,shall be revellers,as high-priests and [9] devotees, in orgies ofdevil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to give the franchise tothose West Indian Colonies, and then rue theconsequences of yourinfatuation!...Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. Froudewere true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest andbest amongst usbeen living, moving, and having our being!  Up to the date of thesuggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities ofWest Indianlife, we had believed (even granting the correctness of hisgloomy account of the past and present positions of the two races) thatto no well-thinking West IndianWhite, whose ancestors may have,innocently or culpably, participated in the gains as well as the guiltof slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy days beotherwise thanone of regret.  We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse of timeextending over nearly two generations, could be indebted only toprecarioustradition or scarcely accessible documents for any knowledgewe might chance upon of the sufferings endured in these Islands of theWest by those of our racewho have gone before us.  Death, withundiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] in the human harvest ofmasters and slaves alike, according to or out of thenormal laws ofnature; while Time had been letting down on the stage of our existencedrop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the number of something likefifty,which had been curtaining off the tragic incidents of the pastfrom the peaceful activities of the present.  Being thus circumstanced,thought we, what rationalelements of mutual hatred should now continueto exist in the bosoms of the two races?With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of ouronenesswith its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion for theexact forecast of our future conduct under given circumstances, thisappeared to us,looking at actual facts, perversity gone wild in themanufacture of analogies.  The founders of the Black Republic, we hadall along understood, were not in anysense whatever equipped, as Mr.Froude assures us they were, when starting on their self-governingcareer, with the civil and intellectual advantages that hadbeentransplanted from Europe.  On the contrary, we had been taught toregard them as most unfortunate in the circumstances under which [11]they so gloriouslyconquered their merited freedom.  We saw them free,but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent to use the intellectualresources of which their valour had madethem possessors, in the shapeof books on the spirit and technical details of a highly developednational existence.  We had learnt also, until this new interpreterofhistory had contradicted the accepted record, that the continuedfailure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to thefatal want of confidencesubsisting between the fairer and darkersections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrousorigin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting tosecure freedomfor themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice oftheir darker-hued kinsmen.  Finally, it had been explained to us thattheremembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying andperniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national history.All this establishedknowledge we are called upon to throw overboard,and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivablefables!  He calls upon us to believe that,in spite of being free,educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we West IndianBlacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant in ournativeislands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow-Blacks who, atthe time of retaliating upon their actual masters, were torturedslaves, bleeding andrendered desperate under the oppressors' lash--andall this simply and merely because of the sameness of our ancestry andthe colour of our skin!  One wouldhave thought that Liberia would havebeen a fitter standard of comparison in respect of a colouredpopulation starting a national life, really and truly equipped withtherequisites and essentials of civilized existence.  But such a referencewould have been fatal to Mr. Froude's object: the annals of Liberiabeing a persistentrefutation of the old pro-slavery prophecies whichour author so feelingly rehearses.Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow ofUlysses,"which had come into my hands in April, 1888.It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom theforegoing essential summary, that a critic wouldhave little more todo, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic politicalhobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as tocommon sense, inits application to human nature in general, and to theactual facts of West Indian life in particular.History, as against the hard and fast White-master andBlack-slavetheory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. Froude,would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred yearsbefore theNegro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed in oneof those then British Colonies, which had been originally discoveredand settled for Spain by the greatColumbus or by his successors, theConquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the ground of race orcolour, against the owning of slaves by any free personpossessing thenecessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a consequenceof this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical,numbers ofblacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides suchof them as had become possessed of their "property" by inheritance,availed themselves of this virtuallicense, and in course of timeconstituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding sectionof those communities; (c) that these [14] duskyplantation-ownersenjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights andprivileges which were enjoyed and used by their pure-blooded


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Degeneration, by Max NordauThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of theworld at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are locatedbefore using this ebook.Title: DegenerationAuthor: Max NordauRelease Date: February 9, 2016 [EBook #51161]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding:UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEGENERATION ***Produced by Giovanni Fini, David Edwards and the OnlineDistributed ProofreadingTeam at http://www.pgdp.netTRANSCRIBERâS NOTES:--Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.--Whereas adequate characters are notavailable, superscript has beenrendered as a^b and a^{bc}.                             DEGENERATION                          BY THE SAMEAUTHOR.                      _Uniform with this Volume._                         CONVENTIONAL LIES OF                           OURCIVILIZATION.                   PARADOXES.                      LONDON: WILLIAMHEINEMANN.                             DEGENERATION                                  BY                              MAX NORDAU                               AUTHOROF      âCONVENTIONAL LIES OF OUR CIVILIZATION,â âPARADOXES,â ETC.                  Translated from the Second Edition                          ofthe German Work                            Popular Edition                                LONDON                           WILLIAMHEINEMANN                                 1898                        [_All rights reserved_]                _First Edition_      _February, 1895._                 _New Impressions,March 4, 1895;                     March 22, 1895; April, 1895; May,                     1895; June, 1895; August, 1895;                     November, 1895; (PopularEdition),                     September, 1898._                               Dedicated                                  TO                            CÃSAR LOMBROSO,           PROFESSOROF PSYCHIATRY AND FORENSIC MEDICINE AT                    THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF TURIN,                                  BY                              THEAUTHOR.                                  TO                       PROFESSOR CÃSAR LOMBROSO,                               _TURIN_.      _DEAR AND HONOURED MASTER_ ,_Idedicate this book to you, in open and joyful recognition of thefact that without your labours it could never have been written.__The notion of degeneracy, firstintroduced into science by Morel, anddeveloped with so much genius by yourself, has in your hands alreadyshown itself extremely fertile in the most diversedirections. Onnumerous obscure points of psychiatry, criminal law, politics, andsociology, you have poured a veritable flood of light, which thosealone have notperceived who obdurately close their eyes, or who aretoo short-sighted to derive benefit from any enlightenment whatsoever.__But there is a vast and importantdomain into which neither you noryour disciples have hitherto borne the torch of your method--the domainof art and literature.__Degenerates are not alwayscriminals, prostitutes, anarchists, andpronounced lunatics; they are often authors and artists. These,however, manifest the same mental characteristics, and forthe mostpart the same somatic features, as the members of the above-mentionedanthropological family, who satisfy their unhealthy impulses with theknife of theassassin or the bomb of the dynamiter, instead of with penand pencil.__Some among these degenerates in literature, music, and painting havein recent yearscome into extraordinary prominence, and are revered bynumerous admirers as creators of a new art, and heralds of the comingcenturies.__This phenomenon isnot to be disregarded. Books and works of artexercise a powerful suggestion on the masses. It is from theseproductions that an age derives its ideals of moralityand beauty. Ifthey are absurd and anti-social, they exert a disturbing and corruptinginfluence on the views of a whole generation. Hence the latter,especially theimpressionable youth, easily excited to enthusiasm forall that is strange and seemingly new, must be warned and enlightenedas to the real nature of the creationsso blindly admired. This warningthe ordinary critic does not give. Exclusively literary and Ã¦stheticculture is, moreover, the worst preparation conceivable for atrueknowledge of the pathological character of the works of degenerates.The verbose rhetorician exposes with more or less grace, or cleverness,the subjectiveimpressions received from the works he criticises,but is incapable of judging if these works are the productions ofa shattered brain, and also the nature of themental disturbanceexpressing itself by them.__Now I have undertaken the work of investigating (as much as possibleafter your method), the tendencies of thefashions in art andliterature; of proving that they have their source in the degeneracyof their authors, and that the enthusiasm of their admirers isformanifestations of more or less pronounced moral insanity, imbecility,and dementia.__Thus, this book is an attempt at a really scientific criticism, whichdoesnot base its judgment of a book upon the purely accidental,capricious and variable emotions it awakens--emotions depending onthe temperament and mood ofthe individual reader--but upon thepsycho-physiological elements from which it sprang. At the same time itventures to fill a void still existing in your powerfulsystem.__I have no doubt as to the consequences to myself of my initiative.There is at the present day no danger in attacking the Church, forit no longer has thestake at its disposal. To write against rulersand governments is likewise nothing venturesome, for at the worstnothing more than imprisonment could follow, withcompensating gloryof martyrdom. But grievous is the fate of him who has the audacity tocharacterize Ã¦sthetic fashions as forms of mental decay. The authororartist attacked never pardons a man for recognising in him a lunaticor a charlatan; the subjectively garrulous critics are furious when itis pointed out howshallow and incompetent they are, or how cowardlyin swimming with the stream; and even the public is angered whenforced to see that it has been running afterfools, quack dentists,and mountebanks, as so many prophets. Now, the graphomaniacs and theircritical bodyguard dominate nearly the entire press, and in thelatterpossess an instrument of torture by which, in Indian fashion, they canrack the troublesome spoiler of sport, to his lifeâs end.__The danger, however, towhich he exposes himself cannot deter a manfrom doing that which he regards as his duty. When a scientific truthhas been discovered, he owes it to humanity,and has no right towithhold it. Moreover, it is as little possible to do this as for awoman voluntarily to prevent the birth of the mature fruit of her womb.__Withoutaspiring to the most distant comparison of myself with you,one of the loftiest mental phenomena of the century, I may yet take formy example the smilingserenity with which you pursue your own way,indifferent to ingratitude, insult, and misunderstanding.__Pray remain, dear and honoured master, ever favourablydisposedtowards your gratefully devoted_      _MAX NORDAU_.CONTENTS  BOOK I.  _FIN-DE-SIÃCLE._  CHAPTERI.                                                        PAGE  THE DUSK OF THE NATIONS                                  1  CHAPTER II.  THESYMPTOMS                                             7  CHAPTER III.  DIAGNOSIS                                               15  CHAPTERIV.  ETIOLOGY                                                34  BOOK II.  _MYSTICISM._  CHAPTER I.  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MYSTICISM                             45  CHAPTERII.  THE PRE-RAPHAELITES                                     67  CHAPTER III.  SYMBOLISM      100  CHAPTERIV.  TOLSTOISM                                              144  CHAPTER V.  THE RICHARD WAGNER CULT                                171  CHAPTER VI.  PARODIES OFMYSTICISM                                  214  BOOK III.  _EGO-MANIA._  CHAPTER I.  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EGO-MANIA                            241  CHAPTERII.  PARNASSIANS AND DIABOLISTS                             266  CHAPTER III.  DECADENTS AND ÃSTHETES                                 296  CHAPTERIV.  IBSENISM                                               338  CHAPTER V.  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE                                    415  BOOK IV.  _REALISM._  CHAPTERI.  ZOLA AND HIS SCHOOL                                    473  CHAPTER II.  THE âYOUNG GERMANâ PLAGIARISTS                         506  BOOK V.  _THETWENTIETH CENTURY._  CHAPTER I.  PROGNOSIS                                              536  CHAPTERII.  THERAPEUTICS                                           550                       DEGENERATIONBOOK I._FIN-DE-SIÃCLE_.CHAPTER I.THE DUSK OF THENATIONS.FIN-DE-SIÃCLE is a name covering both what is characteristic of manymodern phenomena, and also the underlying mood which in themfindsexpression. Experience has long shown that an idea usually derivesits designation from the language of the nation which first formedit. This, indeed, is a lawof constant application when historians ofmanners and customs inquire into language, for the purpose of obtainingsome notion, through the origins of someverbal root, respecting thehome of the earliest inventions and the line of evolution in differenthuman races. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ is French, for it was in France thatthemental state so entitled was first consciously realized. The word hasflown from one hemisphere to the other, and found its way into allcivilized languages. Aproof this that the need of it existed. The_fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ state of mind is to-day everywhere to be met with;nevertheless, it is in many cases a mere imitation ofa foreign fashiongaining vogue, and not an organic evolution. It is in the land of itsbirth that it appears in its most genuine form, and Paris is the rightplace inwhich to observe its manifold expressions.No proof is needed of the extreme silliness of the term. Only thebrain of a child or of a savage could form the clumsyidea that thecentury is a kind of living being, born like a beast or a man, passingthrough all the stages of existence, gradually ageing and decliningafter bloomingchildhood, joyous youth, and vigorous maturity, to diewith the expiration of the hundredth year, after being afflicted inits last decade with all the infirmities ofmournful senility. Sucha childish anthropomorphism or zoomorphism never stops to considerthat the arbitrary division of time, rolling ever continuously along,isnot identical amongst all civilized beings, and that while thisnineteenth century of Christendom is held to be a creature reeling toits death presumptively in direexhaustion, the fourteenth century ofthe Mahommedan world is tripping along in the baby-shoes of its firstdecade, and the fifteenth century of the Jews strides