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Our Karaoke: Thousands of different song titles in clean, well organized, easy to read song books!
Christopher's Pub in<|fim_middle|>.
Our music library has over 50,000 song titles and grows every month!
DJ Don and his staff dress appropriately for every occasion.
We offer personal consultations to assist you in planning the perfect party.
Your guests can participate in unique games and exciting activities, or if you prefer, we can supply soft, elegant background music, or both, on our state-of-the-art sound equipment. | Toms River, NJ is the crown jewel of Friday Night Karaoke, and it keeps getting better! The best mix of karaoke and dance music!
Oh... and feel free to dance to whatever's being sung, too! Lots and lots of friendly people! Come on down to the area's ORIGINAL Karaoke Dance Party! It gets busy quick, so come early if you want to sing!
DJ Don is the owner/operator of Puttin' On The Hits! He has been involved in music for many years, starting in his home town of Syracuse, New York, when his love of music and singing got him "hamming it up" in front of friends at a local pub. During his six year term with the U.S. Navy on board the USS Conolly, Don was in charge of "music and sound", which provided much-welcomed entertainment for his shipmates. Upon his honorable discharge in 1986, Don moved to Barnegat, NJ where he launched Puttin' on the Hits! and turned his passion into reality!
Puttin' on the Hits! is a full time, full service DJ music and entertainment company.
Puttin' on the Hits! has been satisfying clients in the Tri-state area since 1987.
Puttin' on the Hits! is fully insured.
Music and entertainment is continuous at every affair | 277 |
I don't talk much about machine learning on this blog in general, having pretty much focused on web-related software engineering lately, but I do study this field at Georgia Tech. Recently, a professor of mine (Dr. Andrew Gardner) made us focus on GANs, a kind of model that I'd like to present to you today. I assume you have a basic understanding of neural networks and know a bit about Tensorflow and Keras. If you've only played with something like MNIST, I think this tutorial will be accessible enough for you to understand. Now that you've been warned, let's get to it!
Generative Adversarial Networks or GANs is a recent unsupervised technique (introduced in 2014 by Ian Goodfellow et al.) to train neural networks to generate plausible data using a zero sum game. Hopefully, this is not as complicated as it sounds.
In this blog post I'm going to explain how GANs work in general and which applications they commonly have and in a next blogpost, I'm going to show you how we can use Keras to train such model.
Generating data can be used to perform various tasks. The first thing that comes to mind is to be able to augment any dataset used for any kind of task with plausible additional data: a popular use of GANs is to feed them the imagenet dataset and make it generate plausible pictures that do not exist in the original dataset. From a human standpoint, those images may be a bit irrealistic but they may still make sense.
An example of generated images presented by the OpenAI team.
By looking at the generated output, we can see that the GAN managed to represent a certain understanding of our world and is able, from this understanding, to create new images that could fit in our own vision of the world.
GANs can also be used for many other interesting tasks that may seem unrelated. For instance, GANs are able to upscale an image in a plausible way, inferring details that do not exist in the original. GANs are also able to infer the next frames in videos in a realistic way. But my favorite application may be this one where they managed to transform simplistic drawings into photorealistic sceneries. Finally, GANs seems to be researched extensively by OpenAI with the goal of being able to generate seemlingly real situations for Reinforcment Learning experiments.
The overall idea behind GANs is that you have two models playing with each other. As Ian Goodfellow describes it: one is a counterfeiter trying to produce seemingly real data while the other is a cop trying to determine what the fake counterfeit data is while trying to not raise false positives on real data.
The Generative Model (aka The counterfeiter), by taking any random input will try to generate some real things (curves, images, sounds, text, …). It has no idea of what is the real data, it wll only try to adjust from the feedback of the other model.
The Discriminative Model (aka The cop), will take as its dataset input a bunch of generated data from the other model and actual real data we want the other model to learn to fake. The output results of this model will serve for the backpropagation of the other model.
An overview of GANs: the results of the discriminator model will serve to retrain the generator during the backpropagation.
How do we train this efficiently though? We'll see in the next part how to actually train the model with Keras but in<|fim_middle|> Neural Information Processing Systems. 2016. | general, training a GAN is very simple: for each epoch, you only need to do a two-step training.
Train the discriminator Sample some images from your dataset and some noise that you will pipe through the generator model. Then use this data to train the Discriminator to recognize Generator data from Real data.
Train the generator via the chained models In this part, you will generate sample data and try to push the chained generator and discriminator to tell you that it is real data. However, we don't want to alter the weights in the discriminator during this step. That's why we'll need to freeze the training of the weights in the discriminator.
What are their limits? How do they compare with similar models?
Let's start with the main issue with GANs, it is particularly hard to quantify how good their output is: first thing, they run unsupervised so theorically the loss would be a good metric to watch, however, since GANs are in fact two models fighting with each other, they will both try to have the lowest loss while augmenting the other model loss. They also are exposed to the risk of generating very similar results for different noise input. Keep in mind that there is very good research that has been made on this subject to mitigate those issues but that goes way out of the scope of this introductory tutorial. If you are interested in learning more about this, I advise you to follow the work made recently by the University of Montréal and OpenAI (where the inventors of GANs are primarily working). I especially recommend Improved techniques for training gans.
GANs are very good for their generative abilities but are also used in tasks where other concurrent models are very strong such as latent modeling (semi-supervized approach, this time we would not feed noise into the GAN) in which Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are already very good at.
VAEs are good at reducing dimensions into interpretable dimensions while GANs, as said before are harder to evaluate. However, GANs will, compared to VAEs, generate less "blurry" output.
There are also a lot of other models that I will not cover here since they are more specialized than GANs in specific fields (such as pixelCNN for images) that may work better. That's why that, depending on the task, it may be interesting to combine GANs with an another model (Adversarial VAEs for instance) to get the most out of a specific situation.
I'll conclude this first part by saying that GANs are a good fundamental start and, while not perfect, they can be used and combined to create very interesting models. The research goes fast and I would advise you to keep an eye out if you are interested in that. I really think there is still a lot to be done with GANs that we did not really imagine just yet! I'll stop there since I'm also interested in showing you how to create your own GANs in the next part.
Salimans, Tim, et al. "Improved techniques for training gans." Advances in | 636 |
In a 100+ year-old house, the master bedroom finally gets its own master bathroom. After living in the house for a few months<|fim_middle|>-detailed cabinetry makes the most of the limited space. The sink area occupies what used to be a shallow closet with bifold doors, so cabinetry with varying depths keeps the bathroom from feeling cramped. The cabinet color, a soft dove grey, is soothing without feeling cold or clinical.
Antique accents, like this reclaimed light fixture and intricate mirror, mesh with the new construction for a space that reflects the era the historic home was built in.
When the guest room is not needed for company, light flows from the bathroom into the guest room, making it a cozy place for reading and providing plenty of space as a dressing room. All in all, the project brings new life to an old space, making this home more livable–for both the owners and their out-of-town guests. | , the new owners knew they needed a master bathroom. Through the design process, we collaborated to create a space that would make getting ready for each day easier and more enjoyable. Claiming an unusual space that had likely been used as a nursery, the small space between two bedrooms became the full bathroom.
In the newly-remodeled space, reclaimed French doors lead from the guest bedroom (used as a dressing room) into the master bath, creating a bright and inviting ambiance throughout the second floor master suite.
The clients were inspired by clean, neutral colors and an elegant, spacious, unfussy aesthetic. Bright, natural light was a must-have for this project, and the whole bathroom makes use of ambient and direct sunlight. Here, a glassed-in shower provides plenty of light and keeps the airy bathroom from feeling compartmentalized.
A pocket door provides access to the master bedroom without the door swing taking up floor space. The master bedroom's original closets were removed to allow the bed to sit just under the slope of the ceiling, creating more space in the bedroom and easier access to the master bathroom.
The antique claw-foot tub was placed under the window, allowing beautiful light to flood the room. Clean, pale colors in the tile and wall paint keep the room bright while allowing accent colors to really pop.
Finely | 263 |
DOLOHOV, Darius
by Darius Dolohov on Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:04 pm
DARIUS GRIGORY DOLOHOV
FULL NAME: Darius Grigory Dolohov
NICKNAMES: none
ALLEGIANCE: Dark follower
HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin
CLASSES: Charms, CoMC, DADA, Transfiguration
WAND: Birch, 7,31⁄64in, flexible and with phoenix's feather.
PLAY BY: Adam Levine
HAIR COLOUR: dark brown
COMPARATIVE HEIGHT: 73 15⁄64in
BODY BUILD: Athletic.
GENERAL APPEARANCE:
Darius' style resembles to the typical 'bad boy's. His dark brown hair is always either messy or if he does take care of it, then its pulled back in an old fashion way. His dark brown eyes always shine with expectation of finding something interesting. Being quite tall, he usually towers over everyone on his way and its hard to unnotice the presence of another Dolohov.
There are days when he can be seen with his beard, but that's rare and uncommon as a rule.
Grigory has always had a taste in clothing, although not everyone might think the same. Often choosing for the color of black, Darius loves his leather jacket and old worn-out jeans. Darius is not a fan of jewelry, and, as a matter of fact, he avoids wearing any rings and necklaces, though he has one year pierced as well as his tongue, though he is thinking about getting rid of the latter.
His hands and a small area of his chest are covered with tattoos. Though his tattoo's may come off as just pretty colored pictures on the skin, each one of them has a significant meaning.
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES:
+ good at dueling
+ he's a good swimmer
+ patient
+ listener
+ active
+ actually a man of his words
+ a wish to prove himself
+ artistic
- afraid of heights
- curses and swears a lot
- rough with opinion
- may come off as an overly sarcastic person
- pretty decent liar
- acts without thinking when offended
- easily upset
- suffers from pangs of conscience
LIKES & DISLIKES:
+ cats, pretty girls, manners, wine, drugs, tattoos, sunset, summer, art, history, dueling, swimming, chocolate, old books and libraries, science, modern technology, clean clothes, neatness, snow<|fim_middle|> freak tendencies, but I am trusting you not to make give him OCD in all but name. Don't let me down, cool?
Accepted and sorted into SLYTHERIN
by Darius Dolohov on Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:16 am
Bump! I want to be green again!
Credit for the Toggle Sidebar goes to SubDevo and MissTexas | Free forum | © phpBB | Free forum support | Contact | Report an abuse | Forumotion.com | boarding, skiing, horse riding, scotch, whiskey, cigarettes, classy music, class, smell of grass after the rain, silence, a good company, smart people, word keepers, vegetarian food, forests, candlelight, darkness, social events, piano, his guitar
- dogs, heights, whores, riot, onion, when he's lied to, big cities, homework, medicine & drugstores, hospitals, syringes, blood, horror movies, concerts, certain slytherins, gryffindors, most of the muggles, lack of knowledge, work, No, raisins, meat, lack of hygine, lack of manners
graduate, find a well paying job and become independent, adopt as many cats as possible, get married, have at least 3 children, go to china, japan and see the rest of the europe, become famous, master the violin, see vanessa mae live, attend a ballet and an opera, get a pet swan, live in a jungle for at least three months, buy a pet spider, get rid of his fear of heights
HABITS & QUIRKS:
Has a mania with tidiness. When-ever he sees that there's a spot, he's probably the one who'll go and swipe it off
wakes up at 5 AM no matter how hard the last day was
refuses to eat meat
inflicts pain on himself
BOGGART: his biggest fear is heights, so falling to his death would be his greatest boggart.
PATRONUS: this would be getting his own piano for his seventh birthday. Darius has always been a gifted child when it came to music, so when his parents gave him a white concert grand piano, that was and still remains to be the happies day of his life.
DEMENTOR: so far there are no bad memories in his life. Only accidents, but he does not label them as 'bad memories'
VERITASERUM: different family. Parents mostly
MIRROR OF ERISED: Darius has always wanted to be an inventor, so leaving behind his land and family and inventning beneficial things has always been his dream.
PERSONALITY: Darius is nothing like his father, though they share some common traits. Grigory is a patient young man, who listents, but who might act before even thinking trough what the result might be.
Its hard for him to trust people, although he does not have exact trust issues. He simply labels people, and by the way they act or even dress, he judges and avoids them. His sarcastic comments may have made him really unpopular among the other students, but being always prided and given everything he wants, he does not care.
It may be surprising, but Darius is a very talented young man. At a very young age he has been surprising people with his talents such as art, his great singing voice and his enthusiasm to learn musical instruments. He is well aware of his physical appearance, and though it is expected from him, he does not use his body to get to the point. Again, he simply does not care.
Darius has the obsession with the cleanness which means that if he sees dirt on the floor, he will seriously do anything to make this place clean and sparkly again. If he can not do what he must in order to calm down, Darius can become really upset and moody.
He is very fond of history and arts and Grigory loves to spend some time in the library either looking around and calming down in its environment or reading. His ego is not necessarily high, but he's obsessed with proving his point and towering over everyone else. At school he sees Gryffindors as his main rivals. He can not see how people from his house can befriend someone from their hourse, however he is willing to do some co-operation with them only if that
benefits him.
Much like his brother, Darius can easily get out of the trouble. He is not exactly a prankster, but he can pull off some 'jokes' as well.
FATHER: Antonin Dolohov
MOTHER: Faith Dolohov (nee: Knight)
SIBLING/S: younger brother Andrei Dolohov and sister Liesl
BLOOD STATUS: pureblood
SOCIAL STATUS: Wealthy
PET/S:
A black cat named Twinkletoes.
OTHER POSSESSIONS:
Early Years: As his family moved a lot when he was younger, this has affected Darius and its still hard for him to settle down.
Being the oldest of the children, it was upon him to carry the family's bloodline. His father wanted him to become the head of the family if anything should happen to Antonin, but even as a young child who should've been proud of himself, he was not. Darius hated the fact that they were chased and when they moved to Russia, little boy hoped that they would be finally left alone and that their family would settle down. This never happened as the sworn enemies of his family, aurors, still chased them. This also helped to paint the picture of the world of how he sees it now, and even though he grew up, Darius realized that nothing has changed much.
His biggest dream till today is to have a calm life.
Hogwarts Years: When Darius first arrived to Hogwarts, he did not know what to do. With being used to moving, he had a hard time settling down in the school
As expected, he was sorted into Slytherin and it did not take much time for him to realize that with his bloodline and his father's name he could basically get whatever he wanted. Hogwarts, in his eyes, was basically a school of affection, reminding him really of You either kill or be killed.
He has never been an outstanding student, though Darius also never skipped his classes. He figured that if he wanted to survive in this world and if he really wanted to become an independent person, he had to be smart and willing to work, though he hated it.
He never had any close friends, only associates who shared the same ideals and thoughts as him. When his younger brother and sister also joined Hogwarts, he took the part of older brother more seriously and defended them.
BEHIND THE CHARACTER
ALSO KNOWN AS: Mis
RP EXPERIENCE: veteran by now.
HOW YOU FOUND US: I don't remember.
MAIN CHARACTER: Miseria Lupin & Avis Summers
PURPOSE OF CHARACTER: I'll roleplay that out.
RP SAMPLE:
Last edited by Darius Dolohov on Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Darius Dolohov
Seventh Year Slytherin
Re: DOLOHOV, Darius
by Keith Nicholas on Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:19 pm
We don't accept characters with mental disorders, sorry. Please remove the OCD.
Keith Nicholas
Occupation : Unemployed
Looks good. I don't mind the neat | 1,469 |
Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. Twelve months. One year… each moment filled with evidence of the influence of OHIO's alumni and friends—donors to The Ohio University Foundation.
In fiscal year 2017 (July 1, 2016, through June 30, 2017), donor contributions touched every part of the University. Some 17,768 individuals and organizations made current-use and endowment gifts and pledges to the Foundation in 2017 totaling more than $30.7 million. On June 30, 2017, the market<|fim_middle|> students, its faculty and staff, its programs, and its very heart and soul.
This is philanthropy in service to education.
Whether exploring dark matter in the far reaches of space or driving a miniscule car in France's Nanocar Grand Prix, scientists in the departments of physics and chemistry push boundaries to explore what the naked eye can't see.
Daily growth in "knowledge, wisdom, and love" is a life lesson imparted to every individual who passes through the Alumni Gateway. It is a lesson that donors like Joseph Alan Butts (BS '72) pass on to future generations.
The technology, infrastructure, and policy of keeping human beings connected is the work of the J. Warren McClure School of Information and Telecommunication Systems (ITS). | value of the endowments that support the University exceeded $536.2 million. Earnings from those endowments provided $18.2 million in support to OHIO's colleges, schools, campuses, and units.
In this 2017 Annual Report on Giving you will find 12 examples of gifts and the impact of giving—a small sampling to represent the months that make up a year in the life of OHIO, its | 93 |
20 Authentic Spanish Dishes You Need To Try At Least Once
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By Crawford Smith/Feb. 18, 2022 2:30 pm EST
While the cuisine of Spain may not be as well-known stateside as that of its European cousins, Italy and France, it deserves to be. The essence of Spanish cooking technique is taking the fabulous ingredients the country produces, such as its vibrant olive oil, fresh seafood, juicy tomatoes, world-class ham, and doing the bare minimum to transform them into simple, yummy dishes. When the products you're working with are as good as those available to Spanish cooks, doing too much to them is unnecessary, and even disrespectful.
It's kind of a misnomer to say that there is one cuisine called "Spanish food." As we dive into this list, you'll notice that many of these dishes come from distinct areas within Spain, including the Andalucia, Galicia, Catalonia, and Basque regions. Although it's hard to capture the breadth of Spanish regional cuisine in any form shorter than a book, these 20 dishes might be considered the greatest hits.
Kolombo Castro/Shutterstock
Paella is one Spanish dish that most people are already somewhat familiar with. There are many different types of paella, but according to Food'n Road, the original comes from Valencia. It dates back to the 18th century (or possibly earlier, but that's when the first written recipe is from). The name comes from the Latin word "patella" and refers to the pan it is cooked on, and often eaten from. However, there's also an alternate theory that the name is derived from the Arabic word for "leftovers."
The original paella Valenciana consisted of duck, chicken, and rabbit, and today, a traditional dish also has tomatoes, rice, and two types of beans cooked together in a saffron-enriched broth over an open fire. A perfectly-cooked paella will have a layer of toasted rice on the bottom of the pan called the socarrat. Although the original paella doesn't have seafood in it, our recipe for Paella mixta uses a delicious mix of shrimp, mussels, clams, chorizo, and chicken with great results.
Croquetas de Jamón
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Spanish croquetas are little nuggets of thick béchamel sauce studded with some kind of protein, breaded, and then deep-fried. They can be flavored with different meats, including salt cod, chicken, or the non-traditional (but delicious) choice of bacon, apple, and onions that we have a recipe for. However, if you ask us, the ultimate Spanish croqueta is filled with jamón Serrano. It's the perfect combination of creamy béchamel, crispy-fried coating, and salty-savory ham. If you're lucky enough to have some leftover scraps of Serrano ham lying around there's no better use for them.
According to The Spruce Eats, croquetas de jamón are served all over Spain and they're a popular choice at tapas bars. If you're fortunate enough to live close to a Spanish restaurant, we recommend checking these out, as they are a perfect light bite to munch on during Happy Hour. Making them at home is more of a hassle, but still worth it if you're not blessed with a nearby tapas bar.
Tortilla Española
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If you're thinking that this tortilla has anything to do with the thin flatbread you'll find wrapped around tacos and burritos, think again. A tortilla Española is actually a type of omelet filled with potatoes and onions that have been poached in olive oil. Unlike a skinny, rolled French omelet, a Spanish tortilla is a thick cake of eggs and veggies, somewhat similar to a frittata. However, frittatas cook in the oven, while tortillas cook entirely on the stove in a skillet. In order to cook the tortilla on both sides, you have to execute a tricky flipping maneuver using a plate that requires some practice.
Although tortillas are one of Spain's iconic dishes, potatoes weren't believed to have been commonly eaten in the country until the Spanish conquerors brought it back with them after discovering America (via Queen Sofía Spanish Institute). And, the new world crop was initially used as livestock fodder. In fact, potatoes didn't become popular as food for humans until the 1800s, which is when the first written record of the tortilla Espańola appears.
Miguel AF/Shutterstock
Migas, like tortilla, is a word that refers to different foods depending on whether you're in Mexico or Spain. The Mexican version of migas cooks fried corn tortilla pieces, veggies, and eggs together into a hearty breakfast. The Spanish version is conceptually similar in that it combines little pieces of bread with miscellaneous ingredients to make a tasty hash, but it's quite different when you get into the specifics.
At base, Spanish migas is a dish of breadcrumbs fried in olive oil (via Serious Eats). From there, you can take it in any direction you want. Often, the crumbs are combined with some kind of pork product. Spanish chorizo is a great choice, but different regions of Spain use different meats. You can also throw in whatever kind of vegetables suit your taste. Migas is a modular meal, and if you're not worried about being too "authentic," it's a great way to use up stale bread and various odds-and-ends that are lurking in your fridge.
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According to NPR, "pintxo" is a word that really refers to<|fim_middle|> sauce tastes fantastic on anything that's hot off the grill, and it's wonderful with fish as well.
Mejillones en escabeche
Natalia Mylova/Shutterstock
Per Spain Recipes, escabeche is a generic term for any kind of food that is either steamed or fried before being cooked or left to marinate in a brine. It was originally a way to preserve ingredients, but now it is done simply for its flavor. The word comes from the Arabic term for vinegar stew, suggesting that the dish has Moorish origins.
Many different ingredients can be prepared in the escabeche style, including various types of poultry and seafood. One of the most typical escabeches is done with mejillones, which translates to mussels in English. To make mejillones in escabeche, you first have to cook the mussels by steaming them and then remove them from their shells (via De Rechupete). Next, you submerge the shucked mussels in a brine made from olive oil, wine, vinegar, garlic, and spices. If you want to honor the dish's history and preserve your escabeche, you can put it in canning jars to keep it on the shelf in your pantry. | a variety of dishes. In the Basque region, where the word originates, it's used to describe any small dish eaten as a snack with wine. In the rest of Spain, where such snacks are generically called "tapas," pintxos are specifically the kind of tapa that is served on a skewer.
Despite the vagueness that surrounds what counts as a pintxo, there are some classics that appear frequently. Many types of pintxos center around various kinds of pickles and preserved foods arranged together on skewers. The most famous of these is the pintxo gilda, a combination of preserved anchovy, pickled guindilla pepper, and green olive. Another classic is dates stuffed with blue cheese (the stinkier the better), wrapped in bacon, and roasted. Pintxos served on top of small slices of bread are also popular. You can think of that type as the Spanish version of bruschetta.
DominikaB/Shutterstock
According to The Spruce Eats, morcilla is a type of sausage made from pig's blood and ground pork. Those are the two necessary ingredients for a sausage to be called morcilla, but other than that, the recipes change dramatically depending on where in the country you're eating. One classic version is flavored with onion and spices and uses rice as a filler. Other versions skip the fillers entirely or use pine nuts, potatoes, or squash instead. The seasoning mix also varies regionally, with some areas of Spain preferring a paprika-heavy flavor profile and others leaning on cinnamon and cloves. Seville even has a variety that's sweet.
One of the most classic ways to eat morcilla is also the simplest: cut into thick coins, fried in olive oil, and served on top of bread. You can also use morcilla to flavor soup, stews, and other dishes. Its flavor is intense, unique, and delicious, so if you've never had any kind of blood sausage before, morcilla is a good place to start.
Basque Cheesecake
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As Bloomberg notes, Basque "burnt" cheesecake was quite popular online for a while. Although some internet food trends are more aesthetic than they are delicious, if anything, Basque cheesecake is the opposite; its carbonized exterior and overall lumpy look aren't exactly Instagrammable. Nevertheless, this dessert, which was invented by the pintxos bar La Viña in San Sebastián, a city in Spain's Basque region, went thoroughly viral.
The good news is, you can make Basque cheesecake at home using our recipe without springing for plane tickets to Spain. Even better, this variety of cheesecake is easier to make than American New York-style cheesecake. You don't have to make a crust and you don't have to do any sort of fussy baking technique to prevent the top from cracking. In fact, you basically burn it in the oven, and the crunchy exterior serves as the crust. You only need six ingredients to whip this up, so there's really nothing stopping you from giving this a try. It's as tasty as its reputation would suggest.
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One of the things Spanish food is great at is making mind-blowingly delicious dishes from the simplest components. No dish highlights that better than pan con tomate (also known as pa amb tomaquet in Catalan). At its simplest, pan con tomate is just a slice of robust bread rubbed with a clove of garlic and a cut tomato, then drizzled with olive oil (via Serious Eats). It's a great way to showcase the intense flavor of a ripe, in-season tomato. If you want more tomato in your pan con tomate, you can also grate the tomato on a box grater and spread the pulp on a slice of bread, perhaps seasoning it with sherry vinegar and garlic.
Pan con tomate can serve as the base for a variety of tapas by topping it with other ingredients. One typical variation suggested by Serious Eats adds some brininess and salt to the mix in the form of anchovy fillets.
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Just about every culture that eats pork makes some kind of ham, but the ham produced in Spain may be the very best in the world. According to Jamón, both major types of Spanish ham, Ibérico and Serrano, are made using the same basic process: coating fresh pork in salt, then hanging it to cure. Traditionally, ham was cured out in the open air, but in modern times it's usually processed in specialized facilities that recreate ideal ham-curing weather.
Serrano is the more common and less expensive of the two varieties. It's made using conventional pork breeds that aren't native to Spain. However, it's cured in the traditional manner and aged for at least one year, so it still tastes amazing. The gold standard of Spanish ham is Ibérico, particularly Ibérico bellota. Ibérico is Spain's native pig breed, and it's notable for having a higher fat content than conventional pork. Ibérico hams are also cured for at least two years, so they have a very complex flavor. The best of the best, Ibérico bellota, is made with pigs that are fattened on acorns.
Boquerones en vinagre
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Boquerones is Spanish for anchovies. If the only anchovies you've ever had are the tiny, brown, salt-cured variety found on American pizza, you should try Spanish-style boquerones sometime. While they eat the small salt-cured ones in Spain as well, fresh anchovies are also quite popular (via Spanish Sabores). You can even find dishes that combine both salted and fresh anchovy fillets for a double-dose of fishy umami. Fresh anchovies are larger and meatier than what you might be used to and don't have the intense salt kick that the preserved ones do.
Two of the most popular ways to eat fresh boquerones are fried in olive oil or pickled in vinegar. Boquerones en vinagre, as the latter preparation is called, actually "cook" in their acidic marinade, much in the same way as ceviche. The anchovies marinate in vinegar, and once they turn white, they get submerged in olive oil and garlic. After they're fully cured, they're great all by themselves, but they're even better on top of some nice bread.
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The tarta de Santiago is a traditional cake that has been eaten for centuries, according to Bake From Scratch, and features a dense texture and lemon flavor. In honor of the Feast of St. James, plenty of this cake is consumed in honor of the late saint. Although it's a religious holiday that draws thousands of pilgrims from around the world, it's also a big party with lots of revelry, drinking, and eating. In addition to the tarta de Santiago, it's also traditional to eat oysters and scallops during the festivities, per Spanish Fiestas.
Because of its role in the Santiago celebration, a true tarta de Santiago must be decorated with the image of the Cross of St. James in powdered sugar. If you thought that gluten-free dessert recipes were a new trend, you might be surprised to find out that the tarta de Santiago is completely gluten-free, as it's made with almond flour instead of wheat. The trick to making the cake light and fluffy is to beat the eggs and almond flour together for a long time. Other than those components, the cake is flavored simply with lemon and sugar.
Pulpo Gallego
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Pulpo Gallego is another Galician favorite, though now you can find it across Spain. The Spruce Eats' recipe for this dish only has five ingredients, so it's a great way to start exploring Spain's cuisine at home (if you're able to get your hands on octopus, anyway). Even if you're not familiar with cooking octopus, this dish is pretty hard to screw up.
To make it, you simply boil a whole octopus until it's cooked through. Unlike other seafood like squid and shrimp, octopus tastes bests when it's cooked for a long time (if it's not cooked long enough, you'll end up chewing on it forever). Depending on the size of the octopus, you'll probably have to boil it for at least an hour. Once the octopus is done, you slice it into bite-size pieces and garnish with boiled sliced potatoes, olive oil, salt, and paprika. Like so many simple Spanish dishes, this recipe relies on using the best possible ingredients. You need excellent olive oil and strong paprika to make pulpo Gallego taste the way it should.
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With the possible exception of the tortilla Española, patatas bravas are Spain's greatest achievement in the realm of potato cookery. They're basically the country's version of a loaded french fry (via Spanish Sabores). Instead of long, thin slices of potato like you would use for fries, you traditionally use square-ish chunks to make bravas, but other than that, the procedure is the same. However, you will first fry the potatoes through on a skillet and later fry their exterior. If you want to be extra-Spanish, you should use olive oil to fry the potatoes.
The thing that turns the patatas into patatas bravas is the sauce, which according to Spanish Sabores is a thick, slightly spicy condiment flavored with hot paprika. We would also heartily recommend adding a drizzle of garlicky aioli to the mix. This not only gives you a pleasant red-and-white color scheme but also provides a pleasingly creamy contrast to the heat of the bravas sauce.
Gambas al ajillo
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It's hard to argue with garlicky shrimp. It's even harder to say no when the shrimp in question are drowning in a deep pool of olive oil. That's what you'll get whenever you order gambas al ajillo from a tapas bar in Spain. Per Serious Eats, the classic way to cook Spanish garlic shrimp is in a clay vessel called a cazuela. You heat up a ton of olive oil in the cazuela and toss in, at the very minimum, garlic and shrimp. If you'd like to get a little fancier, you can add some combination of chili pepper, parsley, bay leaf, sherry vinegar, or brandy, but the simple alchemy of garlic, oil, and shrimp is delicious all on its own.
The tastiest part of this dish isn't even the shrimp themselves (though they are wonderful). No, the best bites come after you have finished the shrimp and you start soaking chunks of bread in the garlic and seafood-scented olive oil. That oil is truly divine.
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Other than paella, gazpacho is probably the first food that comes to mind when you think about Spanish cuisine. While in the U.S. you might immediately think of gazpacho as cold tomato soup, tomatoes are actually not original to the dish. Tomato gazpacho is certainly popular in Spain these days, but the original dish consisted of bread, salt, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and water combined into a cold slurry (via Andalucia). In addition to red tomato gazpacho, there is also a green variety made with herbs and green vegetables like peppers and lettuce.
Our favorite type of gazpacho is the white kind known as ajo blanco. According to Serious Eats, this takes the basic bread gazpacho formula from ancient times and adds ground almonds to the mix, producing a creamy, refreshing soup. A simple garnish of cold grapes turns this into an ideal appetizer or light lunch for a hot summer day.
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A bocadillo is just a Spanish sandwich. According to Taste Atlas, they're generally made on a baguette-like type of bread called barra de pan. Anything tasty in Spanish cuisine could become a bocadillo filling, from a slice of tortilla to boquerones to fried calamari to thinly-sliced jamón. While Taste Atlas notes that sometimes the bread can be turned into pan con tomate and other toppings like cheese and olives can join the party, oftentimes bocadillos feature just one filling put into bread with no condiments or other accouterments.
Although such a simple sandwich might sound kind of boring if you're used to complex creations loaded with sauces and condiments, a bocadillo is all about appreciating one impeccably-prepared ingredient in its pure form. If you're eating really good jamòn Serrano, you don't necessarily want many other flavors fighting with the delicious ham. The same goes for the freshly-fried calamari tucked into Madrid's famous calamari bocadillos.
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According to The Spruce Eats, the word "escalivada" is Catalan for "to roast in the embers." Escalivada refers to roasted vegetables that are peeled and dressed with olive oil and sometimes sherry vinegar after they're done cooking (via Food52). You can use any number of vegetables in this preparation, but eggplant, peppers, and onions are classic. You can eat escalivada with bread as a snack or tapa, but it's also a great side dish for pretty much any type of protein. Although it's made with cooked vegetables, it's usually served at room temperature like a salad. When prepared this way, the vegetables develop a silky, unctuous texture, particularly the eggplant.
Although both The Spruce and Food52 roast their escalivada in the oven, we can say from personal experience that this dish tastes even better when cooked over a wood or charcoal fire. The smoke adds depth you just can't achieve in the oven.
A coca can be many different things, sweet or savory. As the Los Angeles Times says, the basic formula of a coca is to top dough with something flavorful and bake it in the oven. The savory version is very similar to pizza, though the dough is more like a fluffy focaccia dough. Typical toppings for savory coques include butifarra (a type of Spanish sausage), caramelized onions, olives, and boquerones. Unlike pizza, coca is generally served at room temperature instead of piping hot.
Sweet coques start with a different dough from the savory ones. It's more pastry-like, with a flaky lightness derived from the addition of butter or lard. One classic combo for sweet coques is anisette (an anise-flavored liqueur), sugar, and pine nuts. If anise isn't your thing, citrus-toped coques are also popular. Really, the coca form accepts a multiplicity of toppings, so you can make them however you want to.
Calçots in romesco
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Romesco sauce is a creamy mixture of pureed dried peppers, almonds and/or hazelnuts, garlic, olive oil, and sherry vinegar that's thickened with bread (via SFGate). Although you can make versions of romesco with a variety of peppers, the authentic pepper is the ñora, a deep-red dried chile from Spain. Sometimes the ñoras are blended with bell peppers or piquillos, but that's far from universal.
Romesco comes from the town of Tarragona, where it is typically used as a condiment for grilled calçots. Calçots are a special variety of onion, and they were traditionally eaten in spring, although they are now grown throughout the year.
Since calçots are hard to find in the U.S., you can serve your romesco with grilled scallions or spring onions if you would like. You don't have to limit yourself to onions either; This | 3,315 |
Evolution's Iron Curtain
Robert George teaches jurisprudence at Princeton and is well known both as a scholar and as a conservative. On Facebook recently he posted a dialogue with a "closeted conservative colleague" who chooses not to go public with his own views out of considerations of career safety. (Rod Dreher reproduces and comments on it.) The colleague feels implicitly judged by Professor George for his not speaking out, and a really interesting conversation ensues. It reminds me of the situation faced by Darwin skeptics in the science world.
Basically, the colleague feels he has good reasons for remaining closeted, while George says he "assumes" the colleague is "following [his] conscience." Professor George admits that careers have been savaged and ruined when conservatives came out, but he nevertheless advises his own grad students to be fearless and candid.
CCC [closeted conservative colleague]: "You ARE judging those of us who keep our opinions to ourselves, then."
Me: "For heaven's sake, I'm just saying that there is a certain moral hazard in not speaking your mind. As scholars, we've got a special obligation to truth and a vocation to truth-telling. Of course, everybody has a basic obligation to honor the truth, as best they grasp it, but our obligation is even more central to who we are. So, speaking for myself, I don't see what the point of being a scholar is if we're not willing to speak the truth as best we understand it. I mean, there are lots of other fields we could go into. We could be lawyers, or doctors, operate hedge funds. There's the insurance business. Wendy's franchises. Anyway, again speaking for myself, if I felt I couldn't speak the truth out loud, I would abandon academic life and go do something else."
CCC: "You're not afraid to say what you think because you've been able to get away with it without your academic career being ruined."
<|fim_middle|> red flags: It's past time to take off the blinders → ← Florida Measure Would Define Unborn Baby as a Person and Ban Abortions | Me: "That's exactly backwards. I've been able to get away with it because I'm not afraid to say what I think. Fear empowers the bullies. They're far less bold and aggressive when they know you're not afraid of them."
CCC: "Well, I am afraid of them."
All true, yet no doubt there are factors that make some scholars more vulnerable than others — local conditions in your university or department, for example, and above all, the cushioning and protective effects of money. So it really isn't fair to judge anyone.
It also strikes me that it's one thing to speculate about whether conservatives in academia can safely "come out," but another class of scholars — evolution skeptics — are far more constrained and threatened. They have much more reason to be afraid. Here, for example, with permission, is an email I received the other day from a biologist in training:
I'm just finishing up my master's degree in evolutionary biology and likely starting a PhD in evolutionary genetics next fall. I was at an evolutionary genetics lab for a few weeks earlier this year and the world-renowned geneticist there was mocking other views. Even in the absence of answers to big questions like how life started and how new enzymes arise, evolutionary biologists are closed to answers that don't come from Darwinism. The scorn towards Darwinian skepticism is quite strong in my experience — not that I've personally experienced direct scorn, but I see top scientists discussing skepticism in the populace and contempt is always high. As I write this, I can hear my lab mates in the nearby office mocking religion.
My strategy thus far has been to wait until I'm more established before being a vocal critic, but I also see that there never is a good time to come out. Even if I wait until I'm tenured at an institution, I'll still get heavy flack that might cost me my job. Hard to say if that's better than coming out now and possibly never getting the job at all. So right now I just have a few subtle clues in my office, like a bookshelf with everything from Dawkins to Meyer and Axe. When I talk with others I ask them hard questions, like how they think new enzymes arise. When scientists assume you're a wondering Darwinist then they'll acknowledge these knowledge gaps in a manner they never would to a skeptic.
As an example, a few months ago I was discussing evolutionary genetics with a discussion group of grad students & profs here on campus. On the topic of the origin of life, I said that the common view (via Richard Dawkins) is that life started from simple molecules that by chance gained the ability to self-replicate ("the replicators"), and then evolution took it from there. I asked if we know of, or can we theoretically imagine, anything self-replicating yet simple enough to arise spontaneously. People offered viruses as something on the simpler side of things, but agreed with me that viruses are only simple relative to other life and still nowhere near simple enough to have any chance of spontaneously arising. No one could offer a plausible scenario or evidence for simple life, but assured me it happened. It was clear their view — that simple life arose and then Darwinism took us from there to RNA/DNA-based life — is not rooted in evidence.
No one ever says they doubt Darwinism, but they do agree there are parts of the narrative that we lack evidence for, such as how new enzyme families arise.
This is telling in several respects. Note the epistemic closure of his colleagues, and the way they will acknowledge difficulties with evolutionary theory if they feel you are onboard with it, which they wouldn't do if they felt you might be a skeptic.
Beyond that, I observe that for Darwin doubters in science fields it's not just a closet that keeps them from sharing their views candidly. Especially if you have sympathy for intelligent design, it's more like an iron curtain. If the overwhelming consideration were career safety, I'd feel far safer as a conservative than as an ID sympathizer.
Source: Evolution's Iron Curtain – Evolution News & Views
Cruz: Ahmad Khan Rahami's alarming | 846 |
Fiesta is the ideal place to meet people in Austria to chat, have fun and flirt, and for dating too. Of course Austria is most famed for its winter sports, with the likes of St. Anton and Kitzbühel offering superb skiing and snowboarding, not to mention wonderful opportunities to<|fim_middle|> to see more traditional Austria, why not pay a trip to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart?
Whether you live in Austria or are just visiting, Fiesta is the ideal place to chat, have fun, flirt, maybe even go on a date. And with over 100,000 people joining Fiesta every day, there are always plenty of new Austrian guys and girls to make friends with.
421,092,337 people are here, 1,836,878 online now! | meet and make friends après-ski in the many resort bars, clubs and restaurants. If you're less sporty or fancy visiting in the spring, Vienna offers a host of things to do – visit the amazing modern art museum, or go for a coffee and cake in one of the many cafes. If you want | 63 |
This authoritative dictionary contains entries on all aspects of business and management in India, covering commercial vocabulary in broad terms. Topics such as finance, economics, management, culture, commercial law, and competition terms are covered, as well as key Indian commercial legislation and institutions.
Entries cover the unique business system of India in relation to international trade, foreign direct investment, and offshore sourcing. The dictionary complements other business and management titles, by defining more general terms within an Indian business context.
This is an essential work for students and practitioners of business who require knowledge of business in this emerging market.
Peter Enderwick is a specialist in the field of international business and Professor of International Business at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. He has also been<|fim_middle|> University of Leeds, UK. He is the author of a number of books, book chapters, and articles in professional journals and has published on Indian business in journals including the International Business ReviewInternational Business Review. He is a member of the Academy of International Business and a founding member of ANZIBA (Australia and New Zealand International Business Academy). | a Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Business, University of Leeds, UK. He is the author of a number of books, book chapters, and articles in professional journals and has published on Indian business in journals including the International Business Review. He is a member of the Academy of International Business and a founding member of ANZIBA (Australia and New Zealand International Business Academy).
Peter EnderwickPeter Enderwick is a specialist in the field of international business and Professor of International Business at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Business, | 125 |
Movie Theaters in Hyde Park
News/Announcements : The Harper Theater
October 28, 2021 – 12:20 am
The Harper is named in the "Best of Chicagoist" list of top 7 movie theaters in Chicago. Click here for the Full Article
The Harper Theater has won The Urban Land Institute's (ULI) 2014 Vision Award. See more details in the link below.
On February 22nd, The Harper received the 2014 Marian and Leon Despres Preservation Award for "outstanding achievements in the preservation of Hyde Park's architectural heritage." For more information about the Harper's Award, click the link below.
OCT 16, 2013 Harper Theater awarded hph2012 / News In Brief / 0 Comments By LINDSAY WELBERS Staff Writer Harper Theater will receive an award from Landmarks Illinois next week for restoring the historic movie house. The theater will receive the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Awards on Oct. 26, along with eight other [ Read More ]
Residents, businesses benefit from Hyde Park's growth as a destination for dining, shopping, and fun By Laura Milani Alessio Photo by Robert Kozloff Article courtesy of The University of Chicago The sidewalk in front of Hyde Park's recently reopened Harper Theater filled with moviegoers one recent Sunday afternoon. Some headed straight inside for the first-run [ Read More ]
By ROBERT SHAROFF Published: October 23, 2012 Article courtesy of the New York Times CHICAGO — The University of Chicago is midway through what it characterizes as a "once in a generation" community redevelopment effort aimed at revitalizing 53rd Street, a blighted retail district several blocks north of its historic [ Read More ]
A century-old building turned new movie theater is set to open this winter. by Raghav Verma Harper Theater is expected to open in mid-December, after the announcement nearly a year ago that it would become part of the University's Harper Court developments. Tony Fox, the President of ADF Capital, Ltd., [ Read More ]
The Chicago Maroon is reporting that the movie theater at 53rd Street and Harper Avenue, which was built in 1915 but has been closed since 2002, will reopen this fall. Originally named the Harper Theater, it was later called the Hyde Park 1 & 2 before finally closing. It [ Read More ]
Source: www.harpertheater.com
Stephen Sondheim Collection (Into the Woods, Company, Sunday in the<|fim_middle|>9cm x 102cm ) (2012)
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Hyde Park on Hudson Poster (27 x 40 Inches - 69cm x 102cm)
High quality poster print - Makes a great gift
Full Size Poster; Same Size That You See In The Theater
Packaged with care and shipped in sturdy reinforced packing material
Imperfections that you see in the Amazon image will also be in the poster
Movie Theaters in Towson, MD
Movie Theaters in Yakima, WA
Movie Theaters in Liberal, KS
Thursday 8, October 2015 08:02 PM from Ely Anders
@Ely Anders: I turn into Paula Deen when the movie theater has the do it yourself butter machine for your popcorn
Thursday 15, October 2015 02:10 AM from John Stella
@John Stella: I really just want authentic, machine-made movie theater popcorn right now (with butter) none of that Pop Secret or Orville Redenbacker shit
Fort Worth Flyover is the name of a short IMAX film created for the Omni Theater at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, the first one commissioned by a specific museum. Designed to simulate flying over Fort Worth, Texas in a helicopter, the movie (and... | Park With George, Follies In Concert, Sweeney Todd, Sondheim: The Birthday Concert)
DVD (IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT)
Real life Scrat from Ice age movie in Hyde Park London
Hyde Park on Hudson Official Movie Trailer in 3D presented ...
BLIND FAITH: LONDON HYDE PARK 1969 - Watch Full Movie - 2006
Hyde Park on Hudson Poster ( 27 x 40 - 6 | 99 |
Read by 3rd Grade Law expected to retain few students
Dearborn Public Schools > The First Bell > News > Read by 3rd Grade Law expected to retain few students
← Unis student selected a state health ambassador Homecoming parades planned at three traditional high schools →
After years of worry and preparation by school districts across the state, last spring Michigan finally announced the threshold for when students might be retained in third grade starting with this year's class.
Statewide, the rate is only about 5 percent of students who could be held back.
That is far lower than the more than half of third graders who score "not proficient" on the English section of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). The spring M-STEP scores were released late last month.
Under the Read by Third Grade Law, adopted in 2016, students who score more than a year behind in reading at the end of third grade will be recommended to repeat that grade. There are several exceptions for why students would still be allowed to continue to fourth grade.
Apparently, most students who rank as not proficient on the M-STEP at the end of third grade are still reading close enough to grade level by the state's standards to continue to fourth grade.
Looking at the spring M-STEP scores in Dearborn Public Schools, only 30 students out of more than 1,400 in third grade would have had scores low enough to be recommended for retention. However, most of those students would<|fim_middle|> and use multiple tools to ensure our students are learning and achieving," said Superintendent Dr. Glenn Maleyko. | have automatically qualified for an exemption because they are still in their first few years of learning English or because they are in special education.
Students can qualify to advance for other reasons too, such as transferring from a school that did not provide reading support or proving they were proficient through a complicated alternative process.
The District will not know the exact impact of the law until spring, after the current third graders take the M-STEP and the first retention letters are mailed to parents. However, looking at prior classes should provide a good approximation of how many students will be affected.
Since the beginning, educators have argued the law was not in the best interest of students. Studies show retaining students ultimately increases the risk they will drop out before graduating.
"Dearborn will continue our dedicated strategy to ensuring every student can read at grade level," said Executive Director of Student Achievement Jill Chochol, who has spearheaded the district's Read by 3 efforts. Last year, Superintendent Glenn Maleyko commissioned a community Read by Third Grade Task Force to look more at how the community could be involved in addressing the law and reading education in general.
Since the law as passed, the District has made a number of related changes from increasing teacher training on reading to providing even more monitoring and support for struggling students. Elementary teachers and administrators also developed plans for their schools.
"That said, we are relieved that this law will not have the widespread punitive impact we feared for our students," Chochol added.
Overall, Dearborn Public Schools M-STEP scores are similar to the state average, even while the district has a higher level of low-income students.
On last spring's tests, Dearborn Public Schools held steady with 47 percent of third graders scoring proficient in English, compared to the statewide rate of 45 percent.
The District dipped less than a percentage point to 28 percent for the total number of students proficient in math and English in grades 3 to 8. Those are the grades covered by the MSTEP. Statewide the total was 30 percent of students proficient in all grades.
The District's four-year high school graduation rate held at 95 percent compared to the state's 81 percent, while the District's average SAT score was 964.
The number of 11th grade students proficient on M-STEP in all subjects leapt 12 points to 27 percent on the spring test. The statewide rate was 30 percent.
"We know that these tests, while important, are only one measure for our students. Dearborn Public Schools tries to take a more holistic approach | 528 |
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Shemini Atzeret/Sim<|fim_middle|> of their own. Hasidism, generally speaking, believes that ordinary Jews can bring the messianic age by serving God in joy and by observing various precepts of Jewish tradition more fully. With regard to the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem, various Hasidic teachers believed that Jews could build the heavenly Jerusalem through actions and deeds. The Ropshitzer Rebbe, for example, taught, "By our service to God, we build Jerusalem daily. One of us adds a row, another only a brick. When Jerusalem is completed, redemption will come." This saying attests to the power and durability of the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem over the centuries. For Jews who never saw the earthly Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem inspired and sustained their faith.
Heavenly Jerusalem Today
The emergence of the State of Israel in our days, and the recapture and reunification of the earthly Jerusalem in the Six Day War in 1967, has for some Jews brought the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem together. However, for Jews who believe in the divine messianic redemption of the world, modern Jerusalem is still just a shadow of the Jerusalem that will exist in the future. Obviously, for them the heavenly Jerusalem is not yet completed, or the era of the messianic redemption would have arrived. For most Jews today, however, the achievements of the State of Israel in unifying and expanding modern Jerusalem is the fulfillment of the dreams and prayers of almost two millennia.
Hasidic
Pronounced: khah-SID-ik, Origin: Hebrew, a stream within ultra-Orthodox Judaism that grew out of an 18th-century mystical revival movement.
Pronounced: MIDD-rash, Origin: Hebrew, the process of interpretation by which the rabbis filled in "gaps" found in the Torah.
Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.
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The celebration of Israeli independence is marked each year on the fifth day of the Hebrew month of Iyar.
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The ancient city of Jerusalem with Solomon's Temple. (U.S. Library of Congress)
The Heavenly Jerusalem
An idealized Jerusalem arose out of the ashes of the Temple's destruction and the city's ruins.
By Rabbi Art Vernon
Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day
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The concept of an ideal or heavenly Jerusalem appears to emerge in Jewish tradition in the third century of the Common Era. There is a midrash, a rabbinic homily, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, a leading rabbinic figure in Tiberias in the early third century, who asserts, in part, that in the future the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem will be reunited as one. This teaching is based on an exposition of Psalms 122:3, "Jerusalem built up, a city knit together." According to the midrash, 'knit together' means the uniting of the earthly Jerusalem with the heavenly Jerusalem as one. However, the roots of this idea are found in earlier Jewish thinking.
Today, it is difficult for us to comprehend the impact on the Jewish people and on Jewish life of the conquest and destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. In the minds of the Jewish leaders of that era, the Rabbis, it was the worst tragedy ever in the history of the Jewish people.
Both in national and religious terms, it appeared that Jewish life might come to an end. The Temple, the physical link between God and the Jewish people, and its rituals and rites, abruptly ended. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins and Jews were forbidden to live within its walls. Moreover, the Romans continued their occupation of the land of Israel and their oppression of the Jewish people. Uprisings against Rome were brutally crushed in both the early and the middle of the second century. Following these failed revolts, it was clear to the Rabbis that revolt against Rome was futile.
Therefore, the Temple would not be restored any time soon, nor would Jerusalem return to her former glory. With the earthly Jerusalem in ruins, it is easy to understand why Jews would want to imagine a heavenly Jerusalem existing in all its glory.
The Influence of Greek Philosophy
Another factor contributing to the development of the concept of a heavenly Jerusalem is the philosophy of Plato, as it was understood then. Platonic thought posits that every real object draws its existence from an ideal metaphysical form. Thus, if there is a Temple on earth, there must be a metaphysical Temple; an earthly Jerusalem demands a heavenly Jerusalem. Rabbinic thought is full of metaphors, images, principles and the like that have their origins in Greek philosophy. It is understandable that, eventually, the loss of the earthly Jerusalem would be mitigated by belief in a perfect heavenly Jerusalem. In fact, belief in the heavenly Jerusalem became so entrenched, that the rabbinic mind imagined that Jerusalem had been created by God at the beginning of the universe.
Heavenly Jerusalem in Rabbinic Literature
The midrashic literature from the second century on is filled with descriptions of the rebuilt Jerusalem of the future. Various Midrash texts describe its dimensions, the materials of which it will be built, and the regard in which it will be held in terms that can only be categorized as fantastic. The rabbinic imagination is unbridled as it contemplates the restored and rebuilt Jerusalem of the future. It is only a tiny further step for these fantasies to take the form of a heavenly Jerusalem.
The midrash in which Rabbi Yochanan is cited raises the question as to whether the heavenly Jerusalem is simply a template or mirror image of the earthly Jerusalem or a reality unto itself that one day will materialize on earth. From the context, it can be assumed that one rabbi believed that the heavenly Jerusalem exists intact regardless of the state of the earthly Jerusalem. Rabbi Yochanan seems to argue that only when the earthly Jerusalem is restored fully that the heavenly Jerusalem will be realized fully as well. The rabbinic concept of an ideal Jerusalem existing in the heavens fuels much speculation in later generations in Jewish history.
In Medieval Times
During the middle ages, the most passionate Jewish movements that embraced the idea of the heavenly Jerusalem were often disappointed by the reality. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Jews were able to live in Jerusalem again. And though Jerusalem was no longer a significant commercial or political center, Jews lived in Jerusalem for historical and spiritual reasons. However, for centuries Jews did not migrate from the major centers of Jewish population in the Islamic world to Jerusalem. It was only with the Crusades that Jews from Europe realized that it might be possible to live in the land of Israel, perhaps in Jerusalem itself.
One of the leading rabbinic figures of Spain, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, called Nachmanides, was forced to leave Spain in the middle of the 13th century. Although considered by many scholars to be a Jewish rationalist, his commentary on the Torah reveals a strong mystical orientation. When he eventually reached Jerusalem and found it largely in ruins with a very small, impoverished Jewish community, he wrote of his dismay and disappointment. Clearly, the ideal Jerusalem that he imagined he did not find in the Jerusalem on earth of his day.
From the Mystics to the Hasidim
In the 16th century, a community of mystic Jews migrated from Germany to the land of Israel. Settling in the city of Safed in northern Israel because it was more closely tied to Jewish mystics in the land of Israel, this community developed a practical mystical philosophy that would give new meaning to the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem. The leader of this community, Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught a doctrine that explained how the world could be restored to perfection through human action. He explained that in creating the world, God first created vessels to contain the divine light that give the world life. However, the vessels were not strong enough and the divine light shattered the vessels. Thus, the sparks of divine light and the shards of the broken vessels become intermixed.
The task of human beings is to gather the divine sparks, one by one, until all have been collected. As this teaching began to take hold, it provided a means by which the ordinary Jew could help to build the heavenly Jerusalem. For only when the heavenly Jerusalem was fully built, could it become manifest on earth.
A couple of centuries after Rabbi Luria, a new movement arose in Eastern Europe, Hasidism. The Hasidim embraced the teachings of Rabbi Luria and added some elements | 1,511 |
I made this sauce tonight after work- it doesn't take long and it is SUPER delicious, hearty, and satisfying. The tempeh offers added protein- 14 grams per serving… For those who are not a fan of tempeh or are wary, it's a good way to introduce it, for those who love it, you can't go wrong with this sauce. This is also a good recipe to double and freeze to have on hand at a later time. Feel free to add fresh or dried herbs into the mix!
In a heated skillet, add the olive oil, salt, pepper and chipotle powder and sauté just<|fim_middle|> or grains. Super satisfying.
This entry was posted in early fall, Gluten Free, pasta, spreads and sauces and tagged gluten free, no meat sauce, THE VEGAN LOVE PROJECT, vegan pasta sauce, vegan protein, vegan red sauce. Bookmark the permalink. | until aromatic and golden. Add in the tempeh and pan fry until browned and crispy- about 5-6 minutes, stirring frequently over medium high heat. Set aside.
In a large pot, add the olive oil and sauté the onions and garlic with the sweetener until golden and soft. Add the tomatoes, salt, black and red pepper. Add the water and allow the sauce to come to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 35-45 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, adjust the seasonings. Add in the tempeh.
Serve over any kind of pasta | 134 |
Vejay sets a winning example
It was joy for Vejay after being crowned UCEN Manchester Student of the Year at this year's Student Excellence Awards.
Students from UCEN Manchester joined students from The Manchester College and learners from apprenticeship provider Total People at The Midland Hotel in Manchester, where they were<|fim_middle|> Day and the Total People website.
UCEN Manchester News 18th June 2019
Vejay named UCEN Manchester Student of the Year | recognised for their outstanding achievements.
Among the 21 category winners, Vejay was nominated for being an exemplary student. Working in the Health and Social Care Sector, he was praised for showing great empathy, integrity and resilience and for always making "valuable and tangible links between theory and practice to enhance his studies."
An overwhelmed Vejay said on the night: "I didn't expect that at all. I'm a widow and my wife would be very proud, that's all I can say, she'd be proud.
This has been 30 years in the making for me, I'm still trying to believe I'm even nominated. I know that I'm now someone in my mother's eyes and that means a lot.
Michael Walsh, Dean of UCEN Manchester, said: "It's great to be at the second annual UCEN Manchester Student Excellence Awards. The field gets stronger every year and it was a real challenge to narrow it down to three finalists. Vejay is a very deserving winner, he is an exemplary student who always goes to the extra mile."
For a full list of winners from the Student Excellence Awards 2019, visit the LTE Group website.
Find out more about the wide range of courses available at The Manchester College Open Day, The UCEN Manchester Open | 261 |
Family-friendly Hotels in New York
Top neighborhoods in New York
ManhattanNew York's lively Manhattan neighborhood is loved for its theaters and entertainment, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including American Museum of Natural History and Central Park.
MidtownNew York's lively Midtown neighborhood is loved for its skyscrapers and theaters, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including Macy's and Bryant Park.
East VillageNew York's lively East Village neighborhood is loved for its bars and restaurants, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including Webster Hall and Tompkins Square Park.
HarlemNew York's artistic Harlem neighborhood is loved for its concert halls and clubs, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including Apollo Theater<|fim_middle|> entire family will like.
What Are Some Places to Stay with Kids in New York?
Our travelers have rated these as their favorite kid-friendly hotels:
HI New York City
Within easy reach of Central Park
• Free in-room WiFi • Laundry room • Snack bar/deli • Picnic area • Central location
AKA United Nations - Apartments
3.5-star hotel with bar, near United Nations Headquarters
• In-room kitchens • Free in-room WiFi • Laundry room • In-room kitchenette • Central location
Home NYC
Victorian guesthouse within easy reach of Central Park
• Free cribs • Free in-room WiFi • Laundry room • Central location
Churchill At Sky
Hotel with health club, near Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
• Indoor pool • In-room kitchens • Arcade
The Greenwich Hotel
Luxury hotel with spa, near One World Trade Center
• Free cribs • Indoor pool • Restaurant • Free in-room WiFi
What Should I See and Do with Kids in New York?
You'll find that New York and the surrounding area offers many interesting things to do while you're visiting with the kids. Here are some recommendations to make your stay both educational and memorable:
• Madame Tussauds Wax Museum
• Restaurant Row
• NBC Studios
• Bryant Park
• The High Line Park
• Union Square Park
Museums & Art Galleries
• Museum of Modern Art
• American Museum of Natural History
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Lowell Hotel
• The Mark Hotel
• Sofitel New York | and Strivers' Row.
Upper East SideNew York's lively Upper East Side neighborhood is loved for its museums and art galleries, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including Madison Avenue and Bloomingdale's.
Upper West SideNew York's lively Upper West Side neighborhood is loved for its museums and theaters, and visitors often enjoy its varied attractions including Beacon Theater and Lincoln Center.
Top landmarks in New York
Times SquareIf you want to give your credit card some exercise, head out to Times Square, a popular place for shoppers in Theater District. Our travelers also love the museums and art galleries in the area— your sightseeing tour starts here. Splash some more cash at Macy's, 5th Avenue, and Tiffany & Co..
Rockefeller CenterIf you're planning a bit of sightseeing head to Rockefeller Center— just one of the monuments in Central New York City. Our travelers also love the museums and art galleries in the area— your sightseeing tour starts here. New York has lots of other important landmarks you might want to see such as Broadway Theatre, Carnegie Hall, and Grand Central Terminal.
photo by Holly Dayz
MetLife StadiumYou could catch an event at MetLife Stadium, a major stadium located 6.8 mi (10.9 km) from the centre of Jersey City. Let yourself be amazed at the art galleries and museums in the area too. If you think MetLife Stadium is cool, you also might like Meadowlands Sports Complex and Meadowlands Race Track, both located nearby.
photo by Julie Miller
Jacob K. Javits Convention CenterJacob K. Javits Convention Center is worth a pic or two when discovering Hudson Yards. Let yourself be amazed at the art galleries and museums in the area too.
Central ParkNo trip to New York would be complete without an afternoon at Central Park, a popular park in Manhattan. Our travelers also like the museums in the area— your cultural tour starts here. It's also full of great shops and restaurants, so you can spend the afternoon having a wander. Want to stretch your legs some more? Head to Bryant Park and The High Line Park, both nearby.
BroadwayIf you want to see a show while you're in town, Broadway in Theater District should be top of your list. If you enjoy the show and want to see another, Radio City Music Hall, Gershwin Theater, and Broadway Theatre are all a short walk away.
Find out more about New York
What is New York Like for Family-Friendly Vacations?
If you have been trying to find the ideal family-friendly place for a vacation, you might want to consider welcoming New York. Here you'll find an interesting array of activities sure to appeal to both kids and adults alike. From the theater scene to the entertainment choices, New York has lots of things to see and do that everyone will enjoy. Spend a day checking out top attractions like Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Central Park Zoo and American Museum of Natural History. When it's time to relax after a day of fun with the kids, New York has various places to stay, such as family hotels with pools and hotels with suites for families. You can make a choice from 472 New York accommodations to discover one you and the | 658 |
The Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Centre: Sindelfingen.
The Advanced Design Centre in Sindelfingen is an ideas factory for Mercedes-Benz Design.
The Advanced Design Studio in Sindelfingen is where Mercedes-Benz design ideas are forged. Beauty acquires deeper significance by embodying a future vision. Designers in Sindelfingen are inspired by this motto on a daily basis and work on the automotive<|fim_middle|> a vehicle project. International influences are also evident in series production design. | portfolio of the future.
They transfer personal and cultural inspirations to visions of future mobility and let their ideas roam free in the process: this is where show cars, research vehicles, product and design suggestions are born. It is where the decision is made about the brand's design idiom in 20 or 30 years.
All the other strands from the other Advanced Design Studios around the globe also come together in Sindelfingen. This is ensured by maintaining close and regular contact: the heads of the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design centres in Italy, China and the USA are regularly invited to Germany. As a rule, all take part in the early stages of | 132 |
Countries and cities
US today
Giant megalodon shark teeth may have inspired Mayan myths monster
The fossilized giant teeth of the extinct megalodon sharks are also found in the holy caches buried in several ancient Mayan sites.
(Sarah Newman)
Giant fossilized teeth of the extinct megalodon sharks may have inspired depictions of a primordial sea monster in the meso-american creation myth, according to a new study of the concepts of the sharks in the ancient Mayan society.
The study examined how the Mayan's a combination of a practical, prescientific knowledge of sharks with their traditional understanding of the world around them as the creation of the gods and monsters.
In the research paper, entitled, "Sharks in the Jungle: real and imagined sea monsters of the Maya," published online Nov. 21 in the journal Antiquity, Sarah Newman, an archaeologist at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, wrote that the fossilized teeth of the extinct shark species Carcharodon megalodon were used in sacred offerings to several ancient Maya sites, like Palenque in southern Mexico, where archaeologists have found 13 megalodon teeth. [See Photos of Megalodon shark and How They are Inspired by Mayan Myths]
Giant megalodon sharks were the apex predators of the oceans of the world from about 23 million years ago to 2.6 million years ago. Their teeth, jaws and vertebrae are found in different locations in Central America.
More From LiveScience
Gallery: Excavating the Oldest Maya Observatory
Images: Mayan Calendar Carvings
Photos: First Glimpse into a Mayan Tomb
Newman said the ancient Mayan images of a sea monster with the name "Sipak" — also known as Cipactli (which translates to "Prickly") to the Aztecs of Mexico have one big tooth that exhibits a strong resemblance to the fossilized megalodon teeth from the holy offerings found in the Mayan sites.
"Maya iconography is notoriously difficult piece, but you can see the [monster] is a fairly realistic representation of a shark with a forked tail, and it has serrated jaws — but it has one central tooth," Newman told Live Science. "And the tooth has the same sign on that the Maya used to indicate materials such as jade — so it tells you that it is hard and shiny, the way that a fossil would be also."
Sea monster myths
In some of the Maya creation myth, the shark-like sea monster Sipak is killed by a god or mythical hero that the forms of the land from her carcass, Newman said. The motive of one large tooth appears also in the lives of the other Mayan gods , including an image of the sun god in El Zotz, the Mayan regions of the Petén Basin in northern Guatemala.
The Mayan word for sharks and other fearsome sea monsters, "xook," was also adopted by the various Maya kings and queens, for example, Yax Ehb Xook ("First Step Shark"), the first-century founder of the city of Tikal in the Peten, and Ix K'abal Xook ("Lady" Shark Fin"), an eighth-century queen of Yaxchilan, now in the mexican state of Chiapas, Newman said.
Newman began her study of the May<|fim_middle|>...
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Relatively few diabetic patients in the Netherlands | an concepts of sharks following the analysis of a cache of sacred objects, including 47 teeth of a requiem shark (family in which spinner and blacktip sharks) who were buried in two "lip-lip" ceramic bowls used as a sacrifice on a Mayan pyramid of El Zotz between A. D. 725 and 800.
Marine items such as shark teeth, shells, stingray spines, and coral were often used to the oceans of the world in a ceremonial model of the Maya cosmos within the range of bowls, Newman said.
"There is a notion that is a kind of microcosm is recreated in a closed space, so that they are often along the lines of temples and houses, to imbue these spaces with vitality," she said.
After noticing that the cache contains only the serrated upper teeth in what is probably one of requiem shark, Newman began to wonder how and why the shark remains were transported or traded from the coast to the inland Maya cities such as El Zotz. "And then I started to think about how the people in the interior would have made more sense of these things come from the coast, that they might not have seen yourself," she said. [Image Gallery: Ancient Monsters of the Sea]
Old shark science
For the ancient Mayans of the Yucatan Peninsula, with oceans on three sides, "the sea marked with the boundaries of the country in all directions, a legendary home of supernatural gods and energy," Newman wrote in the study. "Sharks were associated with blood, pain and the risk that the attention is worth and performance, but from a safe distance."
The Mayan concept of the "xook" sea monster was the result of prescientific efforts to explain their practical knowledge about sharks in terms of their established cultural understanding of the world around them, Newman said.
"The argument in the paper is that the Maya are working on a version of our own ideas about natural history, where they have the combination of physical evidence they find with the myths that they [point] where it is, and making sense of the world that way," she said.
Newman's research also examines the extent to which the shark remains and cultural attitudes about sharks were shared over a large area of ancient meso-america for many centuries.
"One of the things that this study and other recent studies that demonstrate that they are trading things back and forth, and that there is a lot of interaction going on over long distances," she said. "So now we get a very good picture of how connected people are more mobile and connected, then I think we tend to assume."
Original article on Live Science .
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Foot pain can often<|fim_middle|> Wholistic Running. Bookmark the permalink. | linger and become a chronic injury. Prevention is a must for all runners before you get injured. These tips will help you prevent AND fix foot injuries.
Wear Correct Toes to renew, align and strengthen your feet.
Wear Altra shoes which allow your feet to spread and move naturally.
Follow a Wholicious Living nutritional lifestyle to reduce inflammation and pain and speed up the healing process.
Learn low impact, efficient and pain-free running and walking technique. It's amazing how many people I've helped with a couple simple exercises.
-Damian Stoy is a professional ultra marathon runner, founder of Wholistic Running, biomechanics specialist, running coach and has been injury-free for over 10 years.
To receive more tips from Damian, sign up for our free emails HERE.
This entry was posted in online running coach and tagged bunion, feet, foot, injuries, injury, natural, neuroma, plantar fasciitis, run, Running, stress, toes by | 200 |
There isn't single thing in Central Park that happened by chance. Every detail, every view, every vista was carefully thought out by those two brilliant Landscape Architects - Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law<|fim_middle|> grew to 40 in total. Each one is completely unique.
We will meet at the Columbus Circle Entrance at 10:00 AM. Look for people sketching. We'll enter the park at about 10:15. | Olmsted. They won a competition in 1858 with their Greensward design to create a large park in NYC. It's impossible not to see beauty everywhere you turn walking through the park, and many artists before us have taken inspiration there.
Sketching this Saturday we will focus on the Bridges of Central Park. The bridges were a solution to one of the design problems. There were three types of roadways in the Park, walking paths, carriage paths and bridal paths. The three roadways twisted around the park and the bridges were designed to keep traffic flowing and to prevent the people, the carriages and the horse riders from intersecting one another. At first only seven bridges and archways were planned but the number eventually | 148 |
Rigamonti F, Graf G, Merlani P, Bendjelid K. The short-term prognosis of cardiogenic shock can be determined using hemodynamic variables: a retrospective cohort study*. Crit Care Med. 2013 Nov;41(11):2484-91.
OBJECTIVES: Few reports address the relationship between hemodynamic variables and the cardiogenic shock outcome in critically ill patients. The present study aimed to investigate the association between hemodynamic variables and early cardiogenic shock mortality in critically ill patients.
DESIGN: Retrospective, single-center cohort study.
SETTING: Tertiary academic hospital's 36-bed multidisciplinary intensive care.
PATIENTS: Initial presentation with cardiogenic shock.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The authors retrospectively analyzed medical information and the hemodynamic variables (recorded during the first 24 hr following admission to the ICU) of patients with cardiogenic shock. For all the patients, the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, cardiac index, cardiac power index, and continuous hemodynamic values following the first 24 hours<|fim_middle|> All the variables were then compared with survival and nonsurvival status and those variables with a significant association in the univariate analysis were entered into a multivariate logistic regression model. Seventy-one patients were included. Among them, 26 (37%) died within 28 days after ICU admission and were classified as "nonsurvivors." The minimum value for diastolic arterial blood pressure during the first 24 hours was independently associated with the 28-day mortality in the univariate and multivariate analyses model. This model performed better than the model using the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, even when assessing the effect of inotrope and vasoactive treatments at 24, 48, and 72 hours.
CONCLUSIONS: In the first 24 hours of an ICU admission, the minimum diastolic arterial blood pressure was a hemodynamic variable that was independently associated with 28-day mortality in cardiogenic shock patients.
This entry was posted in Critical Care Medicine and tagged Heart Failure, Hemodynamics, Outcome Assessment (Health Care) by E. Lawson. Bookmark the permalink. | of admission were reviewed. Mortality within 28 days was the primary endpoint. | 17 |
Waterstones is committed to providing a unique and diverse range of high-quality books to its customers. We are keen to support independent publishing, and recognise the rich contribution that independent publishers, who have a long and prestigious heritage in the UK, make to the world of books and literature. Finding and championing publishers that are small, new, or hard to find on the high street is a big part of what we do.
We welcome submissions from publishers large or small, old or new, provided they are of the high quality expected and deserved by our customers.
Below, you will find everything you need to prepare.
Only once the above criteria have been met can you then submit your title for consideration.
We can only carry books that have both an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and a Bookland European Article Number (EAN) barcode.
If your book does not already have an ISBN, please obtain one from the UK International Standard Book Numbering Agency. They will provide some information about EAN barcodes, and details of where to obtain them, when you register with them for ISBNs.
Nielsen BookData provides all the book information for our systems so you will need to ensure the details you have with Nielsen are up to date.
Firstly, we cannot consider any titles that do not have a basic record.
We also strongly recommend that you upload a jacket image to Nielsen, as this will help Waterstones buyers, booksellers, and customers.
Please do not send jacket images to Waterstones.com - they must come through Nielsen BookData.
Once you have all the above information to hand, you should then contact Nielsen BookData to set up a record.
Please be aware that it can take up to six weeks for Nielsen BookData to editorially process new record submissions on their database if you are using their free listing service.
Waterstones will only stock books with distributors that we have a trading relationship with.
Gardners is the easiest route into Waterstones.
Only publishers, not authors, can set up to supply Waterstones through a distributor.
If you are an author and are unsure on how to proceed, please contact your publisher.
Once you have completed the above steps, your book will be listed for sale on Waterstones.com.
If you wish to submit your book for consideration for stock then please complete our submission form. We aim to respond to all submissions within 30 working days.
All initial buying decisions are made by our central buying team.
Therefore, please do not directly approach our shops about purchasing your books unless you have been instructed to<|fim_middle|> the central buying team. | do so by | 3 |
All About the OAC's Community
Helpful Answers to Your Important Questions!
What is the OAC Community?
The OAC's Membership Community is a diverse group of individuals who are interested in getting better connected to their health and changing the world for people living with obesity.
Why does the OAC Community need to exist?
The OAC Community exists because we want to see a better world for individuals living with obesity. Those who struggle with their weight face many challenges accessing healthcare and face unfair bias and stigmatization in their everyday lives. This must end. The OAC also knows that individuals are looking for a place to connect that offers quality, unbiased education along with tools and resources to help them with their own health. As hard as it is to believe, these things are not readily available, but the OAC Community is here to change that.
What is the purpose of OAC's Community?
The OAC's Community provides individuals the opportunity to join together to GET EDUCATED on the latest evidence-based information about obesity, FIND SUPPORT through ongoing education about weight and health, CONNECT with others who share similar concerns and journeys and TAKE ACTION to help the OAC change the world for individuals living with obesity.
What can I expect as a Member of OAC's Community?
Your Community Member experience is what you make of it! Through the OAC's online Community ENGAGE Platform, individuals will be offered an immersive experience where they can learn more about obesity, discover how to better manage their health and make an impact to ultimately change the world for those living with obesity.
What is the Community ENGAGE Platform?
The OAC's Community ENGAGE Platform is an online portal located on the OAC's Web site where all the latest news and information about obesity, current issues and activation opportunities areshared. Community members are encouraged to visit this platform daily to take a look at all the fresh educational content and thought-provoking posts available. Sections of the online platform include: Explore Our Education, Find Support and Connect, OAC Action Center, and much more!
Is there a fee to be a part of OAC's Community?
No. There is no fee to join the OAC's Community. The OAC recognizes the tremendous need for individuals to have access to the RIGHT information and to find the RIGHT support for their journey with weight. The OAC's Community is designed for anyone who wants to simply be connected with the organization. There will be opportunities to donate to the OAC for those with a desire to contribute and support the work of the organization, along with the opportunity to add-on a Premium Access Membership for those who are looking for expanded benefits to being part of the Community.
What opportunities are afforded to me as a Community Member?
As a Community member, your opportunities are truly diverse. Your Community experience is anything you want it to be! Through the OAC's Community ENGAGE Platform, you will have opportunities to get educated on the latest evidence-based information about obesity, find support through ongoing education on weight and health, connect with others who share similar concerns and journeys and take action to help OAC change the world for individuals living with obesity. Within the OAC Community, you are welcome to explore your passions and interests and find a variety of engagement opportunities that work best for you.
What types of Members are found in the OAC Community?
Individuals that make-up the OAC Community are truly diverse. Whether you are a person affected by and/or living with obesity, a loved one to someone affected, a healthcare provider or simply someone who wants to learn more about obesity and get more connected to the OAC; the OAC's Community has something for you!
How do I join the OAC Community?
Joining the OAC Community is easy! Simply visit the OAC's Website at www.obesityaction.org and click on "Join OAC" in the top navigation bar. There is no fee to join, just simply provide your name and basic contact information and you will be part of the OAC's Community. From there, you can expect to receive important updates and access to OAC's Community ENGAGE Platform where you can find valuable educational resources, a listing of ways you can get involved and connections to other OAC Community members.
What is Premium Access Membership?
While anyone can join the OAC Community at no cost, we also offer Premium Access Membership that provides an expanded list of exclusive benefits for only $25/year! A print subscription to OAC's popular publication, Your Weight Matters Magazine, is offered as part of this add-on category. By adding-on a Premium Access Membership, you will have access to all Community Member benefits PLUS…
Print subscription to OAC's Your Weight Matters Magazine
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Healthcare Providers or those who are interested in ordering OAC's print resources in bulk must first have Premium Access Membership ($25/year) and can then add-on the ability to request resources in bulk with a suggested minimum donation of $50. We want to ensure our educational materials get in the hands of those who need it, but we also need to be sure we cover the costs to produce and distribute these resources.
How do I get a copy of OAC's magazine?
While select articles from past issues of OAC's Your Weight Matters Magazine are available to Community Members, print copies of the magazine<|fim_middle|> FAQ for print, please click here.
Questions about the OAC Community? Contact us at (800) 717-3117 or [email protected]
Annual Awards Past Recipients
Current Member FAQ | and/or a quarterly print subscription is an exclusive benefit to those with a Premium Access Membership (just $25/year). Digital access to the OAC's magazine is available in the Community ENGAGE Platform by creating a free user account.
If you wish to download a copy of this | 56 |
Anyone who has followed Ken Griffey Jr.'s storybook career, first with the Seattle Mariners, then with the Cincinnati Reds and most recently with the Chicago White Sox, knows that he has always been a big supporter of charities for young people.
But one of most memorable moments came on Christmas Eve 1994, when "The Kid" plopped a Santa hat on his head and took his place at the head of the food line, passing out paper plates, to the children at the Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club (in a Seattle suburb).
Up until then, the kids and staff of the Boys & Girls Club knew that Ken Griffey Jr., like some friendly ghost, was involved with the community center. After all, he had donated the van he won as the MVP of the 199<|fim_middle|> hard enough, anything was possible," Griffey said.
Editor's Note: Griffey has sponsored the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club every December since 1994, and is a frequent visitor to clubs everywhere he has played/lived throughout his career.
What he didn't say on that day fourteen years ago (probably because he didn't even dare to dream it himself) is that he would ride that positive attitude to the 600+ home run plateau. | 2 All-Star Game to the organization.
When he was asked to pose for the cover of Sports Illustrated For Kids the very next year, he invited an eight-year-old girl from the club to co-star with him.
As sponsor of the holiday dinner for 350 children and teenagers, Griffey donated $10,000 to help provide food and music, balloons and gifts. But the most important thing he provided was a glimpse of their hero, and the belief that a wish can come true.
"When I was a kid, I knew that if I wanted something bad enough and worked | 120 |
Why Does SEO Matter For Your Campground?
Search Engine Optimization—or SEO—is a term that sounds scary at first, but is simple when you break it down. It's the process of optimizing your online content (campground website, blog or otherwise) for search engine algorithms like Google's. Search engine algorithms are what look at all the content on the web, and lay it out on the search engine results pages. This is where your RV Park will get found, or be lost in the world of "second page and beyond." Your campground's SEO efforts are what determines your SERP (search engine results page) ranking, and consequently, determines how "findable" you are online to your guests.
Still confused? SEO is the process of tweaking your campground website, blog and other online content so that Google, Bing and other search engines will put you at the top of the search results page when customers start looking for you online.
Stands for Search Engine Results Page. The list<|fim_middle|> RV Park gets at optimizing your content for SEO, the more likely you are to be seen online, and the more business you'll get to your campground! | of results that search engines formulate and present to the user after a search is done. Your SERP rank is where your RV Park website/content appears on the list of results.
When one webpage hyperlinks to another website; very popular in blogging and creative writing. The more backlinks your campground website gets, the better your SERP rank!
Data that tells the search engines what your web page/content is about. This helps the search engine algorithms know if your content is relevant to what the person is looking for.
Why does SEO matter to my campground?
If you're thinking "well, that doesn't matter for my campground," then you're wrong! Optimizing your website and blog content with the right metadata meta data and other SEO factors will be massively beneficial to your RV Park.
If you play your SEO cards right, it will get your park found when customers ask Google and Bing about things relevant to your campground. If you're a campground in San Antonio, SEO can help you be seen whether local Texans are searching "www.yourcampground.com (you)" or "best campground in San Antonio," or even "where should I stay in San Antonio?"!
If one person types in "best campground in San Antonio" into Google, and your RV Park is at the top, then they're likely going to click on your name. But there isn't just one person Googling that term—there are thousands. Each person who clicks on your park name from Google is another boost to your website traffic and more potential business and sales for you! Hello SEO, hello more traffic, hello higher revenue!
Optimizing your content for specific keywords like "campground amenities" or "best campground for my kids" means that when a customer goes to Google to find answers to their questions, they'll find you. Creating a name for yourself in your industry as a helpful, informative brand will improve your reputation, and get more customers flocking your way!
If a customer can find you at the top of Google by typing in "best campground in San Antonio," then why would you need to pay for ad space at the top of the page? SEO is what determines where your RV Park appears on Google, so optimizing your content for the search engines just makes sense when it comes to where you spend your marketing dollars.
Still not sure why you should use SEO? Well here's a big one—if you don't implement SEO tactics for your campground, then it's your competitors who will be found when local customers go looking. Someone has to be on the top page of Google, right? If you're not employing SEO tactics for your business, then it will be your competitors who show up when your potential customer turns to Google for advice and answers.
Search Engine Optimization is important to consider when creating and publishing any kind of online content—whether it's your campground website, blog or otherwise. The better your | 581 |
1 Book, 1 DVD with three 8-10 minute video segments.
3 Sessions/ To say we live lives full of distractions is an understatement. So, how do we combat distraction? To stay in relationship with God is a journey that never ends and one that requires us to focus on love. The Jesus Challenge: 21 Days of Loving God and Neighbor is a 3-week study that will help us become more attentive to our relationship with God. It invites us to move from forgetfulness to remembering, from being distracted to becoming intentional, and from self-sufficiency to reliance on God, so we can live lives that center on loving God and loving others as<|fim_middle|> move from forgetfulness to remembering, from being distracted to becoming intentional, and from self-sufficiency to reliance on God, so we can live lives that center on loving God and loving others as ourselves. | ourselves.
The Jesus Challenge : 21 days of loving god and neighbor.
100 ME:PersonalName $a Personal name Larosa, Justin.
$b Remainder of title 21 days of loving god and neighbor.
300 Physical Desc $a Extent 1 Book, 1 DVD with three 8-10 minute video segments.
520 Summary $a Summary, etc. note 3 Sessions/ To say we live lives full of distractions is an understatement. So, how do we combat distraction? To stay in relationship with God is a journey that never ends and one that requires us to focus on love. The Jesus Challenge: 21 Days of Loving God and Neighbor is a 3-week study that will help us become more attentive to our relationship with God. It invites us to | 168 |
Bay Area Eats: Golden Mar, Seriously Good Indonesian Food
Wan Yan Ling
Published: January 12, 2009 Last Updated: May 29, 2019
Stuffed baby squid with<|fim_middle|> sauce). She had slipped a cup of it into our order, gratis. This was yet another rempah, and the depth of flavor the sauce provided inspired me to hide the cup in the far reaches of the fridge. I have been steadily polishing off the leftovers with plain steamed rice all week.
The squid had been given a typical Indonesian preparation, unlike that for most other cuisines. Most chefs are careful to avoid overcooking squid so it doesn't turn into a rubbery, inedible mess. Indonesian chefs opt to simmer squid over a longer period, so its texture traverses from tender-crisp to chewy, and finally to a silken softness. The longer cooking period allows the squid to absorb the flavors of the rempah, which really is the whole point. The stuffing, unfortunately, was too dry (probably more noticeably so in contrast to the tender squid). But it was hard to pay attention to the stuffing with the presence of the absolutely brilliant hot green pepper relish that had been draped atop it. This relish was sweet-tart, had a (relatively) subdued amount of heat, and had us fighting with our spoons at the table.
Nasi bungkus padang.
Mangkuo includes some variation of rice topped with various dishes on her menu each week. This week's came with a hearty portion of rendang daging ("dry" beef curry), redolent with spices and roasted coconut (excellent). It also came with a single (rather forgettable) shrimp, a hard-boiled egg that had been deep-fried and soused in a sweet chile sauce (interesting texture), the same potato and green bean dish, as well as a generous serve of the cabe ijo padang. All in, a great "one-dish" meal for $8.
Folks, it sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid. But then again, I was crying. I was having my religious experience. Mangkuo's rempahs are that good. Her seafood dishes may be hit-and-miss, but her meat-and-vegetable dishes (so attest my Stanford pals) are rock solid. Dinner for four, with enough leftovers for lunch the next day, cost $48. Our tummies are happy. Our wallets are happy. The food hasn't been ruined with corn syrup or Sriracha sauce. Everyone rejoice.
Serious eaters may be glad to know that Mariana's homemade rempahs will be available at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's by the end of the year.
Mariana Mangkuo can be reached at 408-889-3621.
If you want a taste of her food, email [email protected] and ask to be added to her mailing list. Emails are generally sent in Bahasa Indonesian, with English translations available upon request. You may ask that your food be mild, spicy, or extra spicy.
Pick-up in the South Bay is at 441 Paula Court, Santa Clara CA 95050 (map). Pick-up in the East Bay is by request.
rempah
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From Pasture to Cheese Board: How Cowgirl Creamery Cheese Is Made | a green pepper relish.
Folks, I believe I've found the Bay Area's best kept food secret. I'm not proud, but neither am I ashamed to admit: As I shoveled forkfuls of some of the most incredible food I've had since leaving Asia, I cried. All around me, my dining companions had a sheen of perspiration on their brows, and even a couple of freely running noses. But me, the wimpy one, I was dripping hot, salty tears into the terong bumbu balado pedas (spicy, sambal eggplant dish).
"What's the point?" you ask. "What's the point of a dish that's so fiery that your mouth is aflame and you can't taste a thing?"
Spicy sambal eggplant.
Here's the point: There is bad (or good, depending on whether you like it) spiciness. The kind that coats your tongue and numbs your mouth (Szechuan ma la hot pot comes to mind). Then, there is good spiciness. The kind of heat that comes with a great, big, wallop of flavor. In Southeast Asian cuisines—particularly that of the Indonesians, Malaysians, and Peranakans—the foundation of a dish is the rempah, or spice mix. Fresh herbs, spices, and aromatics such as chiles, ginger, garlic, turmeric, shallots, lemongrass, coriander seeds, candlenuts, and fermented shrimp paste are pounded together to form a paste. This paste is then slowly sautéed in oil until it becomes deeply fragrant, permeating all the other ingredients in the dish.
A good rempah takes years to master. Done well, it will have nuances more complex and edifying than the most revered of fine wines. Done well, rempah can be a religious experience. And because a good rempah takes hours of backbreaking labor, it's the kind of thing one usually only gets to savor if one's mom is a very good cook. In other words, it's the kind of food one usually only gets to eat at home, where the quality of ingredients used and the heart and soul put into the making are never stinted on.
So it's not all that astounding that Golden Mar isn't a real, physical restaurant. Instead, it's a little-known one-woman catering service in the South Bay.
Mariana Mangkuo is the accountant-turned-chef who whips up true blue Indonesian cuisine—the likes of which I've not encountered outside of Asia. What started as a hobby has flourished to become a weekly food service catering to international students and migrants craving a taste of home. Each week, Mangkuo sends out a virtual menu. You pick out what sounds good, email her your order, have her confirm it, then pick it up at her home on Friday evening or Saturday morning.
This past week, we ordered the spicy sambal eggplant dish that made me cry, Buncis kentang gule padang (potatoes and green beans braised in a mildly spicy coconut sauce), cumi bakar cabe ijo padang (stuffed baby squid simmered in a hot green pepper relish), and three servings of the nasi bungkus padang (banana leaf–wrapped portions of rice topped with various meat dishes). All items were $8 each.
The eggplant was velvety-soft and had soaked up the flavors of the rempah—young, bold, and brash—it was sautéed in. Sweet caramelized onions and tangy stewed tomatoes rounded it out nicely. It was the first dish to disappear off the table.
The potatoes and green beans we took as a welcome reprieve from the eggplant's heat. The rempah base used here was completely different from that employed in the eggplant dish. Here, the rempah was gentle, almost lilting—a suggestion of spice followed through by a light hand on the coconut milk.
Masochists that we are, we chased it with dollops of Mangkuo's excellent cabe ijo padang (green chile | 864 |
Find out about house survey costs, the differences between a Homebuyer Report, Building Survey and Condition Report, and what the best type of survey might be for the property you're buying.
What is a house survey?
A house survey is an assessment of a property which identifies any major issues for a prospective buyer.
House surveys are undertaken by chartered surveyors, who will visit the property, conduct an inspection and prepare a report outlining any problems they've found.
Homebuyers generally have a survey done on a property after they've had an offer accepted.
There are two main accrediting bodies for surveyors - the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) and the Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA) - and you should check that your surveyor is a member of one of them.
Rics surveyors offer three 'levels' of survey: a Condition Report (level one), Homebuyer Report (level two), and Building Survey (level three).
RPSA surveyors offer different products, including the Sava Home Condition Survey, a level-two report similar to the Rics Homebuyer Report.
The table below offers an at-a-glance look at the different house survey types. For further information on each type of survey, see the full descriptions below.
What type of home is it suitable for?
This is the most basic 'proper' survey you can get. It gives an overview of the property's condition and highlights significant issues, but doesn't go into detail.
It also gives traffic light ratings for the condition of different parts of the property.
A level-one survey is only suitable if you're buying a relatively new property with no previous issues, and just want some reassurance that everything looks OK.
More detailed than a Condition Report, this type of survey should highlight any problems such as damp and subsidence.
It includes advice on necessary repairs and ongoing maintenance and points out anything that doesn't meet current building regulations.
The inspection is non-intrusive, meaning the surveyor will not look behind furniture or under floorboards, so they'll only be able to identify 'surface-level' issues.
It generally includes a market valuation and rebuild cost, and takes around two to four hours to complete.
The Homebuyer Report is the most popular type of survey, and the standard choice for most properties that are in a reasonable condition.
If you're buying an unusual or older (50+ years) property, or one that you plan to renovate or extend, it's best to upgrade to a level-three Building Survey.
This is similar to the Rics Homebuyer Report, but without the market valuation.
It includes photographs to make it easier to understand and highlights issues to follow up on before purchase.
It also flags up any legal questions your conveyancer should check for you. You can download an example of a Sava Home Condition Survey below.
The most thorough survey you can get, a building survey provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure and condition of the property.
It also lists defects and advises on repairs and maintenance.
The surveyor will be 'hands on' and will do things such as check the attic and look under floorboards.
You can ask for the report to include projected costs and timings for any repair work.
A level-three survey is a good option if you're buying a property that's over 50 years old or in a poor condition.
It can also be worthwhile if you're planning to do significant work or have major concerns about a property. It's usually only undertaken on houses, not flats.
The cost of your survey will vary significantly depending on location, size and type of property.
Different surveyors will also charge varying amounts, so make sure you get a few quotes before deciding who to use.
The figures below give a rough idea of what you might pay depending on the price of the property you're buying.
Figures gathered from designsonproperty.co.uk in October 2018.
At a time when you're already spending a lot of money on buying a house, a survey can seem like an unnecessary expense.
However, it's far better to be aware of any problems before you buy a house so that you can make an informed decision about how much you're willing to pay for it and, if necessary, budget for any repair work that will need doing.
You may also be able to use the information in the survey to negotiate with the vendor.
For example, if your survey finds that you will need to undertake repairs costing £10,000 you could ask for a £10,000 reduction in price, or alternatively ask the seller to make the necessary repairs before you exchange contracts.
You can find out<|fim_middle|>0 197 8461. Alternatively, complete your details below for a free call back. | more about negotiating in our guide to making an offer on a house or flat.
When you apply for a mortgage, the mortgage lender will carry out a valuation to ensure the property is worth roughly what you're planning to pay for it.
A mortgage valuation is sometimes described as a 'valuation survey', but this title is misleading.
A mortgage valuation is nowhere near comprehensive enough to take the place of a proper house survey - in fact it sometimes won't even involve anyone visiting the property in person - so you should always commission your own independent survey once you've had an offer accepted.
House surveyors range from local one-man bands to larger companies, but no matter who you use you should ensure they're registered with a trade association such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) or Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA).
Some homebuyers find surveyors through local listings or personal recommendations, while others use comparison websites or contact Rics or the RPSA directly.
To find a Rics-accredited surveyor, you can visit www.ricsfirms.com, or for an RPSA surveyor, email info@rpsa.org.uk.
In some cases, the estate agent or your mortgage lender may recommend a surveyor - but before going with their suggestion, you should do your own research and check you're getting the best deal, as the agent or lender will often be receiving a commission for making the recommendation.
Also bear in mind that if you use your lender's surveyor, any problems they find might also lead the lender to down-value your property, meaning they offer a smaller mortgage on it.
How long does a house survey take?
The amount of time a house survey takes depends on the level of survey you choose and, of course, the size of the property.
A level-one survey might take less than an hour to complete.
A level-two survey could take up to four hours.
The amount of time a full structural (level-three) survey takes varies considerably depending on the type of property you're buying, with some taking as long as a full day.
When will I get my house survey report?
This depends on the individual surveyor and the complexity of the report.
Your surveyor will inform you how long they'll take to provide the report, but it shouldn't be longer than five days (level one or two) or 10 days (level three).
House surveys are often complicated, and it can be difficult to get your head around some of the jargon.
The diagram below from Rics shows the names of different parts of a building to help you decode your survey report.
If you're buying a new-build home, you'll need a slightly different type of survey.
A snagging survey identifies defects with a new-build home, covering everything from small cosmetic issues to structural problems. The report can be given to your developer before you move into the property so you can get any issues sorted as quickly as possible under your two-year developer warranty.
Find out more: snagging surveys.
If you're buying a property and want independent advice on the best mortgage for you, call Which? Mortgage Advisers on 080 | 641 |
When completed in 1981, the 75-story tower broke records: it was not only the tallest building in Houston and the sixth-tallest in the United States; it was the<|fim_middle|>iro, the plaza forms a natural link to the surrounding buildings while providing an exciting urban focus for life in downtown Houston. | tallest granite-clad structure in the world and the tallest composite concrete-and-steel building ever erected.
The tower complex includes a one-acre public plaza, a 2,000-car garage with 40,000 square feet of space for retail and athletic facilities, and a pedestrian concourse that interconnects these elements and links to Houston's subterranean tunnel system. Clad in polished pale gray granite and dual-pane glass, the 1,000-foot-high structure departs from convention with one corner sheared off at a 45-degree angle, producing a slender five-sided structure whose main facade is an 85-foot column-free span with panoramic views of Houston's west side.
Integral to the complex is the paved and landscaped plaza that occupies two-thirds of the full-block site, with the tower positioned off-center at the northeast corner. With its monumental sculpture by Joan M | 185 |
Buhari salutes Jonathan at 64
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated former President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on his 64th birthday anniversary, November 17, 2021.
According to a<|fim_middle|> status with the United Nations (UN).
He prayed that as Jonathan turns 64, that the Almighty God will continue to sustain them in good health and all round well being.
NLC berates FG over 'misleading' statement on ASUU
McPherson University to graduate 85 students on Saturday
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Irregular migration: TMP takes campaign to young footballers
From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa Gunmen have kidnapped the Bayelsa State Commissioner for Trade and Commence, Mr Otokito... | statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari also congratulated Jonathan for serving the country, and working for the peace and advancement of democracy on the African continent.
President Buhari expressed the believes that the former President's profile should remind those in position and all aspiring leaders that serving the country and humanity requires sacrifice, and ultimately placing the interest of others above personal gains.
He affirmed that Jonathan continues to expand the boundaries of leadership, teaching many in the country the power of focus, consistency and diligence, having served as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President, President, African Union Envoy and now, Chairman of the International Summit Council for Peace Africa (ISCP-Africa).
ISCP-Africa is an association of incumbent and former heads of state and their deputies, established in 2019 by the Universal Peace Federation, an organization in general consultative | 186 |
Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples
S. I. Rennard, M. Ghafouri, Austin Bassett Thompson, James Linder, W. Vaughan, K. Jones, R. F. Ertl, K. Christensen, A. Prince, M. G. Stahl, R. A. Robbins
Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep & Allergy
Pulmonary, Nebraska Medicine
University of Nebraska Central Administration
Nebraska Medicine
Bronchoalveolar lavage has been widely used to sample the lower respiratory tract. Most of the material recovered with this technique represents alveolar contents. A number of modifications have been suggested in order to obtain samples relatively enriched for bronchial material. In order to be able to use a standard technique for bronchoalveolar lavage to sample both airways and 'routine' alveolar material, a simple modification of the technique as described by Reynolds and Newball was used: five sequential 20-ml alliquots were infused into the lower respiratory tract, and each aliquot was immediately aspirated. The return from the first aliquot was processed separately from the return from the subsequent four aliquots. These last four aliquots were pooled. Analysis of the first aliquot revealed it to be enriched for ciliated epithelial cells when compared with the subsequent aliquots. There were also differences in inflammatory cell composition with the bronchial sample containing relatively more neutrophils and relatively less lymphocytes. Aspiration during transoral bronchoscopy was documented by quantifying salivary amylase in the bronchial and alveolar lavage fluids. It was estimated, however, that the aspiration was not of quantitative significance in the vast majority of subjects studied. Finally, with the technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples, it was possible to compare the protein concentrations in bronchial and alveolar lavages. Most prominent among the differences was a marked relative enrichment in the bronchial samples for immunoglobulin A. The technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples provides a simple means to obtain samples enriched for bronchial and alveolar components. This should facilitate analysis of lower respiratory tract specimens in airway disease.
American Review of Respiratory Disease
https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid
Immunoglobulin A
Rennard, S. I., Ghafouri, M., Thompson, A. B., Linder, J., Vaughan, W., Jones, K., ... Robbins, R. A. (1990). Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples. American Review of Respiratory Disease, 141(1), 208-217. https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples. / Rennard, S. I.; Ghafouri, M.; Thompson, Austin Bassett; Linder, James; Vaughan, W.; Jones, K.; Ertl, R. F.; Christensen, K.; Prince, A.; Stahl, M. G.; Robbins, R. A.
In: American Review of Respiratory Disease, Vol. 141, No. 1, 01.01.1990, p. 208-21<|fim_middle|>veolar material, a simple modification of the technique as described by Reynolds and Newball was used: five sequential 20-ml alliquots were infused into the lower respiratory tract, and each aliquot was immediately aspirated. The return from the first aliquot was processed separately from the return from the subsequent four aliquots. These last four aliquots were pooled. Analysis of the first aliquot revealed it to be enriched for ciliated epithelial cells when compared with the subsequent aliquots. There were also differences in inflammatory cell composition with the bronchial sample containing relatively more neutrophils and relatively less lymphocytes. Aspiration during transoral bronchoscopy was documented by quantifying salivary amylase in the bronchial and alveolar lavage fluids. It was estimated, however, that the aspiration was not of quantitative significance in the vast majority of subjects studied. Finally, with the technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples, it was possible to compare the protein concentrations in bronchial and alveolar lavages. Most prominent among the differences was a marked relative enrichment in the bronchial samples for immunoglobulin A. The technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples provides a simple means to obtain samples enriched for bronchial and alveolar components. This should facilitate analysis of lower respiratory tract specimens in airway disease.
U2 - 10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
DO - 10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
JO - American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
JF - American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208 | 7.
Rennard, SI, Ghafouri, M, Thompson, AB, Linder, J, Vaughan, W, Jones, K, Ertl, RF, Christensen, K, Prince, A, Stahl, MG & Robbins, RA 1990, 'Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples', American Review of Respiratory Disease, vol. 141, no. 1, pp. 208-217. https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
Rennard SI, Ghafouri M, Thompson AB, Linder J, Vaughan W, Jones K et al. Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples. American Review of Respiratory Disease. 1990 Jan 1;141(1):208-217. https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208
Rennard, S. I. ; Ghafouri, M. ; Thompson, Austin Bassett ; Linder, James ; Vaughan, W. ; Jones, K. ; Ertl, R. F. ; Christensen, K. ; Prince, A. ; Stahl, M. G. ; Robbins, R. A. / Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples. In: American Review of Respiratory Disease. 1990 ; Vol. 141, No. 1. pp. 208-217.
@article{a527b9f61cfc48f69e6cc12f4a63f0eb,
title = "Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples",
abstract = "Bronchoalveolar lavage has been widely used to sample the lower respiratory tract. Most of the material recovered with this technique represents alveolar contents. A number of modifications have been suggested in order to obtain samples relatively enriched for bronchial material. In order to be able to use a standard technique for bronchoalveolar lavage to sample both airways and 'routine' alveolar material, a simple modification of the technique as described by Reynolds and Newball was used: five sequential 20-ml alliquots were infused into the lower respiratory tract, and each aliquot was immediately aspirated. The return from the first aliquot was processed separately from the return from the subsequent four aliquots. These last four aliquots were pooled. Analysis of the first aliquot revealed it to be enriched for ciliated epithelial cells when compared with the subsequent aliquots. There were also differences in inflammatory cell composition with the bronchial sample containing relatively more neutrophils and relatively less lymphocytes. Aspiration during transoral bronchoscopy was documented by quantifying salivary amylase in the bronchial and alveolar lavage fluids. It was estimated, however, that the aspiration was not of quantitative significance in the vast majority of subjects studied. Finally, with the technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples, it was possible to compare the protein concentrations in bronchial and alveolar lavages. Most prominent among the differences was a marked relative enrichment in the bronchial samples for immunoglobulin A. The technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples provides a simple means to obtain samples enriched for bronchial and alveolar components. This should facilitate analysis of lower respiratory tract specimens in airway disease.",
author = "Rennard, {S. I.} and M. Ghafouri and Thompson, {Austin Bassett} and James Linder and W. Vaughan and K. Jones and Ertl, {R. F.} and K. Christensen and A. Prince and Stahl, {M. G.} and Robbins, {R. A.}",
doi = "10.1164/ajrccm/141.1.208",
journal = "American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine",
publisher = "American Thoracic Society",
T1 - Fractional processing of sequential bronchoalveolar lavage to separate bronchial and alveolar samples
AU - Rennard, S. I.
AU - Ghafouri, M.
AU - Thompson, Austin Bassett
AU - Linder, James
AU - Vaughan, W.
AU - Jones, K.
AU - Ertl, R. F.
AU - Christensen, K.
AU - Prince, A.
AU - Stahl, M. G.
AU - Robbins, R. A.
N2 - Bronchoalveolar lavage has been widely used to sample the lower respiratory tract. Most of the material recovered with this technique represents alveolar contents. A number of modifications have been suggested in order to obtain samples relatively enriched for bronchial material. In order to be able to use a standard technique for bronchoalveolar lavage to sample both airways and 'routine' alveolar material, a simple modification of the technique as described by Reynolds and Newball was used: five sequential 20-ml alliquots were infused into the lower respiratory tract, and each aliquot was immediately aspirated. The return from the first aliquot was processed separately from the return from the subsequent four aliquots. These last four aliquots were pooled. Analysis of the first aliquot revealed it to be enriched for ciliated epithelial cells when compared with the subsequent aliquots. There were also differences in inflammatory cell composition with the bronchial sample containing relatively more neutrophils and relatively less lymphocytes. Aspiration during transoral bronchoscopy was documented by quantifying salivary amylase in the bronchial and alveolar lavage fluids. It was estimated, however, that the aspiration was not of quantitative significance in the vast majority of subjects studied. Finally, with the technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples, it was possible to compare the protein concentrations in bronchial and alveolar lavages. Most prominent among the differences was a marked relative enrichment in the bronchial samples for immunoglobulin A. The technique of fractional processing of bronchoalveolar lavage samples provides a simple means to obtain samples enriched for bronchial and alveolar components. This should facilitate analysis of lower respiratory tract specimens in airway disease.
AB - Bronchoalveolar lavage has been widely used to sample the lower respiratory tract. Most of the material recovered with this technique represents alveolar contents. A number of modifications have been suggested in order to obtain samples relatively enriched for bronchial material. In order to be able to use a standard technique for bronchoalveolar lavage to sample both airways and 'routine' al | 1,490 |
introducing the student to agribusiness management practices and maintenance of facilities and equipment. Students in the pathway will participate in active learning exercises including integral activities of the FFA organization and supervised experiences. Students who successfully complete the competencies in this pathway will possess fundamental knowledge and skills that can be used to secure entry‐level employment or as a foundation for continuing their education.
This program allows students to produce workable drawings on the drawing board as well as on the computer using CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) software. The student will become familiar with building materials, construction and fabrication processes, and will develop upper level CAD skills. Upon successful completion of the program, the students will be qualified for an entry-level drafting or related position or may pursue post-secondary education. The students will have gained knowledge that could benefit them in construction and manufacturing careers. Students have the opportunity to participate in SkillsUSA, a student organization where they can develop professional and leadership skills through competition.
Business, management, and administration professionals plan, direct, maintain, and organize business operations for an organization. Business fundamentals serve as the foundation for all business pathways. Courses in business provide instruction in basic business skills and knowledge related to economic fundamentals, management, communications, finance, human relations, career development, ethics, and business etiquette. This cluster prepares you for careers in planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating business functions essential to efficient and productive business operations. Students are provided the opportunity to participate in career and technical student organizations, including FBLA and DECA.
experiences that will provide students with an overview of the health-care field, as outlined according to the Health Science Cluster in the National Career Clusters Framework and the National Consortium on Health Science Education (NCHSE), as well as begin to prepare students for careers in occupations predicted to have a high number of available jobs in the next 10 years, including careers in nursing services (registered nurse, nurse aide, practical nurse, home health aide), therapeutic services (sports medicine, athletic trainer, dietitian, respiratory therapist), diagnostic services (radiologist, phlebotomist, radiologic tech, sonographer, CT technician, medical lab technician), health informatics (health information technician, medical coder), veterinary services, medical services (optometrist, medical assistant), emergency services, rehabilitative services (physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist) counselors, pharmacists, mental health services (psychologists). Students in the pathway will participate in active learning exercises including integral activities of the HOSA career technical student organization.
The secondary pathway in Horticulture prepares individuals for entry‐level employment or continuing education in a wide variety of fields in the horticulture industry. Students enrolled in the program participate in a variety of instructional activities including lectures, discussions, laboratory experiences at the school, and work‐based learning activities in the field such as field trips and shadowing experiences. Students also receive supplementary instruction and reinforcement of learning through activities in youth organizations such as FFA. Topics covered in the 2‐year program include plant structure and<|fim_middle|> relevant job-shadowing experiences with professionals. | growth; plant propagation; pest management; floristry; green-house crops and management; olericulture; plantscaping; landscape design, installation, and management; and turfgrass management.
responsibilities of the professionals in the field. The program will offer students the opportunity to examine all areas of the military and the professions associated with each branch. Additionally, students will learn about emergency management and workplace skills and will have meaningful, | 85 |
2015 Acura TLX Owners Manual – The 2015 Acura TLX is a new model that replaces the TL and TSX in Acura's collection. It is provided with two new engines and transmissions, rear-wheel directing assist on top-push models, the automaker's Super-Dealing with All-Wheel-Drive process (SH-AWD), and hold of safety features which include accident mitigation, lane departure forewarning, and blind spot detection.
Two engines are accessible in the 2015 Acura TLX: a 2.4-liter I-4 with 206 hp and 182 lb<|fim_middle|> V-6-driven models with SH-AWD, which detracts from the car's driving dynamics. Velocity is excellent with the two engines, supplying the car great strength for transferring and merging. Moreover, the energy doesn't appear at the expense of the energy economy as the 2015 TLX is 1 of the most thrifty luxurious sports sedans. Both the seven-speed dual-clutch system and nine-speed automatics are effectively-tuned with good reactions in Sport method and move rapidly when remaining to its individual products.
Without as commodious as the extroverted Acura TL, the 2015 TLX's interior has a very good area for grownups with good front side seat area. Nonetheless, rear seat accommodations are small for higher grownups, and the extra architectural bracing eats into trunk area place, decreasing it to 13.2 cubic ft. Cabin refinement is a robust level with a calm cabin and cozy seats that can make the car suitable for lengthy-distance driving. Tech and safety features are remarkable with adaptive luxury cruise management with reduced speed adhere to, lane keeping support, crash mitigation braking system, menu, and a 10-lecturer, 490-watt Acura/ELS speakers on higher trim levels. | -ft of torque paired to an eight-speed two-clutch intelligent transmission and a 3.5-liter V-6 ranked at 290 hp and 267 lb-ft mated to a 9-speed auto. All-time generate is only available with the larger engine while top-drive variations have rear tire steering. Energy economy is aggressive for the class with I-4 models ranked at 24/35 mpg city/highway, front side-drive V-6 cars at 21/34 mpg and 21/31 mpg with-wheel generate.
Handling is a 2015 TLX robust level with a business ride, effectively-handled body moves, and ideal directing sense. Understeer, even so, is well known in | 156 |
- Hall-Wynne Funeral Service & Crematory - https://www.hallwynne.com -
William Alvis Stokes
Posted By Hall-Wynne On November 23, 2016 @ 10:30 am In Durham,Obituaries | 6 Comments
William Alvis Stokes (Bill) died peacefully on November 20, 2016 at Croasdaile Pavilion at the age of 88. He was born in Durham NC on April 7, 1928 to Thomas Angier Stokes and Sadye Perkinson Stokes. Survivors include his son, William A. "Bill" Stokes, Jr (Lucy) of Durham, NC; daughter, Mary "Mollie" Stokes Platt (James) of Durham; and his grandchildren, William A. Stokes, III of Greensboro, NC, Emily Erwin Stokes of Asheville, NC, and Michael William Maready of St. Louis Missouri. His wife Constance "Connie" Stokes who died on August 14, 2016 and his brother Thomas Angier Stokes, Jr precede him in death.
Bill spent most of his life in Durham. In 1953 he graduated from Duke University with a BSCE. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps and served 2 years in active duty. He continued service for 21 more years in the USMC Reserve, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
He began his construction career in 1955, first working for J.A<|fim_middle|>7707.
Offer Condolence for the family of William Alvis Stokes
Condolences for the family of "William Alvis Stokes"
Condolence from Sandy Cather on November 23rd, 2016 3:37 pm
Molly & Family, what a beautiful tribute to your dad! He sounds like an incredible individual who never met a stranger and became their instant friend. You have that same quality which is why you are loved so much and by so many people across this great country. Many hugs and prayers are sent to you and your wonderful husband and son.
Love, Sandy
Condolence from Diane Whitfield on November 23rd, 2016 10:20 pm
So sorry for your loss. Praying for you and your family.
Condolence from Bill Jr on December 8th, 2016 9:45 pm
thank you Shihan!
Condolence from Cathy Maready on November 27th, 2016 8:48 pm
An amazing man. So sorry for your loss Mollie. I know you two were so close. Sending you love, love, love.
Condolence from Earl Dowell on November 28th, 2016 9:18 am
Dear Bill,
With deepest sympathy on the passing of your father after the recent loss of your mother.
Bill and Connie Stokes were special people in so many ways including their support for Duke University and the Pratt School of Engineering.
thanks Earl
Article printed from Hall-Wynne Funeral Service & Crematory: https://www.hallwynne.com
URL to article: https://www.hallwynne.com/william-alvis-stokes/
Copyright © 2014 Hall-Wynne Funeral Service & Crematory. All rights reserved. | . Jones and then Carolina Steel moving from Charlotte NC, to Morgantown WV, and to Greensboro NC. In 1968 he returned home to Durham and began work at George W. Kane Inc where he rose to serve as its President and owner. Two of the many Durham landmarks he took pride in building are Northgate Mall and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Other prominent Durham construction projects under his leadership include Brightleaf Square, Treyburn Country Club, and the R. David Thomas Center at Duke.
Bill was the leader of almost every group he joined, including service as President of the Class of 1946 at Durham High School, President of The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, President of The Friends of Duke Chapel, the President of the Duke Engineering Alumni Council, Commodore of the Orleans Yacht Club, and Commandant of the Cape & Islands Detachment of the Marine Corps League. He was also proud of his service on the boards of Home Savings & Loan, Hope Valley Country Club, and Treyburn Country Club. He was a Rotarian for over 40 years and is still remembered for his gift of gab, serving as an impromptu program speaker once when the scheduled speaker failed to appear.
As a Duke Alumnus, he admired Duke so dearly that he continued to give back to the university throughout his life donating time and services to various projects on campus. He was very honored in 1987 to receive the School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award for his numerous achievements and contributions. He once said "I feel that I can walk into the office of any President and be right at home." Bill always attributed his success and confidence to his education at Duke University, where he believed he gleaned much more than analytical thinking, he learned life skills as that served him well throughout his distinguished career and retirement years.
Bill married Connie in 1955 and they enjoyed a lifetime of happiness. They were married over 61 years until Connie passed away in August. As Lifetime Iron Duke members, they loved attending Duke football and basketball games as well as attending church services at Duke Chapel. They enjoyed vacationing each summer at Connie's family home on Cape Cod in Orleans, MA. They retired there in 1995 and enjoyed many years in their beloved home, "Westwinds" on the Town Cove. Bill got a kick out of people saying he talked "funny" when they could not understand his southern drawl.
Bill never stopped working even after "retirement." He worked tirelessly in fund raising to bring the Marine Corps Silent Drill Team to perform each July 4th for the Orleans Cardinals. He enjoyed leading the Marine Corps League Detachment when it marched in local holiday parades. Never, ever one to be idle, he enjoyed working for years at Lanterns of Cape Cod where he made (and sold) a variety of brass lanterns. He also enjoyed many years working as a ranger at The Captains Golf Course in Brewster, MA.
Bill and his wife Connie moved back to Durham in 2014 to be near family so they could have their support in their elder years. They rejoined Westminster Presbyterian Church this year (having originally joined in 1968).
A memorial service will be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Durham, NC on December 20, 2016 at 2:00pm with the Reverend Chris Tuttle officiating. An inurnment will take place in Orleans Cemetery in Orleans, MA at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3639 Chapel Hill Road, Durham NC 2 | 749 |
At one point or another, we have all had to deal with an astronomical energy bill.
To avoid this from happening again, many people compensate by living in an uncomfortable environment when the temperatures are extreme. After all, no one wants to pay more than they have to on their home heating and cooling costs.
Fortunately, there are many techniques that homeowners can use to help reduce those costs while staying comfortable at the same time. In this article, we will discuss some methods that you can implement in your own home to prevent those bills from skyrocketing.
Are You Using Your Light Bulbs Effectively?
Install A Digital Programmable Thermostat: A modern thermostat puts your heating and air conditioning systems on an automatic schedule: full heat or cooling during hours when the home is active, and less when the house is empty, or the family is asleep. The U.S. Department of Energy says that setting back a home's temperature by 10 to 15 degrees for eight hours a day can reduce total heating and cooling costs by 3 to 5%.
Insulate Your Home Properly: Insulate thoroughly to eliminate heat transfer through your walls, ceilings, and floors. You could reduce your heating and air conditioning costs by as much as 15%, according to Consumer Energy Council of America. Close off rooms you don't use – and remember to shut the vents inside.
Check For Drafts: As much as 40% of your heating and cooling costs can be due to air leaks. Check weather-stripping and door sweeps at least once a year and repair or replace them as needed. Add caulking and weather-stripping around doors, attic access, windows, outdoor faucets and any areas where there might be leaks. Check caulking at least once a year and replace material that has dried out and shrunk. Repair and weatherize your storm<|fim_middle|> a leaking faucet, it is genuinely money going down the drain.
Bathing: Use a bath as an occasional treat instead of a daily routine. Showers use much less water than baths. Therefore, to save energy, take showers instead of baths. A five-minute shower will use about 7.5 gallons of hot water; filling a bathtub can use up to 20 gallons.
Laundry: Use less water and use cooler water when doing laundry. The warm or cold water setting on your machine will generally do an excellent job of cleaning your clothes. Switching your temperature setting from hot to warm can cut a load's energy use in half. Also, you should consider air-drying clothes on clothes lines or drying racks. Clothing manufacturers recommend air-drying for some fabrics.
Update Your Appliances: New appliances are far more energy efficient than older models. Therefore, you should replace old devices with high-efficiency units to reduce energy consumption.
Refrigerator Settings: Use efficient temperature settings for your refrigerator and freezer. Recommended temperatures are 37 to 40 degrees F for the refrigerator and 5 degrees F for the freezer.
Additional Tips: Also, don't leave the fridge door open! Every time you do, up to 30% of the air inside can escape. The same can be said for your oven. Use a covered kettle or pan to boil water; it's faster and uses less energy. Install ceiling fans. They could cut your energy bill for cooling by 40%.
Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use only 25% as much energy and last ten times as long. Install dimmer switches. In addition to enhancing the mood, they'll extend the life of your bulbs and help you save up to 60% on your lighting costs. You should also consider installing motion-activated switches that automatically turn lights on and off.
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Click here to contact us now or call us at (631) 667-3200 to find out more! | windows. Also, to help conserve energy, you can install rubber gaskets behind outlets and switch plates on exterior walls to prevent cold air from leaking in.
Ductwork: Keep ductwork in good condition by sealing leaks with mastic, metal-backed tape (not duct tape). Your home could be losing up to 25% of its heated or cooled air before it reaches the vents!
Water Heater: You should reduce your water heater's temperature setting to 120 degrees F to save fuel. You'll also reduce the risk of scalding. Water heating accounts for a significant portion of your overall energy costs. Therefore, reducing your water heater's temperature will help you keep your money in the bank. You can also install water-conserving fixtures such as showerheads, faucets, and toilets to accomplish a more energy-saving home further.
Water Leaks: You may not realize how much water is wasted when you have a leaking faucet. Be sure to fix leaky faucets, especially hot water faucets. One drop per second can add up to 165 gallons per month – more than a person uses in two weeks. When you have | 234 |
AZ Electrical Company is a small family owned electrical contracting company based in Glendale Heights, IL<|fim_middle|> Leviton, Cutler Hammer, Raco, Juno, Halo, Ideal, Broan, and General Electric.
After hour appointments and emergency service is available upon request. | . We have been serving the Chicago-land area since 2012.
Our service area covers the 7 counties of Cook, Dupage, Lake, Will, Kane, McHenry and Kendall.
We pride ourselves on high quality craftsmanship, honest and ethical treatment of customers and getting it done right the first time. Our installations are only performed to the standards and safety of the National Electric Code. We provide the same high quality that you would expect from a large firm, but without the large cost.
Your safety and the safety of your family is of the utmost importance. That is why AZ Electrical Company is a proud member of the National Fire Protection Association and the International Association of Electrical Inspectors.
We do not use subcontractors on any of our projects. When you hire AZ Electrical Company all work will be performed only by us, to ensure the highest possible quality.
Lutron, Vantage, Lithonia Lighting, Siemens, Eaton, | 190 |
Dominion Lending Centres Clearlease Reports Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ) posts profit in Q4 2010 as North American wine sales improve
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – (April 7, 2011) Clearlease.com Reports Constellation Brands Inc. said Thursday that Americans brought home more wine through the holiday season, taking advantage of more discounts to trade up to higher-premium brands.
The maker of Robert Mondavi wine, Svedka vodka and Corona beer posted a $279.8 million fourth-quarter profit, recovering from a year-ago loss as it saw a 17 per cent jump in wine sales in the key North America market.
Its revenue in the December-to-February period edged up just 1 per cent to $715.3 million as the bump in wine volumes was largely offset by the recent sale of much of its Australian and British wine business.
While alcoholic-beverage purchases at bars and restaurants remain sluggish, the Victor, N.Y., company is benefiting from an improved U.S. economy even though promotional activity at stores is still highly competitive.
"The consumer is definitely back, is definitely purchasing," CEO Robert Sands told analysts in a conference call. But the typical take-home shopper "remains extremely price-sensitive and is looking for a deal and, therefore, promotional activity remains robust. … We see a lot of trading-up going on in the business."
This year, he added, "I don't think that we're anticipating a big change in consumer behaviour."
The quarterly results beat Wall Street expectations and the company forecast improved earnings in the current fiscal year. In addition, its board of directors authorized a $500 million share repurchase program "to provide flexibility over a multi-year period."
Its shares rose $1.32, or 6.5 per cent, to $21.70 in afternoon trading Thursday. The stock is trading at the upper end of a 52-week range of $14.97 to $22.52.
"We believe (the company's) core business is improving, and is beginning to reflect the strength of the wine category," UBS analyst Kaumil Gajrawala said in a note to clients.
The company's brands include Clos du Bois, Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi, Blackstone and Ravenswood. It also sells liquors such as Black Velvet Canadian whiskey, and its beer imports include Modelo Especiale from Mexico , Tsingtao from China and St. Pauli Girl from Germany.
Spirits sales rose 3 per cent, driven by strong gains for Svedka, while sales of Corona and other imported beers surged 15 per cent.
Boosted by volume growth, operating earnings from Crown Imports, its beer joint venture with Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo SA, rose 18 per cent to $97 million on sales of $480.4 million.
Net income for all of Constellation Brands equaled $1.32 per share. A year earlier, the company lost $51 million, or 23 cents a share, on sliding sales of spirits and beer and lingering weakness in the U.S. wine market.
Excluding items, it earned 35 cents per share. Wall Street expected 26 cents a share, according to FactSet.
In January, Constellation Brands lost its eight-year-long status as the world's No. 1 winemaker when it sold 80 per cent of its Australian and British wine business to an Australian private equity firm for $230 million. It recorded a net pre-tax gain of $84 million and a net tax benefit of $198 million related to the divestiture.
Despite the div<|fim_middle|>.
In the current fiscal year, Constellation Brands expects adjusted earnings will rise to between $1.90 and $2 a share from $1.91 in the fiscal year that ended in February. Analysts were looking for a per-share profit of $1.80 this year, according to FactSet.
For all of fiscal 2011, Constellation Brands earned $560 million, or $2.62 per share, up sharply from $99.3 million or 45 cents a share in the previous year. But sales after excise taxes eased to $3.33 billion from $3.36 billion.
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Mr. A. Pidgeon, Editor in Chief | estiture, wine sales still account for more than 90 per cent of revenue.
The company has been shifting its focus to higher-priced brands and remains the biggest seller by volume of premium-category wines priced between $5 and $15. Investors expect the sale of foreign assets to create a smaller but more profitable business with less risk | 67 |
Good nature, "kushka" and "meadow". What memory did the Russians leave in California
200 years ago, on September 11, 1812, under cannon and rifle salute, the official opening of the Russian colony in California, founded in March, took place. She spent all these several months nameless and received the name only six months later. Russian fortress "according to the lot drawn before the icon of the Savior" was named Fort Ross.
Alexander I did not honor Napoleon with an answer
The day was also chosen for a reason. September 11 — it's new style. In the old way, it comes out on August 30 — Name Day of Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia. Which, judging hastily, was absolutely not up to the gun salute in honor of the opening of some colony there, 15 thousand miles away. Rifle and cannon fire at that time was heard much closer — the volleys of the Battle of Borodino barely had time to subside. And in three days the troops of Napoleonwill enter Moscow. What is California like here?
However, it turns out that the colony was founded very timely. Just from Moscow, Napoleon offers the Russian Emperor peace — on<|fim_middle|> before the death of the poet, Khlebnikov noted: "The brave but cruel Spaniards with a cross in their hands in the name of God eradicated idolaters. Rough and strong Russians with a cross on their chests made it a sin to destroy the wild in vain.
Here, of course, one can refer to the fact that this information belongs to interested and biased people. But here is what the French merchant Auguste Bernard Du Scilly, who visited Fort Ross a year after its foundation, wrote: "I did not find here either disorder or rudeness, which, alas, are not uncommon in the Spanish presidio. Opposite — well-roofed, beautiful houses, neatly planted and palisaded fields, and a perfectly good-natured atmosphere.
There was simply not enough strength
In 1836, the population of Fort Ross numbered 260 people. It consisted of "56 Russians, 115 Creoles, 50 Aleuts and 39 baptized Indians." In the conditional "Russians" due to race, a completely unexpected Englishman by blood Nick Betre — apparently, a runaway sailor from an English ship, who found shelter and understanding among the Russians along with the "baptized Indians".
Everything would be fine, but it was a drop in the Spanish sea surrounding the land of Fort Ross. Yes, all foreigners who ever visited the Russian colony in California were delighted. Englishman Frederick Beachyso he wrote: "Their new settlement in Ross is an example to all California of what industry and labor can bring here." But there were simply not enough Russians. The colony provided for itself and even sent food to Alaska, as intended. But there were too few Russian colonists. Perhaps the matter could be corrected by the project of the Chief Ruler of Russian settlements in America Alexander Baranov, who in 1817 believed: "Someone of the patriots who sympathize with our cause could buy at least 25 families peasants who, for resettlement in America, will be given freedom and arable land near Fort Ross. However, this project remained a — permits for "adventure" was not given.
All this led to a sad result: "Due to the clashes between the Spaniards and Americans with the Russian colonists and the lack of support of the latter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian-American company had to leave their settlements in California." In 1841 Fort Ross was sold for $30,000 to a Swiss entrepreneur Johann Sutter. Seven years later on the lands of John Sutter — this name was taken by this Swiss — the famous California gold rush broke out.
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Anniversary of Dzerzhinsky. Why does Russia need the return of the Iron Felix?
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lyrics https://lyrics.az/meghan-trainor/allalbums.html | absolutely enslaving terms. The Corsican did not wait for an official answer — too much honor. But on the sidelines, Alexander I had the opportunity to express everything he thought about the proposed peace: "I'd rather lead a militia of peasants, grow a beard for myself, eat only bread and retreat fighting to Alaska, but I won't sign such a peace!"
The intention is commendable. But in order to retreat to Alaska, one must have this same Alaska at one's disposal. And in order to eat at least "one bread" at the same time, it is necessary to make sure that this very bread in Alaska is in abundance and that it is imported not from Russia, but from some territories closer. The colony in California was just intended to supply Russian Alaska with bread, and food in general.
With all seriousness of intentions
I must say that attempts to gain a foothold in California were also made before. And at a very high level. Father of Alexander I Emperor Paul Iperfectly understood the importance of the colony in California for the development of Russian America. Evidence of that — events of July 1799. On the 8th, the emperor signed the Decree on the founding of the Russian-American Company, and on the 15th, that is, exactly a week later, he declared war on Spain, which laid claim to all of California. Not a single shot was fired in this war, and therefore it is perceived as a kind of curiosity, hastily hushed up after the tragic death of Paul I.
However, Russia has clearly indicated its intentions regarding California. Commander Nikolai Rezanov, the same one who in 1806 achieved an engagement with the daughter of the commandant of San Francisco under the muzzle of Russian guns, wrote shortly before his death: "If in 1799, when war was declared to the Gishpan court, our company was in the appropriate forces, it would be easy to take advantage of part of California before the Santa Barbara mission, and to keep this flap forever behind us … Now there are still lands that are just as profitable and very necessary for us. If we miss them too, what will posterity say?
In a word, the founding of Fort Ross was an attempt not to miss the "necessary and profitable lands." The leadership of the Russian-American company must be given its due — they did not hesitate. In 1811, a native of the city of Totma, a desperate traveler and businessman Ivan Kuskovbuys about 400 hectares of land from the Pomo Indians of California, giving away three blankets, three pairs of trousers, two axes, three hoes and several strings of beads. The price, of course, is ridiculous, and Ivan Aleksandrovich could be reproached for the "shameless deception of the unfortunate natives." But there is one caveat. Russian land all the same bought, albeit at a ridiculous price. But the Spaniards, who laid their hands on almost all of California, took the land for that, and even threatened with weapons.
For good memory
Incidentally, the good memory of the Russians was entrenched among the Californian Indians for a long time. Vasily Aksenov's story "Non-Stop Around the Clock", written after a trip to the USA and published in 1976, contains a direct speech by the American linguist, professor of Slavic studies at UCLA University, Dean Worth: "The word "cat" has long been known in California. The Indians who lived in the San Francisco area called the cat "kushka", spoon — "luzhka", in general, they had a lot of Russian words in their vocabulary…»
Which, in general, is not surprising. Compared with the Spaniards, the Russian colonists were, for the Indians, if not "white and fluffy", then very close to it. Naval officer Dmitry Zavalishin, who visited California in 1824, had the opportunity to compare the life of the Indians near Fort Ross and in the Catholic mission of San Francisco, where he studied Spanish under the guidance of the head of the mission, Padre Thomas. So — Judging by the memoirs of Zavalishin, the Indians always saw Russians as their intercessors: "The Indians were very fond of good-natured Russian sailors, and especially generous and affectionate officers. I know that every visit to the mission was a holiday for them. As it happened, missionaries do not bargain with me, but I will still ask someone for forgiveness or mitigation of punishment for disciplinary offenses.
Scientist, entrepreneur and one of the directors of the Russian-American Company Kirill Khlebnikov expressed himself in a higher style. In his letter to Alexander Pushkin, which was sent three weeks | 990 |
Trial starts in strange death
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – A woman went<|fim_middle|> had talked at a party about hitting the man with her car.
According to a police report, Mallard told detectives she apologized repeatedly to Biggs as he was dying but was too scared to call for help.
Police initially said Biggs may have lived for several days in Mallard's garage. The medical examiner later said Biggs probably lived only a few hours after he was hit. His left leg had been nearly amputated.
Two of Mallard's friends pleaded guilty to helping dump Biggs' body and have been sentenced to prison. both are expected to testify against Mallard.
AP-ES-06-18-03 2054EDT | on trial for murder Wednesday for allegedly hitting a homeless man with her car, driving home with his body stuck in the windshield and leaving him to die in her garage.
If convicted, Chante Mallard, 26, a former nurse's aide, faces life in prison. She is also charged with evidence tampering.
Jury selection is expected to continue through Friday, with opening statements next week.
The body of Gregory Biggs was found in October 2001 in a Fort Worth park. Authorities had no leads about his death until four months later, when police received a tip that Mallard | 122 |
Ex-St Helens boss heaps praise on ex-Leeds Rhinos man's son as former Catalans Dragons boss also receives praise
Cam Pattison December 6, 2022 mode_comment0
Daniel Anderson is one of the best coaches to grace Super League.
In his first full season in the competition, he guided St Helens to the treble in 2006. In total he won nine trophies in three and a half seasons which is a truly impressive record and it could have been much more<|fim_middle|> extend my time here. From Trent Robinson and the coaches to the squad around me, I'm learning so much and I know this is where I'll play my best footy." | if not for a star-studded Leeds Rhinos side.
Speaking of the Rhinos, one of their former players' sons has had a big involvement with Anderson recently.
The former Saints boss is of course part of the recruitment team at Sydney Roosters and he was vital in tying down Sam Walker, son of Ben Walker, until the end of 2025.
Speaking after this, he had huge praise for the young halfback:
"Sam is an impressive young man and a keen student of the game who brings energy to everything he does," Anderson said.
"There's a terrific connection between him and the players around him and it's great news that he will continue to play his important role here at the Roosters in the coming years."
Meanwhile, Walker himself had praise for another former Super League coach in the shape of ex-Catalans Dragons boss Trent Robinson.
"The Roosters have been awesome for me and I'm grateful every day to be part of this great club," Walker said.
Favourites to sign Dom Young reportedly revealed
"I love the Roosters club and the people in it so I'm stoked to | 230 |
December 10, 2022 December 10, 2022 Ashley Grasinger
By: MacKenzie Ahearn
(GREENSBURG, Pa.) – According to Noel King, there are only six Deaf art therapists in the United States so far, which makes sense as to why the Deaf community might want to change that fact. My sister, Seton Hill University senior art therapy major Hannah Ahearn, is one of them.
"When I see other Deaf people being successful, it makes me motivated to do the same," Ahearn said. "I look up to those minority groups who persevere despite the obstacles."
"I was searching on social media in hopes of finding other Deaf art therapists," Ahearn said. "I was so excited when I came across Noel," she continued. "I saw that she had a lot of experience and had accomplished a lot. It inspired me."
"I am one of the minorities, but when I am making art, the sense of minority disappears, and I am Noel the artist," said Noel King, currently pursuing a doctorate in Expressive Therapies at Lesley University in Massachusetts.
King has become notable for her work which made several Deaf art therapy graduate students contact her for advice.
"I didn't expect to be a mentor, but I am happy to be one of the mentors that encourage art therapists to break the glass ceilings or systematic barriers," King said. "Hearing people can do dance therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, etc, but Deaf people don't have that kind of variety."
"It's a way to remove barriers and to celebrate their identities and cultures," King said. Art is very visual and Deaf people are visual learners."
"[I] used to major in art education, but I switched because I felt that I could help the Deaf community better this way," Ahearn said. "There aren't that many Deaf art therapists or workers in this field like there are hearing, so I want to be able to provide access for those that need it."
"Getting to know her over the years, I'm impressed by her," said Ahearn's advisor Patti Ghubril. "Her grit and determination. She's always on top of things."
"I've seen a couple of [her] pieces in the gallery this fall," Ghubril said. "There was<|fim_middle|> at a hospital under the Alabama Department of Mental Health with a specialized Deaf unit.
"That speaks of grit," Bassi-Cook said, "Moving that far for her own experience. [She] puts herself out there and is getting what she needs."
"Initially, I was concerned that it might be too much, too many steps involved," Ghubril said. However, "She had support from her family and was confident."
"Hannah can go anywhere she wants," Ghubril said. "Her path doesn't need to look like anyone else's. She's inspiring that way."
"I want to travel to help Deaf people all over the world," Ahearn said. "I wish to incorporate art therapy into those practices."
Art therapy, like most other forms of therapy, requires some sort of open communication between the client and therapist. It usually means that the Deaf client requests an interpreter, which isn't always the most comfortable option.
"The system is designed for hearing people," King said.
"Based on my personality, my lived experiences as a Deaf person, I will try to use the pre-existing psychological tools and art therapy tools and use a Deaf and hard of hearing lens on it," King explained.
"I do hope it plants a seed in people's minds," King said.
"Deaf art is so powerful in bridging the hearing and Deaf world," Bassi-Cook said. "Hearing individuals, if they're open to it, can see new things."
The language barrier that unnecessarily separates these two worlds continues to be a problem for the Deaf community in receiving basic services.
Ahearn said, "I would call job companies on my video phone through the video relay service, and as customary, the interpreter would announce their position as an interpreter for the call, and I would get told that they hung up on me."
People often use the lowercase 'd' when referring to Deaf people as it emphasizes the medical condition of not being able to hear, instead of capitalizing it to recognize the culture.
"We did not have to talk about deafness under a medical lens, like a hearing family with a Deaf child might have to," King said. She had grown up in a Deaf family.
"We live in the Deaf community and breathe in our Deaf culture on a daily basis," King stated.
In high school, Ahearn attended a Deaf and hard-of-hearing program Explore Your Future at Rochester Institute for Technology. There, she was able to socialize with and learn about the experiences of other Deaf people.
Quanchen Warmack, whom she met through EYF said, "I work with Deaf and hard-of-hearing students because of the connection." Now, Warmack is a Deaf high school math teacher. She graduated from Gallaudet University in 2020. It was the first established college in the world dedicated to the Deaf and hard of hearing.
"They know my experiences and I know theirs. We share the same culture," Warmack stated.
"I want to see Deaf students be able to be independent and motivated to reach their personal goals," Warmack said.
"In the meetings with her advisor, it was very clear that she's [Ahearn] a dedicated student," Bassi-Cook said.
"My job is behind the scenes," Bassi-Cook said. "Contacting professors about captioned videos and informing them about interpreter etiquette."
"It should be a seamless experience so that she can be a student like everyone else," Bassi-Cook continued.
"I smile because you can't control the things people say when you're not in the room," Bassi-Cook said as she actually smiled. "[We] have a nice reputation [because] we work really hard as an office to meet the spirit of the law," Bassi-Cook said.
"Her growth has been in the professional capacity, in her future craft and profession," Bassi-Cook said. She is confident in Ahearn's skills.
"The biggest obstacle for an individual is someone else's ignorance and not giving them the opportunity to demonstrate the gifts they have," Bassi-Cook stated.
"Ignorance, because she's a female, young, Deaf," Bassi-Cook said.
Photo of Hannah Ahearn provided by MacKenzie Ahearn | a self-portrait portraying her experiences of being a Deaf person. It was very powerful."
"As a college student now, my artwork is focused on my experiences as a Deaf person in a hearing environment and social injustice," Ahearn said.
"I've been interested in art ever since I was a kid. My school in China had art programs," Ahearn said. She knew she wanted to pursue art from then. SHU kept reappearing in her search for secondary education. "People from the community told me it was good, so I went with it," Ahearn said.
"SHU and this office works in a way that the Americans with Disabilities Act is the floor and not the ceiling," said Kimberly Bassi-Cook Director of Disabilities Services at SHU.
"Thomas Aquinas once said 'nothing is inherently good or evil," Bassi-Cook recited. "The same can be said for independence. It can be both. Independence pushes you through when things are hard," Bassi-Cook said.
Ahearn recently finished her internship | 216 |
Happy New Year! As we ring in a fresh, new year, it's human nature to consider ways to improve our life experience. These can range from the simple (Drink more water) to the complex (Raise funds for a passion project) to the philosophical (Bark less, wag more).
Knowledge is power! Many eye diseases and conditions including age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy have a genetic component and tend to run in families. Familiarize yourself with your family's eye health history and share it with your eye doctor so you can catch any potential signs of disease early, when treatments are most effective.
Remember the first time you tried contact lenses? It felt like a miracle to see so well, didn't it? Contacts are certainly a convenient vision correction solution. But, if you don't take care of them, they can cause serious problems. Follow your eye doctor's instructions for proper care and wearing of your specific lenses. Don't sk<|fim_middle|> all of these injuries will cause temporary or permanent vision loss, a full 90% of them could be prevented by wearing the proper eye protection. You can keep your vision and that of your family and kids safe by wearing the right eye protection at work, at home, and while playing sports. Tell your eye care professionals about your lifestyle and we will recommend the ideal protection for your needs.
Just because it's wintertime doesn't mean the sun's UV rays can't harm your eyes. In fact, glare from the sun can be particularly harsh in winter, and UV rays reflecting off surfaces including snow, pavement, metal and water can damage your eyes year-round. UV exposure is associated with an increased risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration. Proper sunglasses will block at least 99% of both UVA and UVB rays. Our optical associates can help you select a great pair of sunglasses that will protect your eyes as they project your style. Find a pair you love and wear them every day to protect your eyesight!
With screen time on tablets, phones, laptops and desktops at record high levels, many of us are hunching our shoulders and straining our eyes to catch up on the latest news and posts. This increased screen time can lead to Computer Eye Syndrome, characterized by tired eyes, blurry vision, difficulty focusing, dry eyes, headaches and shoulder or neck pain. To relieve the effects of Computer Eye Syndrome, follow the 20/20/20 rule. Every 20 minutes or so, give your eyes a break by looking at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. It's a quick and easy way to relieve some of the strain screen time puts on our eyes.
Protect your precious gift of sight, and do the same for each member of your family. By scheduling a comprehensive eye exam, you can determine whether your vision is at its best, update prescription eyewear or contact lenses, determine the best safety glasses for your lifestyle, and be screened for many potential eye issues or diseases that could dramatically impact your vision. We'll "see to it" that you get the best possible treatment to preserve your eyesight in this new year―and always!
PreviousLASIK surgery: Is it right for you? | imp on cleaning or storing lenses, and don't wear them for longer than recommended. Failing to follow directions puts you at risk for infections, abrasions, and even permanent vision loss. Resolve to be contact-lens-compliant in 2018.
Each day, emergency rooms across our country see about 2,000 eye injuries, according to Prevent Blindness America. That adds up to over 700,000 per year! There are also around 125,000 eye injuries that happen in and around the home, plus and 25,000 sports-related eye injuries each year—nearly half of which are to children under age 14. And while 10-20% of | 157 |
Young people of Croxley Green who were keen to join in youth club activities would travel to Rickmansworth where a very popular club had opened to young people living in the immediate area of the town. As this facility became over subscribed, especially from Croxley Green, it was suggested that the village might consider having its own youth club. It was the idea of the combined church leaders in the area to assist with making this possible.
Arrangements were made to take over the two ex Territorial Army (TA) huts as a temporary club headquarters opposite All Saints Church, on The Green. It had been recognised from the outset that the land would eventually be taken for the development of the<|fim_middle|> close to the Barton Way allotments was identified.
The Parsonage Road School Rickmansworth was made available from the end of 1968 whilst the plans were being finalised. An application to the Department of Education and Science was made for the building programme of 1969/70. The Ministry set a sum of £17,000 for the project and as the grant only covered 50% it was up to the county and local authority to contribute towards the balance. This however left a shortfall of approximately £5,000 of which £2,000 had initially been raised from local residents of Croxley Green as well as a house to house collection to improve this figure. A further £500 for equipment and furniture was also required.
As they anticipated being affiliated to the county and national associations the age range was set at 14-21 year old.
The first spit was dug for the building during the summer of 1970 with completion the following year . The opening took place by ticket invitation on 25th / 26th September 1971 as so many were expected to view the new premises.
A discotheque was held on Saturday eve with approx 150 young people taking part. The club progressed to a membership averaging 110 with about 50 attending on most evenings. As the club developed and improved a members committee was set up. Darts, table tennis, weight lifting, table football,and enamel jewellery making were just some of the activities provided as well as the coffee bar . and a television and record player for 'pop' records.
This youth facility continued for many years providing a much needed service for the young community.
Community Association
For almost three quarters of a century the village had been provided with an exceptional 'community centre' namely the Institute/Guildhall offering so many activities for both the young and old. Sadly with the fire in the hall at the rear and the closure and sale mid 1970's of the main building, opportunities for leisure facilities began to fade especially for the older residents.
The Youth Centre Committee was approached and in February 1978 agreed to share the premises as part of the newly – instituted Croxley Green Community Association (CGCA) and the building simply known as 'The Centre'. The lease from TRDC was now transferred from the Youth Club Trustees to the CGCA.
Planning permission was gained to extend the building, enlarging the lounge and including a bar
Eventually a large car park was created for general use as well as parking for future events.
From edition of the Croxley Resident No. 90 1966
From edition of the Croxley Resident No.91 1966
(© Cheryl Green) Local band The Art playing at the Youth Club
(© Cheryl Green) Local teenagers waiting for the band to start | Windmill Estate and the hut was approximately where the entrance to the estate is today.
The redecorated and suitably furnished huts were ready for occupation in 1966 and table tennis, billiards etc as well as outdoor pursuits were available with over 500 youngsters showing an interest in membership.
Knowing this would only be temporary, a suitable permanent site central site was sought and land | 81 |
\section{Introduction}\label{sec:intro}
Implicit-solvent models represent an intuitive and fast approach to
understand molecular solvation~\cite{Roux99,Sharp90,Davis90,Tomasi94}, and
have a rigorous statistical-mechanical interpretation as an
approximation to the potential of mean force (PMF) experienced by a
molecular solute due to the surrounding solvent
molecules~\cite{Roux99}. The PMF is usually decomposed into non-polar
and electrostatic terms, the latter of which are often modeled using
macroscopic continuum models based on the Poisson--Boltzmann
partial-differential equation (PDE). Continuum models approximate the
free energy required to grow the solute charge distribution into the
solute
cavity~\cite{Roux99,Kirkwood34,Latimer39,Kornyshev97,Hildebrandt04,Rizzo06,Abrashkin07,Gong09,Guo13,Zhou14}.
Although implicit-solvent models can be orders of magnitude faster
than explicit-solvent molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations, most
popular continuum theories ignore numerous potentially important
effects, including solvent molecules' finite size and specific
molecular interactions such as hydrogen bonding (the AGBNP2 model,
which addresses the latter, is a notable
exception~\cite{Gallicchio09}).
One of the Poisson model's most perplexing and long-standing
shortcomings is the difficulty of extending it to model charge-sign
asymmetric solvation: for example, given two monatomic ions of equal
radius, one of $+q$ charge and the other of $-q$, the negative charge
experiences stronger interactions with the solvent (more negative
solvation free
energy)~\cite{Latimer39,Rashin85,Ashbaugh00,LyndenBell01,Rajamani04,Grossfield05,Mukhopadhyay12,Bardhan12_asymmetry}.
However, standard Poisson models are charge-sign \textit{symmetric};
that is, they predict the same solvation free energy for $\pm q$. The
need to include asymmetric effects is difficult to exaggerate,
particularly in biological contexts. Consider that the protein avidin
binds its ligand biotin with a binding free energy of approximately
$-$20~kcal/mol, one of the most favorable in biology~\cite{Green75};
solvent-exposed $+1e$ and $-1e$ charges can experience as much as
40~kcal/mol difference in their solvation free
energies~\cite{Bardhan12_asymmetry}. Dominant factors in charge-sign
asymmetric response include the liquid-vapor interface
potential~\cite{Ashbaugh00,Rajamani04} and the fact that water
hydrogens can approach a negative solute charge closer than water
oxygens can approach a positive
one~\cite{Latimer39,Rashin85,Mukhopadhyay12,Bardhan12_asymmetry}.
Spherical solutes with central charges provide a useful data set for
developing an understanding of size- and charge-sign dependent
hydration, including the characterization of interface potentials,
solvent packing, and dielectric
saturation~\cite{Rashin85,Hummer96_netchargecorrection,Ashbaugh00,Rajamani04,Grossfield05,Fedorov07}.
These analyses and the continuum macroscopic-dielectric framework
suggest that improvements require a more detailed, accurate
representation of the solvent dipole field
$\mathbf{P}(\mathbf{r})$~\cite{Warshel76,Azuara08}, or, equivalently,
the solvent charge density ~\mbox{$\rho_{\mathrm{induced}}(\mathbf{r})
= \nabla \cdot \mathbf{P}(\mathbf{r})$}. Because $\mathbf{P}$ and
$\rho_{\mathrm{induced}}$ do \textit{not} respond linearly to the
solute charge distribution~\cite{Alper90}, particularly in the first
solvent shell~\cite{Purisima09}, many groups have developed solvent
models in which the solvent potential obeys a nonlinear partial
differential equation
(PDE)~\cite{Kornyshev98,Sandberg02_first_LD,Jha08,Gong08,Hu12_Wei_nonlinear_Poisson_BJ}.
Unfortunately, most of these models are still charge-sign symmetric.
However, in 1939 Latimer et al. proposed an approach to increase or
decrease an ion's radius based on the charge~\cite{Latimer39}, and
recent developments in high-performance computing and explicit-solvent
MD free-energy calculations provide important new data to extend this
approach. Mobley et al. constructed a challenging test set and
conducted extensive MD simulations on charge-sign
asymmetry~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry}, enabling important new
developments in modeling
asymmetry~\cite{Purisima09,Corbeil10,Mukhopadhyay14} that extend
Latimer's work to Generalized-Born (GB) models of complex solutes. GB
theory was a natural setting for these developments because Latimer's
work and GB theory share the conceptual picture of an effective atomic
radius. These early studies provided an important insight: a buried
charge still affects the electric field at the boundary, so merely
parameterizing charge-dependent radii cannot (indeed, should not)
provide a satisfactory explanation. The accuracy of asymmetric GB
models suggests that a simple Poisson-based model exists, but finding
one has proven to be surprisingly difficult.
In this paper, we propose a simple Poisson continuum model that
includes charge-sign asymmetry and show that it is remarkably accurate
even without parameterization on an atom-by-atom basis. The key
feature of our theory is a \textit{nonlinear boundary condition}
(NLBC) for the normal displacement field; in contrast, the
displacement boundary condition for the standard (symmetric) Poisson
theory is linear~\cite{Jackson_classical_electrodynamics}.
Importantly, even though our proposed displacement boundary condition
is nonlinear, the electrostatic potential in the solvent and solute
volumes still satisfy \textit{linear} Poisson/Laplace equations. Two
phenomena motivated us to propose a nonlinear boundary condition
instead of a nonlinear governing equation. First, numerous results
illustrate that the solute reaction potential obeys nearly linear
response even though the solvent charge distribution does
not~\cite{Lin11_Pettitt,Boda09,Purisima09,Corbeil10,Mukhopadhyay14,Bardhan12_asymmetry}.
For example, the new asymmetric Generalized-Born (GB) models use the
charge distribution only to modify the Born radii, with the overall
energy still computed using superposition (independent sum of
individual charge
responses)~\cite{Purisima09,Corbeil10,Mukhopadhyay14}. Furthermore,
we found in our previous work that the solute reaction potential is
essentially a \textit{piecewise-linear} function of charge
~\cite{Bardhan12_asymmetry}, i.e. the proportionality coefficient
depends on whether one is charging an ion from zero to $+q$ or to
$-q$. In fact, we began this work seeking primarily to reproduce this
curiously simple nonlinearity.
The second phenomenon motivating our NLBC approach is the fact that
the solute reaction potential is a harmonic field---that is, it
satisfies the Laplace equation. This property is useful for numerical
computations~\cite{Chern03,Holst12} and also provides a path to
improve models via boundary-integral methods~\cite{Bardhan12_review}:
harmonicity means that regardless of the solvent model of interest,
there exists \textit{some} surface charge density that reproduces the
reaction potential inside. For a given solvent model, the surface
charge density might satisfy a nonlinear boundary-integral equation,
but the very fact that such a density always exists suggests that one
might improve continuum models by adding nonlinear terms to widely
used BIE formalisms~\cite{Rizzo67,Shaw85,Juffer91,Bardhan09_disc}.
\section{Continuum Model and Extension to Nonlinear Boundary Conditions}
We first present the standard (charge-sign symmetric) Poisson
electrostatic model and then describe the difference between it and
our proposed NLBC model. In both theories, the molecular solute is
treated as a macroscopic linear dielectric continuum obeying the
Poisson equation \mbox{$\nabla^2 \varphi_1(\mathbf{r}) =
-\frac{\rho(\mathbf{r})}{\epsilon_1}$} where $\mathbf{r}$ is a point
in space, $\varphi_1(\mathbf{r})$ is the potential in the solute,
$\epsilon_1$ is the relative permittivity, and the molecular charge
distribution $\rho(\mathbf{r})$ is a set of $N_q$ point charges, i.e.
\mbox{$\rho(\mathbf{r}) = \sum_{i=1}^{N_q} q_i
\delta(\mathbf{r}-\mathbf{r}_i)$}. The solute and solvent are
separated by the interface $\Gamma$, and the solvent exterior is a
linear dielectric with permittivity \mbox{$\epsilon_2 \gg
\epsilon_1$}, so the electric potential obeys \mbox{$\nabla^2
\varphi_2(\mathbf{r}) = 0$}; note that modeling realistic biological
solutions requires inclusion of screening effects due to mobile ions
using e.g. some form of the Poisson--Boltzmann equation for
$\varphi_2(\mathbf{r})$~\cite{Sharp90,Tomasi94}. From macroscopic
dielectric theory and Gauss's law, we obtain the standard Maxwell
boundary conditions for $\mathbf{r}_\Gamma \in \Gamma$
\begin{align}
\varphi_1(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma) &= \varphi_2(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma),\\
\epsilon_1 \frac{\partial \varphi_1}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma) &= \epsilon_2<|fim_middle|> = L_+ q$ for
$q > 0$ and $\varphi^{REAC} = L_- q$ for $q < 0$, with $L_+ \neq L_-$.
The proposed NLBC in Eqs.~\ref{eq:charge-layer-nonlinear-BC}
and~\ref{eq:tanh} immediately explains this curious phenomenon:
consider the limit $\beta \rightarrow \infty$, so that $\tanh$ is
constant everywhere, but discontinuous at $q=0$. The Debye charging
process~\cite{Kirkwood34_2} scales all charges uniformly, i.e.
\mbox{$\hat{\rho}(r; \lambda) = \lambda \rho(r)$}, so the Coulomb
field \mbox{$\frac{\partial \varphi^{Coul}}{\partial n}$} has the same
sign for all finite $\lambda$. The Coulomb-field approximation (CFA)
shows that the reaction field is nearly proportional to the direct
Coulomb field, but slightly smaller in
magnitude~\cite{Kharkats76,Bardhan08_BIBEE,Bardhan12_review}, so for
finite $\lambda$, at almost all $\mathbf{r}_\Gamma$, the total field
$E_n(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma; \lambda)$ has the same sign as
$E_n(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma; \lambda = 1)$. This implies that almost
everywhere on the surface, the $\tanh$ boundary condition takes its
limiting ($\lambda \rightarrow 1$) value for any finite $\lambda$,
which means that the boundary condition is essentially linear:
\mbox{$(1 + g(r))\sigma(r) = \frac{\partial \hat\varphi_2}{\partial
n}-\frac{\partial \hat\varphi_1}{\partial n}$}. With this
justification, in this work we compute solvation free energies as
\mbox{$\Delta G^{solv,es}= \frac{1}{2} q^T \varphi^{REAC}$}. Note
that a more precise definition of the charging free energy would be
piecewise \textit{affine}, because the charging free energy also
includes a linear term that results from the liquid-vapor interface
potential~\cite{Harder08,Kathmann11,Bardhan12_asymmetry}; as noted
above, however, in the present work its influence is approximated via
the offset parameter $\gamma$.
\section{Results and Discussion}\label{sec:results}
We parameterized the NLBC model using the Mobley et al. MD free-energy
calculations, who studied asymmetry using fictitious bracelet and rod
molecules~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry} constructed from AMBER
$\mathrm{C}_{\alpha}$ atoms with $\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{min}}/2 = 1.908$~\AA. We
obtained optimal results with $\alpha = 0.5$, $\beta = -60$, $\gamma =
-0.5$, and a continuum-model $\mathrm{C}_\alpha$ radius of 1.75~\AA~(a
scale factor of approximately 0.92). Note that in this first
exploration of the NLBC, we have parameterized against the overall
solvation free energies computed by Mobley et al. rather than the more
correct charging free energy.
Figure~\ref{fig:standard-ions-model} plots NLBC and MD free-energy
calculations for ion charging free energies; the MD charging
simulations used in our previous work~\cite{Bardhan12_asymmetry} (see
Supporting Information) and CHARMM Lennard-Jones parameters. We
remind the reader that no additional parameters were fit in obtaining
these NLBC results, i.e. ion radii were assigned
$\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{ion}} = 0.92 \mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{min}}/2$. For
additional data, ions were charged to both $+1e$ and $-1e$, regardless
of the charge on the real ion, and the NLBC accurately predicts these
charging free energies as well. The largest deviations occur for
radii less than 1.4~\AA, where discrete packing effects and actual
dielectric saturation are likely.
\begin{figure}[ht!]
\centering \resizebox{3.0in}{!}{\includegraphics{vary-ion-radius}}
\caption{Asymmetric polarization free energies for a monovalent
central charge in a sphere, as a function of sphere radius. The
labeled symbols denote results from MD free-energy calculations
charging CHARMM monatomic ions from zero to $+1e$ or $-1e$, with
$\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{ion}} = 0.92 \mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{min}}/2$. The dashed black curve
in the middle is the (charge-sign symmetric) Born polarization
free energy.}\protect\label{fig:standard-ions-model} \end{figure}
\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{l|cc|cc}
Problem & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Solvation errors} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Asymmetry errors}\\\hline
& RMSE & Max. & RMS & Max. \\
Rods & 5.57 & 9.63 & 0.88 & 1.49 \\
Bracelets (opposing) & 2.88 & 6.10 & 2.04 & 3.08 \\
Bracelets (distributed) & 2.20 & 2.72 & 0.29 & 0.59 \\
Bracelets (dipole) & 2.67 & 3.52 & 0.85 & 1.09
\end{tabular}
\caption{Comparison of NLBC model to MD free-energy calculations of
Mobley et al.~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry} for rod and bracelet
molecule test set. All energies are in kcal/mol. See Supporting
Information for detailed results.}\protect\label{table:Mobley}
\end{table}
Calculations for the Mobley test set are summarized in
Table~\ref{table:Mobley}; SI Figures~1--8 plot the NLBC and Mobley MD
solvation free energies and asymmetry energies, and include
illustrations of the test problems. The rod molecules are composed of
5 or 6 atoms along a line, with one atom possessing $+1e$ charge, one
with $-1e$, and the rest neutral. The asymmetry errors in
Table~\ref{table:Mobley} represent the difference in solvation
energies when reversing the charged atoms' signs. The bracelet
molecules are regular polygons with between 3 and 8 sides; atoms are
at the vertices (1.4~\AA~apart). Bracelets were simulated with three
charge distributions: the ``opposing'' case had a $+1e$ charge
neutralized by two $-0.5e$ charges positioned symmetrically on the
opposite side. The ``distributed'' case has one $+1e$ charge and a
neutralizing $-1e$ distributed equally on all the other atoms; the
``dipole'' case is similar to ``opposing'' but fixes the dipole
moment~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry}. Solvent charge-densities from the
MD calculations~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry} suggest that solvent packing
may be responsible for size-dependent deviations; parameterizing radii
for actual atoms should significantly reduce these errors.
To test the model on real but nonspherical molecules, we compared NLBC
and MD charging free energies for isolated titratable amino acids in
both protonated and unprotonated states (See Supporting Information
for details on structure preparation). Parameters were from the CHARMM
force field~\cite{Brooks83} when available, with other protonation
states defined so that the protonated and unprotonated states had the
same number of atoms. The MD free-energy-perturbation (FEP)
calculations used the same protocol as the
ions~\cite{Bardhan12_asymmetry}, holding the solute rigid so that
$\epsilon_1 = 1$ unambiguously~\cite{Roux99}. The deviations between
our MD results and the MD calculations of Nina et al.~\cite{Nina97}
are small compared to the energies of interest, and likely due to our
use of (i) periodic boundary conditions, (ii) a larger solvent box
(1959 waters vs. 150), and (iii) slightly different backbone angles.
As in the ion and Mobley examples, the NLBC radii were defined by the
scaling $\mathrm{R} = 0.92 \mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{min}}/2$. The results
in Figure~\ref{fig:residues} illustrate that the NLBC model correctly
captures solvation free energies in both charge states, despite the
fact that radii were not adjusted individually or even for the atomic
charges. In contrast, standard Poisson model results computed using
the Nina et al.~\cite{Nina97} or PARSE~\cite{Sitkoff94} radii exhibit
larger deviations, particularly for arginine, aspartic acid, cysteine,
glutamic acid, and tyrosine. These data suggest that the differences
between symmetric and asymmetric electrostatic models are robust with
respect to radii (the PARSE calculations are merely suggestive because
these calculations used the CHARMM charges; for consistent comparison
to experiment, one should use PARSE charges with PARSE radii).
\begin{figure}[ht!]
\centering \resizebox{3.0in}{!}{\includegraphics{residues}}
\caption{Comparison of NLBC model to explicit-solvent MD FEP
calculations for titratable residues with neutral blocking
groups. MD results from Nina et al.~\cite{Nina97} are shown where
available; standard continuum model results are shown for Nina et
al. radii and PARSE radii~\cite{Sitkoff94} (using CHARMM
charges).}\protect\label{fig:residues}
\end{figure}
\section{Conclusion}\label{sec:conclusion}
We have proposed a Poisson-based theory that models
charge-sign-dependent asymmetries in electrostatic solvation free
energies using a nonlinear boundary condition (NLBC), while still
using linear continuum theory in the solute and solvent volumes. The
NLBC model accurately reproduces MD free-energy results for monatomic
ions, the Mobley et al. bracelet and rod problems, and titratable
residues, even though we have used charge-independent radii that were
fixed by a single scaling factor applied to MD radii. Furthermore,
the NLBC reduces smoothly to the standard Poisson model as the
parameter $\alpha$ approaches zero. Finally, our boundary-element
method implementation for non-trivial molecules demonstrates that the
new model is easily implemented in numerical Poisson and
Poisson--Boltzmann solvers.
Our introduction of a modified boundary condition to account for
solvation-shell response follows a long history in continuum
mechanics, where phenomenological techniques find applications in many
areas of science and engineering to capture a particular physical
behavior in continuum theory rather than modeling or deriving it from
first
principles~\cite{MizziBarberEmersonReeseStefanov2007,Brenner2011,Bardhan11_Knepley}. Non-equilibrium
micro-scale gas flows offer a well-developed example: velocity-slip
and temperature-jump boundary conditions are simplified
phenomenological approaches to represent both non-equilibrium and
gas-surface interaction effects occurring near solid walls. Such
boundary conditions were first suggested in the 19th century by
Maxwell~\cite{Maxwell1878} and von
Smoluchowski~\cite{Smoluchowski1898}, respectively. More recent
examples include the partitioning of minerals at phase boundaries in
geophysics~\cite{LHeureux96}, tumor growth~\cite{Macklin05}, the
deformation of biological membranes~\cite{Fan03}, and thin electric
double layers in electro-osmotic flow~\cite{Yossifon07}.
Much as Beglov and Roux showed that solvent response approaches the
linear Poisson model in the limit as the solvent molecule approaches
zero size~\cite{Beglov96}, our model emphasizes that the nonlinear
response is generally localized in the first solvent shell.
Conceptually, the nonlinear boundary condition penalizes negative
surface charge because the larger water oxygen cannot approach a
solute charge as closely as the water hydrogens can. From a
boundary-integral point of view, this has the same effect as adjusting
the atomic radii, an approach pioneered by Latimer et
al.~\cite{Latimer39}, and extended recently to GB
models~\cite{Purisima09,Corbeil10,Mukhopadhyay12,Mukhopadhyay14}.
Purisima's work is particularly relevant due to their use of
surface-charge boundary-integral approach, adjusting GB radii using
$\sigma(\mathbf{r})$~\cite{Purisima09,Corbeil10}. Our work differs
substantially from these approaches because we have included asymmetry
directly in the underlying Poisson model.
The present theory can be extended in several important ways. First,
the proposed NLBC model has only three parameters whose particular
dependencies on solvent model have not yet been established
theoretically. Second, it seems straightforward to include ionic
screening via the Poisson--Boltzmann equation. Third, the proposed
NLBC depends exclusively on the normal electric field; improved models
might include local curvature or higher-order moments of the
potential. Importantly, the latter could distinguish between
small-magnitude charges near the surface, and larger charges further
away~\cite{Mukhopadhyay12}. Fourth, water's length-scale-dependent
dielectric behavior might be included using nonlocal
electrostatics~\cite{Hildebrandt04,Fedorov07,Bardhan11_pka,Bardhan11_DAC,Bardhan13_nonlocal_review}. The
new model also does not necessarily capture specific hydrogen-bonding
effects like AGBNP2 does~\cite{Gallicchio09}, which motivates future
work comparing the two approaches.
\iftoggle{fulltitlepage}
{
\section*{Acknowledgments}
The authors thank David Mobley for sharing detailed calculation
results, Jed Brown and David Green for valuable discussions, and Matt
Reuter for a critical reading of the manuscript. MGK was partially
supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science,
Advanced Scientific Computing Research, under Contract
DE-AC02-06CH11357, and also NSF Grant OCI-1147680. JPB has been
supported in part by the National Institute of General Medical
Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under
award number R21GM102642. The content is solely the responsibility of
the authors, and does not necessarily represent the official views of
the National Institutes of Health.
\section*{Supporting Information}
Figures comparing NLBC and MD calculations for the Mobley test
set~\cite{Mobley08_asymmetry}. The source code (MATLAB) and surface
discretizations for running the nonlinear boundary-condition
calculations, data files, parameters, and scripts for preparing and
running the MD calculations of titratable residues, as well as source
code to generate the figures, are freely and publicly available online
at \url{https://bitbucket.org/jbardhan/si-nlbc}.
}{
}
\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
| \frac{\partial \varphi_2}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma),\label{eq:standard-Maxwell-bc}
\end{align}
where $\frac{\partial}{\partial n}$ denotes the normal derivative (the
normal at $\mathbf{r}_\Gamma$ is defined pointing outward into
solvent). Assuming that $\varphi_2(\mathbf{r})$ decays sufficiently
quickly as $|\mathbf{r}|\rightarrow\infty$, this mixed-dielectric
Poisson problem is well posed and the unknown potential $\varphi_1$
can be rewritten as a linear boundary-integral equation for an unknown
surface charge distribution on $\Gamma$. In particular, the
apparent-surface charge (ASC)
model~\cite{Shaw85,Altman05_2,Bardhan09_disc} (also known as the
polarizable continuum model~\cite{Miertus81,Tomasi94}) can be
interpreted as finding an equivalent surface charge
$\sigma(\mathbf{r})$ in a homogeneous medium with permittivity
$\epsilon_1$ everywhere. In this equivalent problem, the
analogous boundary condition to Eq.~\ref{eq:standard-Maxwell-bc}
is simpler due to homogeneity, but adds a term for the surface charge:
\begin{equation}
\frac{\sigma(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma)}{\epsilon_1} = \frac{\partial
\hat{\varphi}_1}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma) - \frac{\partial
\hat{\varphi}_2}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma),\label{eq:ecf-bc}
\end{equation}
and we use $\hat{\varphi}_i = \varphi_i$ to emphasize our use of an
equivalent problem. Defining \mbox{$G(\mathbf{r};\mathbf{r}') =
\frac{1}{4 \pi || \mathbf{r} - \mathbf{r}'||}$}, one obtains
\begin{align}
\left(I + \hat{\epsilon} \left(-\frac{1}{2} I+ K\right)\right)\sigma &= -\hat{\epsilon}\sum_i^{N_q} q_i \frac{\partial G}{\partial n}
\end{align}
where $\hat{\epsilon} = (\epsilon_2-\epsilon_1)/\epsilon_2$ and $K$ is
the normal electric field operator~\cite{Bardhan09_disc}. The
reaction potential in the solute is then
\mbox{$\varphi^{REAC}(\mathbf{r}) = \frac{1}{\epsilon_1} \int_\Gamma
G(\mathbf{r}; \mathbf{r}') \sigma(\mathbf{r}') dA'$}, and
\mbox{$\varphi_{1}(\mathbf{r}) = \varphi^{REAC}(\mathbf{r})
+\varphi^{Coulomb}(\mathbf{r})$}, with the latter term representing
the Coulomb potential due to $\rho(\mathbf{r})$.
The standard Maxwell displacement boundary condition
Eq.~\ref{eq:standard-Maxwell-bc} is obtained using Gauss's law in
integral form and the fact that the divergence of the polarization
field $\mathbf{P}(\mathbf{r})$ represents a volume charge density.
However, near the solute--solvent boundary, the assumption that
$\mathbf{P}(\mathbf{r})$ is pointwise proportional to the local
electric field breaks down due to water structure at the interface;
that is, it is no longer necessarily true that
\mbox{$\mathbf{P}(\mathbf{r}) = (\epsilon(\mathbf{r})-1)
\mathbf{E}(\mathbf{r})$}.
To model nonlinear solvent response at the boundary, we propose to
replace the linear boundary condition,
Eq.~\ref{eq:standard-Maxwell-bc}, with the phenomenological nonlinear
boundary condition
\begin{equation}
f(E_n) \frac{\partial \varphi_1}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma) = \left(1+f(E_n)\right)\frac{\partial \varphi_2}{\partial n}(\mathbf{r}_\Gamma)\label{eq:charge-layer-nonlinear-BC}
\end{equation}
where $E_n$ is the electric field just inside $\Gamma$,
i.e. \mbox{$E_n = -\sum_i q_i \frac{\partial G}{\partial n} - K
\sigma$}, and
\begin{align}
f(E_n) & = \frac{\epsilon_1}{\epsilon_2-\epsilon_1} - h(E_n);\\
h(E_n) & = \alpha \tanh(\beta E_n - \gamma) + \mu.\label{eq:tanh}
\end{align}
with $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\gamma$ representing model parameters and
\mbox{$\mu = -\alpha
\tanh(-\gamma)$}. The specification of $\mu$ ensures that $h(E_n=0)
= 0$, so that in the limit of weak electric fields, such as induced at
the surface by a deeply buried charge, the boundary condition reduces
to the familiar Poisson model. The NLBC leads to
the modified, \textit{nonlinear} BIE
\begin{equation}
\left(I + \hat{\epsilon}\left(-\frac{1}{2}I + K\right) + h(E_n)\right) \sigma = -\hat{\epsilon}\sum_{i} q_i \frac{\partial G}{\partial n},
\end{equation}
with the nonlinearity arising in the dependence of $h$ on $E_n$ (see
the Supporting Information for details on the numerical
implementation).
One challenge in developing more accurate solvent models is the fact
that nonlinear response~\cite{Sharp90_2} generally requires a charging
process~\cite{Zhou94}, i.e. the expression \mbox{$\Delta G^{solv,es} = \frac{1}{2}
q^T \varphi^{REAC} = \frac{1}{2}q^T L q$} no longer holds ($L$
denotes the reaction-potential
operator~\cite{Roux99,Bardhan12_review}). However, our previous work
showed the remarkable fact that the solute reaction potential is
\textit{piecewise} linear, with the breakpoint at
$q=0$~\cite{Bardhan12_asymmetry}, so that $\varphi^{REAC} | 1,527 |
Sir David Willcocks, CBE, MC. 30 December 1919 – 17 September 2015
Sir David Willcocks, CBE, MC.
30 December 1919 – 17 September 2015
Sir David Willcocks, who has died at the age of 95, occupied a pre-eminent place in post-war British musical life, not least through his work with the choir of King's College, Cambridge.
The youngest of three sons, he was born in Newquay, Cornwall. He soon showed a precocious musical talent and on the recommendation of Sir Walford Davies he became a chorister at Westminster Abbey (1929-1933). His education was completed at Clifton College, Bristol after which he studied at the Royal College of Music in London before becoming Organ Scholar at King's College, Cambridge in 1939.
His time in Cambridge was short lived, however; his studies there were soon interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War though not before he had played the organ for the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, 1939.
Willcocks joined the army and was commissioned into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He saw action, not least in the campaign that followed the D Day landings in June 1944. During the fighting in 1944 he was awarded the Military Cross, one of Britain's highest awards for bravery.
When his military service came to an end he returned to Cambridge to complete his degree. In 1947 he was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Salisbury Cathedral to succeed Sir Walter Alcock. Though the cathedral choir was not, perhaps, in the best of shape in the aftermath of the war Salisbury Cathedral was and is a prominent English cathedral and this was a very significant appointment for a young musician with no previous experience of running the music at a cathedral or a similar institution.
It was not long before an even<|fim_middle|> so directly to singers and listeners, decorating the hymn in a celebratory way but never overpowering the tune in a showy or florid way. The Willcocks era must have been a particularly thrilling time to be part of the King's choir. Bob Chilcott has recalled, for example his first encounter with Sir David's arrangement of Tomorrow shall be my dancing day: "I can remember the manuscript on old photocopies and it was so exciting."
The wide respect and affection in which Sir David Willcocks was held was confirmed with the publication of A Life in Music. Conversations with Sir David Willcocks and Friends (2008), edited by William Owen. Many recollections in that volume by friends and fellow musicians not only attest to the very high musical standards which Willcocks espoused throughout his career but also speak of his unfailing kindness and generosity to others. Roy Massey, who was later the distinguished Director of Music at Hereford Cathedral, recalls receiving organ lessons from Willcocks when he was a young impecunious student. When he broached the subject of payment Sir David's response was: "Let's not bother about that. When I'm on the parish in my old age you can support me." Another example of his generosity is not included in that book but I relate it here with the permission of John Dickson, Director of Choral Studies and Barineau Professor of Choral Music at Louisiana State University.
In 1991 Sir David carried out a guest conducting engagement with John Dickson's Seminary Choir at the annual Church Music Institute at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Over dinner Dickson happened to mention that he was planning a sabbatical in London, to which Willcocks replied, "Oh no, you want to live in Cambridge and commute to London!" Willcocks offered his help but he left for home the next day and Prof. Dickson assumed that was the end of that. Not so. A couple of months later he received a telephone call from Sir David. Not only had he instigated the award to Dickson of a Visiting Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge but he and Lady Willcocks were taking active steps to help him find accommodation in Cambridge and school places for his sons. As Prof Dickson puts it: "All of this from a man I had only known for two days! He taught me a lot about taking time to encourage and help others – no matter how busy, or important you may be." Unsurprisingly, a lifelong friendship resulted.
Sir David Willcocks' achievements were recognized with the award of a CBE in 1971 followed by his knighthood in 1977. He is survived by Lady Rachel Willcocks, who he married in 1947, and by three of their four children.
It's appropriate to conclude with the judgement of Stephen Cleobury, the present Director of Music at King's College. In the William Owen book, previously cited, he describes Sir David as "a consummate musician and a genuine and warm-hearted person."
Posted by JQuinn | Filed Under Featured Articles and News, News and Press Releases, Previously Published | more prestigious job came his way. In 1950 he was appointed Organist and Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral in succession to Sir Ivor Atkins who had presided over Worcester Cathedral's music since 1897. With the appointment at Worcester came another important opening: involvement in the Three Choirs Festival. The Festival rotates annually between the cathedral cities of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester and by long tradition the Director of Music at the host cathedral is Artistic Director. Willcocks directed three Festivals – in 1951, 1954 and 1957 – and one of the landmarks was the commissioning of Vaughan Williams' Hodie for the 1954 Festival. Missa Sabrinensis by Howells was unveiled at the same festival. In 1982 Sir David conducted it in London to mark the composer's 90th birthday; I wonder if the BBC recording of that concert still exists. During his Worcester days Willcocks was also conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir and the Bradford Festival Chorus. He maintained the Bradford connection long after leaving Worcester (1956-1974) but relinquished the Birmingham post – to Meredith Davies – on leaving Worcester. His period with the Birmingham choir involved some typically adventurous programming including Tippett's A Child of our Time and, in 1952, the British première of Duruflé's Requiem. This was only five years after the composition of the work and the composer himself travelled to Birmingham and played the organ part in the performance.
In 1957 Willcocks moved from Worcester back to his alma mater, where the Organist and Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, Boris Ord was in failing health. Willcocks soon succeeded Ord and he remained at King's until 1974. Though further important jobs were later to come his way it was his tenure at King's which sealed his reputation. The choir was already well-known through the annual broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols but Willcocks raised its standards and its profile immeasurably. Under his leadership the choir made a significant number of highly regarded recordings and also gave frequent concerts, both in the UK and abroad. Willcocks' successors, Sir Philip Ledger and Stephen Cleobury have done great work with the choir but there can be no doubt that Sir David was the architect of its international reputation.
While at King's Willcocks became Director of the Bach Choir, a position he held from 1960 to 1998. In 1974 he left King's and succeeded Sir Keith Falkner as Director of the Royal College of Music. He retired from the College in 1984 after a very successful tenure and he continued to lead a very full and active life as a conductor and composer for many years thereafter. Much in demand with choirs in the UK and abroad, he strongly encouraged amateur singers, not least through his involvement for many years with the Really Big Chorus events at the Royal Albert Hall.
As recently as 2010 he returned to King's to record with the College Choir a Priory disc of music by himself and others, including his composer son, Jonathan Willcocks. This project, organised by Stephen Cleobury, was undertaken to celebrate Willcocks' 90th birthday. The year before he had made the first recording of Vaughan Williams' Folk Songs of the Four Seasons.
Sir David has left an important legacy of recordings, both with the King's College choir and also with the Bach Choir. His 1967 recording of the Fauré Requiem has been a fixture in the catalogue for nearly five decades; one noteworthy feature is that the Pie Jesu solo is sung not by a soprano but by one of the King's trebles, Robert Chilcott, who is nowadays even better known as the composer, Bob Chilcott. Willcocks also made the first recordings of Howells' Hymnus Paradisi and Vaughan Williams' Hodie; neither recording has ever been surpassed. One recording that has given me particular pleasure over the years is the first – and so far only – recording of Parry's Ode on the Nativity. The choirs which he trained were much in demand for other recording projects, even if Sir David himself was not on the podium. Two notable examples of this both involved Benjamin Britten. The Bach Choir sang in the legendary first recording of War Requiem in 1963 while for Britten's 1971 recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius the King's College choir made a significant impact as the semi-chorus. The King's choir also sang in some of the earliest recordings in the Leonhardt/Harnoncourt cycle of the Bach Cantatas.
But arguably the way in which Sir David's name is best known, and is likely to remain so, is through the work that he did to translate the fame of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols into everyday use through the celebrated series of books, Carols for Choirs. Willcocks edited the first volume – known to singers throughout the world as The Green Book – in 1961, a project on which he worked with Reginald Jacques. Its popularity led to Carols for Choirs 2 (1970) and Carols for Choirs 3 (1978). For both of these volumes Sir David's co-editor and –arranger was a certain John Rutter. It was typical of the way that Willcocks promoted young musicians throughout his life that his active encouragement led to the publication in 1967 of Nativity Carol, written while Rutter was still a Cambridge undergraduate. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Carols for Choirs series was so successful because it brought to amateur choirs to a then- unprecedented degree interesting and highly enjoyable arrangements of familiar carols as well as new material, all conveniently gathered together in single volumes. Sir David's own contributions have stood the test of time remarkably. One thinks of his skilful arrangements of such carols as Away in a manger, The First Nowell, God rest you merry, Gentlemen and the Sussex Carol. These are all memorable and just sound 'right'. But even more memorable are the descants to such Christmas hymns as O come, all ye faithful and Hark the herald angels sing; many choir members will know these arrangements by heart. And how many singers have heard or sung descants by others and have said to themselves, as I have: "Willcocks is still the best". It seems to me that these descants stand the test of time because they speak | 1,399 |
Holy Ascension holds annual service
Holy Ascension Chapel & Cemetery, Hubbard-Goodeve, SK
What do you do when your church is over 100 years old and is a small rural church and you want to have your annual Prazdnik on the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos? With the Covid-19 restrictions, you can only hold 6 to 8 people inside, way more than those who would be attending. Well, you trust God and move the service outside and continue the tradition. The ones who founded the church would have done the same without any hesitation.
New Treasurer Appointed
His Eminence Archbishop Irénée has appointed the Very Reverend Archpriest Rodion Luciuk as the new archdiocesan treasurer, effective 1 September 2020.
Fr Rod replaces Fr Justin Mitchell, whom the archbishop thanked for his excellent work over the past five years, leaving the archdiocese in a strong financial condition. Fr Rod brings years of professional experience to the role, in addition to previously serving as a member of the archdiocesan council and internal audit team.
In Memoriam: Archpriest Raphael David Johnston
The Very Reverend Archpriest Raphael David Johnston fell asleep peacefully in the Lord on July 31, 2020. He is survived by his beloved wife 46 years Matushka Debbie, sons Ian (Laura) and Michael, and grandchildren, Aiden, Emma and Makayla.
Fr Raphael was an Archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America and the rector of Saints Peter and Paul Ruso-Greek Orthodox Church, Dickie Bush Alberta, as well as a regular assisting priest in Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, in Edmonton.
Holy Apostle Barnabas Mission Goes Outside!
Holy Apostle Barnabas Mission, Canada's most western parish, has a rather small chapel, so how are to 'spread out'? Well, go outside, of course! Our Heavenly Father gave us beautiful weather this past Sunday so were able to serve the Divine Liturgy in His great outdoors.
How awesome it was to worship Him while looking up at the sun shining down through the leaves of the trees. For a time, a hummingbird settled on a branch behind the altar and observed God's people giving thanks to the Creator for His great glory.
Archbishop Irénée Celebrates the Feast of Pentecost in Rawdon
The festal Divine Liturgy for Pentecost was celebrated outdoors at St Seraphim of Sarov Church in Rawdon, Québec, presided by His Eminence Archbishop Irénée and Fr Deacon Denis Letunovsky.
It was a beautiful day: Mother nature was at her best with greenery, the birds were singing, and a nice breeze blew through the rustling leaves. We could<|fim_middle|> inside.
Paschal Greeting from His Eminence, Archbishop Irénée
Download the 2020 Paschal greeting from Vladyka Irénée in English and French:
Pray for Health Care and Frontline Workers
A moleben (supplication service) for first responders and health care workers has been created for use. Please pray this with your families on behalf of all those who are risking their own safety and laying their lives on the line for us all during these difficult days of global pandemic. The names of those working across our archdiocese on the front line of health care are below. To add a name, please email webmaster@archdiocese.ca. | not have asked for a nicer day for Pentecost! And of course, social distancing was respected.
Blessed feast to all!
Further Archdiocesan Directives During COVID-19 Outbreak
On Friday 22 May, His Eminence Archbishop Irénée issued the following new directives and guidance to parishes during the COVID-19 outbreak:
Holy Synod Issues Pastoral Letter and Directives
On Friday, May 1, 2020, meeting under the Presidency of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church issued the following Pastoral Letter, and Synodal Directives related to COVID-19.
Each Diocesan Bishop will be releasing diocesan specific guidelines shortly.
To the clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America,
Life under lockdown: How monks and nuns find liberation in isolation
The Orthodox Hermitage of the Holy Annunciation sits on an old hilltop farmstead overlooking the LaHave River near New Germany, N.S. Three monks live | 217 |
YouTube is 3rd most popular website in the world. Despite of its popularity and huge potential leads to companies, many business owners tend to shun away from it, because they are afraid of trying new marketing method. The world is changing; especially in this digital age, people's shopping behavior is changing rapidly. Those who fail to adopt such changes are doomed to fail. In fact, video marketing has been slowly taking over all other marketing methods, such as content marketing. YouTube is the only one that you can huge benefits from social media marketing and search engine marketing, because people like YouTube and Google loves it as well.
Promoting your business on YouTube is cost effective. If your video is good, it will have a huge potential of going viral, which will generate tons of leads for you for free. Also, we all know that Google owns YouTube, so YouTube video will be ranked on Google search results better than all other video websites, such as Vimeo.
Numbers do count when it comes to marketing. According to some reports, YouTube has over 4 billion video views per day. Of course, targeted audiences are better. That is why Google Adword + YouTube becomes a very effective marketing tool. Google Adwords can narrow down numbers of audiences, so only display your ads to those who are interested in your certain product or service. The best part is Google doesn't charge you if a user does not finish watching your ads on YouTube. Considering 4 billion video views per day, your targeted audiences can also reach a tremendous amount of reaches.
If you don't want to make video or afraid of getting in front of camera, you can use Google Adwords to marketing your service of product. As I have mentioned above, marketing on YouTube is very cost effective. You only get charged if a users finishes watching your YouTube ads on the video or clicks on your ads. Considering a huge amount of potential leads, it is a great investment to reach out to those who are interested in your service or product.
Let's face it, everyone can make videos. You might wonder why I said that. Well, there are basically at least<|fim_middle|>, not some boring slide videos. Making an actionable video is very affordable, you only need to spend like a couple of hundred bucks, and you can get an amazing video made. After that, you can simply upload it to YouTube, and SEO optimize title and description. Let YouTube does the rest to reach out potential audiences and leads for you.
Nowadays, everything is about brands. People are only going to buy services or products from you if your brand is good. No one is going to buy products or services, if such company has a lousy brand or reputation. Marketing on YouTube can dramatically increase your brand awareness, because of its wide range of audience.
Last but not the least, people like to watch video, more than reading boring articles. If in the digital world, content is the king, then video marketing is the queen. To be effectively marketing online, true marketers has strive into the video marketing in additional to content marketing.
Therefore, for any business to survive and thrive, one needs to understand people's online behavior. If people like to watch video online, one needs to utilize a ways to fulfill such desires or behavior. As long as internet exist, video marketing will not go away. Mastering video marketing can only benefit you in a long run. | two types of video. You can do actionable videos, which is get in front of camera and do recording, or you can do slide videos. If you are one of those who are shun away from video, the best bet would be doing a slide video. It is quite simple, you just take some pictures or slides, and upload to YouTube, and YouTube will convert them into a video. Of course, a slide video is not very attractive and effective, because people like to see actionable videos | 100 |
Shenandoah Community Health thanks Dr. Laura Clayton for her twenty three years of service as a member of the Board of Directors, having served as Chair of the Board for nearly twenty years. Laura's tenure saw the expansion of the first SCH location on Route 45 to the current 60 thousand square foot facility on Tavern Road in Martinsburg. She was also instrumental in consolidating<|fim_middle|>'s commitment to the mission of the organization and her invaluable leadership and support to the Board and to the community. Please join us in celebrating her contributions and wishing her well.
Shenandoah Valley Medical System, Inc. does business as Shenandoah Community Health (SCH). This health center receives Health and Human Services funding and has Federal Public Health Service deemed status with respect to certain health or health-related claims, including medical malpractice claims, for itself and its covered individuals. SCH is an equal opportunity provider, serving all patients regardless of ability to pay. | women's health, midwifery and behavioral health services into one location as well as the expansion of services to include an oral health center—Healthy Smiles, and location in Winchester, Virginia. Additionally, Dr. Clayton provided guidance as she oversaw the succession of three CEOs during her time with Shenandoah Community Health.
SCH sincerely appreciates Dr. Clayton | 74 |
Home / Virtual film night: My Mom's Co-op – February 24th
Join us virtually on Thursday, February 24 at 7pm Eastern Time for a screening of the new co-op housing documentary film 'La<|fim_middle|> Québec, and la Fédération Intercoopérative en Habitation de l'Outaouais. | Coop de ma mère' (My Mom's Co-op).
This free screening of this French language film with English subtitles will include an introduction and Q&A with the filmmaker Eve Lamont as well as a door prize draw.
My Mom's Co-op (Le co-op de ma mère) is an intimate portrait of the filmmaker's mother, Rachel, and her fellow residents of Gatineau's St Louis Housing Cooperative. "Before arriving here, I lived in a privately owned rental and I was constantly at my landlord's mercy," says Rachel. But St Louis, like all co-ops, is different. It's owned and managed by members who share control over their individual housing.
And when it comes to this co-op, according to Rachel's daughter, "it's an incredible place." That's because the residents come from all walks of life. Lizeth and her mother fled Colombian paramilitaries, Henri-Pierre found a home here after his divorce, Ahmed escaped the civil war in Somalia, Melissa was attracted by the co-operative principles, Samira and Sanaa wanted a community like their Moroccan homeland and Jean-Philippe, father to a special needs son, always wanted to help others. All of these people work together to run the co-op. But collective management and participation in a housing co-op is not always easy. It requires know-how.
Filmed over two years, My Mom's Co-op reveals a place where, despite the challenges of collective management, 40 families successfully resist the pull of the individual. This intercultural, intergenerational melting pot is the new face of the cooperative movement where everyone, no matter their hardships, can find peace, security and most importantly a home. As Rachel says, "the co-operative movement. It's what makes us prosperous". Melissa echoes, "this is the future of humanity".
This event is presented in partnership with bilingual and francophone regional co-op housing federations: the Co-operative Housing Federation of Eastern Ontario, la Confédération québécoise des cooperatives d'habitation, la Fédération des coopératives d'habitations de Québec, Chaudière-Appalaches, la Fédération de l'habitation coopérative du | 455 |
Retailers in the home furnishings industry are operating in a state of panic. The question "How can I improve furniture sales" is asked early and often in every conversation. As an industry, we often zig when our customers go to zag. It's not often we're staying in sync with our consumers. But it's not for a lack of effort. Today most of the furniture retailer's focus is on the multi-front battle they're fighting every day. The average retail store owner is wearing many hats. An owner, accountant, salesperson, marketing manager, customer service rep, delivery driver, and other less appetizing roles.
It's no wonder that home furnishings retailers can't move strategically and proactively in front of their consumer trends. There just isn't time. That's why so many of the pain points we hear from these retailers, our partners in the home furnishings industry, are focused on fast-acting recovery. This state of panic isn't sustainable. That's why we have guidance for these retailers, maybe it's you, to answer your question: how can I improve furniture sales in my business?
Don't have time to read it all? Watch the video!
The connected shopper. This terminology is becoming more prevalent in the home furnishings industry. But other retail industries have been experimenting with the connected shopper strategies for decades. We know that more home furnishings shoppers, not just the Millennials, are spending time online to make shopping easier. They're looking for reviews to help them make the right choice on product. They're shopping around for the best prices on products. Sometimes they just want to make the transaction faster by purchasing right from a website. Connected shoppers are tied to any channel at any time.
📍Click to get a FREE WEBSITE CONSULTATION to see if you're ready for Connected Shoppers.
The beauty of the connected shopper is that they don't care where they shop: online or in-store. They just want to have freedom over which channel they'll use for shopping. Yes, they want access to every channel. But not to use every channel all the time.
That means your connected shopper needs your website to be available for browsing. And your store to be open for experimenting. Oh, and your social media to have up-to-date information about your promotions. And your YouTube channel to have designers showing the best ways to style certain types of furniture. And your Google reviews to have recent customer feedback about shopping in your store. Your brand literally needs to be available with information all the time. So how do you cater to the connected shopper to improve furniture sales?
Product Catalog Data. Make sure you have products on your website. That may seem arbitrary advice. But take it from the experts who've seen hundreds upon hundreds of furniture websites with no products shown. If you're one of those retailers who isn't showing a single product or a very limited selection, you'll want to read this article about valuable product descriptions.
You need more products on your website that have descriptions, dimensions, photography, and good SEO. Every product gives you another chance to come up on the Google search results for a specific item. Imagine a shopper is searching for a tufted navy velvet sofa in Google. The product page they find on the first page of Google has a great opportunity to not only attract that shopper but close the deal immediately. Because your product matched her needs exactly. That is just one example of the power of product data on your website.
Whether you're ready to start selling online or not, this is for you. In the last year at every furniture Market we attend, this is the number one topic of conversation. Pricing has been a challenge for home furnishings retailers. Where do you start? How can the manufacturers help populate pricing automatically? How will pricing improve furniture sales in my store? Let's break this down.
Situation 1: You're ready to start eCommerce.
Pricing is the first step. When we work with the most successful retailers, we implement a pricing strategy. Don't set a goal to price every item in all 40 of you catalogs within the first year. Start slow to stay sustainable. Your shoppers aren't going to find the value you put into a full-scale pricing project.
Spend the first year pricing your most popular items, clearance items, and your private catalogs. Use your advertising and marketing to promote products that have pricing. This will start to improve furniture sales. It will start to educate your customers and new shoppers about your pricing on products online. Then you can start adding a cart to your website and work with an eCommerce consultant like MicroD's eCommerce team to set up logistics and other financial options for customers.
<|fim_middle|> read the blog about local SEO here. If you haven't checked your local listings, it's important to start there. We offer a free local business listing scan on the website. It's free and takes less than a minute to find out your results.
🔎 Try our local business listing scan.
Once you know the areas to fix, find a partner and start working. You'll want to create an ongoing project once you've cleaned up the listings. Local Listing management is something that you need to have eyes on often. It's like a credit report. You want to check on your report to make sure there are no inaccuracies and submit fixes when you see them. Doing this will help your store show up with the right information in search engines–which will help customers navigate to your store.
6. What is Your Tilt?
Here's what is truly spectacular about the home furnishings industry. Every retailer is unique. Yes, many retailers carry similar brands to another retailer. There may be dozens of retailers carrying the exact same brands and offering the same type of services to the same type of target shopper. However, every single furniture retailer is unique. Each of you has a tilt. A tilt in the content marketing world is that one thing that makes you different from everyone else.
The challenge is in finding your tilt and sharing it. If you already know what your tilt is, congratulations! Are you using that to your benefit? Is it propelling your brand's online presence to a new, revenue-generating level? If it's not, it should be. If you haven't found your tilt, spend the time to be introspective and define it. Get your teams involved and decide together. Once you find your tilt, how can it improve furniture sales?
Brand awareness is about sharing your tilt. That one thing that makes you different should drive all of the content, design, and marketing in your business. At the 2018 WithIt Professional Conference, we asked retailers what was the biggest challenge in brand marketing. Their answer was the online presence. This industry is full of multi-generation stores or new niche showrooms. Their brand awareness has been well-known offline for decades. How do you translate that online?
Engage your sales team to share your brand vision. Every person in your store is a walking billboard. If you can empower your teams to be excited and share engaging content about your brand on their social media channels, your brand footprint becomes wider and stronger. Incentivize each team to come up with a "Meme of the Month" or a "Weekly Design Tip" that can publish on your social media channels.
Plus each salesperson can share it with their social channels. The person with the most reposts or in-store visits from the post gets a bonus for the month. Find ways to encourage your team to share content from your website. It will improve traffic and reach your ideal audience without spending extra money on advertising.
It's difficult to put away the panic and focus on the future. Especially when there are so many issues to fix now. But with the right roadmap, you can find a way to improve furniture sales today and set yourself up for success tomorrow. The Millennials and connected shoppers will continue to change the way retail is most effective. In as much as we can predict, it is important to build a sustainable plan for the future. Stagnant, traditional methods are never going to be as effective as they once were.
That's why digital marketing and a strong omnichannel strategy will improve furniture sales for your business. The wider your footprint online and offline, the stronger your business. MicroD is the leading web technology provider in the home furnishings industry. With our expertise, we can help you find out where you are on the roadmap for sustainable retail success and build a plan for your future. Learn more about how we help retailers navigate the shifting industry and improve furniture sales through eCommerce and digital marketing. | Situation 2: You're not ready for eCommerce.
We've heard a lot of pushback from retailers who are afraid of pricing products online without a cart. When clients see your products with pricing, your fear is getting shopped by another competitor. In reality, if a customer is going to shop your products, it would happen with or without pricing on your website. The advantage of pricing products online is simple. You'll open the door to improve furniture sales from shoppers who come to the store ready to buy.
Millennials are the first generations to be fully connected shoppers. That means you need to pay special attention to Millennial behavior. When you're trying to improve furniture sales business, it's not about solving a revenue problem today. It's about finding revenue lift opportunities in the future. They may not be your target buyer today. But Millennials will be the key to your furniture sales tomorrow.
📘 Download an ebook to learn how to get more Millennial furniture shoppers to purchase your products.
Millennials will give you all the information you need to make their experience unique and personalized. And they expect all of this to happen online. Before any in-store visit, if an in-store visit happens at all, Millennials will spend the first stages of a buyer's journey online. That means doing research on search engines like Google to find products that would satisfy their immediate need. Because Google search results are such a competitive landscape, Millennials know they're going to find exactly what they need in the first few results on the first page of Google.
Successful retailers are replacing television ads with YouTube ads; radio ads with podcast sponsorships; newspaper ads with Google ads; and Facebook ads are the new highway billboards. The ways we communicate and attract shoppers has transformed to be more data-driven so retailers can identify the return on investment.
Would you be surprised if we told you that the majority of furniture shoppers still want to make a visit to the physical store? Over 50% of shoppers, in fact. So if shoppers want to be in your store, why aren't they there? Truthfully, maybe they don't know where to find you. If you've been paying attention over the last year, you've heard talk about "Local SEO"–probably a lot of talk. In many cases, you likely heard it in a furniture Market seminar from MicroD's Ken Widger or at the Furniture First symposium from the same.
Local SEO has been a major roadblock for so many retailers in the furniture industry. Catch up and | 509 |
#1. Courtesy – Students will show courtesy to all others in the dojang, as well as people they meet outside of their formal training.
Students will bow to the American and S. Korean flags upon entering and exiting the dojang.
#2. Integrity – Students are expected to be honest and be willing to exhibit strong moral principles that will help them distinguish between right and wrong.
#3. Perseverance – Students must remember that they will never grow stronger by engaging their doubts. Therefore, students should be willing to confront their fears, battle back against their struggles, and never look for<|fim_middle|> outside the dojang.
Punctuality is essential because all classes start promptly at the designated times.
Students are expected to keep the dojang clean and tidy.
#5. Indomitable Spirit – Students will consistently exhibit a full 100% effort in all they do inside and outside the dojang.
Students must show courage when standing up for their beliefs and convictions inside and outside the dojang. | short-cuts when achieving their goals.
#4. Self-Control – Students are expected to keep their emotions (thoughts and actions) in-check at all times, both inside and | 36 |
A standard on flood resiliency for commercial real estate could be coming out this year.
The Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation is working on a document intended to help commercial insurance brokers and real estate companies reduce flood risk for commercial property, said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre, in an interview with Canadian Underwriter.
Very often, those ramps just come off street level and then go straight down into the underground parking, so water that accumulates outside the building could flow into the underground parking, Feltmate said, citing to a flood that occurred Aug. 7, 2018 in Toronto.
Insurance Bureau of Canada, quoting Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc., reported that the Aug. 7 flood cost the property and casualty insurance industry $80 million.
The Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation is a University of Waterloo Faculty of Environment research organization that gets money from Canada's biggest property and casualty insurer. The centre is working on the commercial real estate flood risk document with two real estate groups, Feltmate said. One is REALPAC, an industry association that includes real estate owners and investors such as pension funds. The other is the Building Owners and Managers Association.
Feltmate made his comments an interview discussing Weathering the Storm: Developing a Canadian Standard for Flood-Resilient Existing Communities, a report released Jan 18 by the Intact Centre. Weathering the Storm is about residential property flood risk, not about commercial property flood risk.
Feltmate describes Weathering the Storm as a "seed document<|fim_middle|>' WEAO and TRIECA conferences to help fill this gap. | " that would be used as the basis of a more formal standard, which has yet to be developed.
Another Intact Centre seed document is on standards for new residential development.
Once a formal standard is in place for Canada, it is up to the provinces and territories to decide whether to change laws such as municipal planning laws and building codes, said Feltmate.
Weathering the Storm includes measures like clearing leaves and debris from catch basins and re-grading lots and roads so that water flows away from properties after it rains.
Next steps in developing standards must take a closer look at costs, especially given that the Press Release for the Weathering the Storm report indicates that cost has already been factored in already (i.e., "solutions that can be deployed practically and cost-effectively within communities" but the report writes "capital cost rankings are not normalized with consideration of performance effectiveness"). I'll present information on costs and cost-effectiveness at this years | 191 |
For those collectors unable to acquire a printed logo dial example of the Grand Seiko First, the more common (although it must be stressed that is a highly relative term – these watches, especially in good condition, are still very hard to find) carved logo dial makes a great alternative.
Ignoring rarity and focusing purely from an aesthetic perspective, it is arguably the most desirable of all the Grand Seiko First variants, given the intensely manual effort that was required in order to carve the logo into the dial. Indeed, with the knowledge that Grand Seiko ultimately phased out the creation of dials in this manner due to unacceptable yield rates, those that did make it through the quality control process take on an even more attractive allure.
This is an early example of the carved<|fim_middle|> per day on a time grapher in the dial-up position. | dial version of the first Grand Seiko, with the dial in particular in superb condition, just showing some slight wear around the carved logo. The method of carving the Grand Seiko logo can be seen to be very different to that of the later example we have in stock. It has a far more "organic" look to it.
The case is in good condition, although it does show signs of tarnishing particularly around the lugs. The lion logo is of the correct early type, retaining its strong contours.
This watch is currently running at around +4 seconds | 113 |
This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting one of my favorite designers, Diane Von Furstenberg, "Journey of a Dress" at the May Company Building by LACMA, celebrating the 40 years of the iconic wrap dress that started it all!
The exhibit had 200 stunning dresses on display which showcased different versions of the iconic wrap dress through the decades. I loved how the dresses transported you back in time with the bold prints and amazing textiles. The hallway leading you up to the dresses was soft pink and had photograph's of the<|fim_middle|> of my favorite designers as well and was sad to hear that the exhibit was in LACMA and not in NYC. I am happy your post gave me a glimpse into the exhibit. Great post!
I'm so happy you took the journey with me through my post!
Amazing post - you're so lucky to attend this fabulous exhibit! Keep up the great work with your blog!
Thank you for your sweet comments!! I am so lucky I live close enough to visit! | iconic dress on famous people, in Ad's, and in movies. It gave the audience a chance to see how iconic the wrap dress really was before you enter the huge wrap dress room!
I loved how the letter she received from the editor in chief of Vogue was included on the left just as you walk into the large hallway. It inspired me to know she started from the very bottom and worked her way up to the top doing what she loved. The picture's I took don't do the exhibit justice! If you love fashion or anything related to fashion I definitely recommend you go and experience this yourself. Remember the exhibit is only open until April 1, 2014 and the best part is it's free!!!
P.S. I will be doing a different post just for the outfit I wore and the links and details will be included on that post. I'm sorry for some of the low quality pictures but it was prohibited to use flash in the building and I'm no professional at taking pictures with my camera. How to use my camera indoors will be on my to do list.
Thank you so much for the nomination. I will start looking for 11 blogs to nominate. Might take me a few days. How this doesn't have a time limit.
So glad that I clicked on this! I have to go to this exhibit so hopefully its not far from me.
I'm glad you enjoyed the post!! It's a must do if you live in the La area and it's free to get in!
What a great post! We can never forget the history of so many amazing trends and styles we still see today! I hope to see this exhibit for myself, it looks amazing.
Amanda it's a must see if you live in the LA area!! It's also free to get in! Glad you enjoyed the post!
Love this outfit! I hope you had fun!
Wow!!! I love your pictures. DVF is one | 393 |
Franking devices can also known as postage meters, since they're the first manufacturers of the franking device though this really is more of a Pitney Bowes manufacturer. Like we check with floor cleaners as Hoovers (the first producer).
Automatic and improvement are now compelling the Royal Email to incentivise us with better reductions in return for moving to franked mail over placed mail.
Quoting the Royal Mail website "Franking could be the quick and simple way to manage your mail that can save you time and funds while projecting a far more professional image of one's company. It is economical and simple to work with, using a flexible variety of products and services, and since you are able to buy credit as and when you want it, you're in full charge of the postage."
But forsake the diet to be had from the licking and adhering the required stamps for a big batch of post. And the reason to depart the office to be able to purchase more stamps; was all that held me from going mad some dreary days.
You can even use franked thoughts to cover lots of additional Royal Mail services such as Business Selections and one-off collections.
Show-me the money! - How much can I save?
Predicated on the average holder of email, mainly characters with the odd parcel tossed in about 15 -18%! And when you regard you'll also get time-savings from not needing to send someone out to purchase stamps and apply them, add some nice advertising advantages (your franked mail may include your wonderful colour company logo), and also the simple franking device gives seem industrial rewards.
You don't ever need to worry about running out of stamps. As soon as you use your entire postage credit only call or go on-line to best up your own account when actually you desire too. There isn't any minimal amount of postage you must use each month using a franking device, and also your credit lasts forever. It actually is a terrific method to deal to your letters. Franking machines are quite easy to utilize and put up, you do not need an professional to put in the equipment. It simply comes right out from the box ready for you too put in and use. And it only occupies an extremely small amount of area in your office.
Getting a collection for your franked mail is effortless also, simply call royal mail and they will reserve in an assortment from your projects to pick up your franked mail. Regal mail are always around gathering mail from post bins, therefore its extremely simple for them to make some additional stops to get your franked mail from you. In addition, you will not need to worry about guess the shipping tariff when working with franking machines. The machine includes a built in calibrated scale that may consider your correspondence, packet or parcel and just printing the exact shipping your need<|fim_middle|>ing machine, because as of August 2006, Royal Mail released reductions on franked postage charges meaning a minimum preserving of two pence on each item.
Therefore, one of the main ways to save cash by using a franking machine is about the elevated levels of inaccuracy experienced when working with stamps. There is always a 'more is better' approach when working with stamps, since many people tend to use significantly more than needed just to ensure their mail arrives.
The amount of individual postage stamps usually do not help with cost reducing either; if you have something that costs 49p to post you've got no choice except to utilize one first and one second-class postage to completely cover the cost, squandering 11p in the process.
There is noend of merchants which could offer a franker to you, nevertheless there are a few of Royal Mail accredited franker maintainers. The Noble Mail won't market franking machines, however they are doing suggest you make it one with an authorised firm. It is really because as frankers maintain credit (the franking credit is authorized tender) ALL franking devices must certanly be preserved.
One. If you have covers and packets of different sizes, shapes and colours, you may frank these through the use of labels to provide a clear and readable mark. Again, illegible marks could cause you problems. You may get labels out of your franking machine provider or even a variety of locations online. Since prices can fluctuate greatly, it's worth purchasing round for ink and franking machine labels.
2. Usually feature a return tackle on your own envelopes. It may be considered a part of your franked mark or in the rear of the post. Request your Franking Supplier regarding the latest specifications on return addresses or 'slogan blocks'. Incorrect email can be postponed or returned to you personally.
3. Usually use red-colored printer for franking marks unless you are utilizing Cleanmail(registered company) products and services which should be blue. Marks have to be obvious, complete and published on the top right-hand part of your email.
4. You must have a Mail Franking License. This means that you definitely need to acquaint yourself as well as comply with the terms of Royal Mail Structure for Franking Letters and Parcels 2008 and practice the principles in planning your mails. You'll be suppliers using a permit from your own franking machine supplier.
5. Place your machine. Constantly do a check print. Established your machine to GBP0.00. This can ensure your device has plenty of printer. In case your mail has marks that can't be examine, your mail may be delayed or surcharged. You're going to have the capacity to state back faults in producing, but there's a 15 % price, and that means you want to be sure you're obtaining this right.
6. Before you begin publishing set the correct price, period and day. Always double check. Several machines is going to do this immediately, but it is nonetheless worth examining to be sure the device is accurately synchronised.
7. Things can be franked ahead of time to prevent missed collections. Merely set the next day's date in your device.
8. Recall that you cannot use a franking mark to prepay return post to your own business. Post should be postmarked with all the date within the demonstration demands of Royal Email it is posted or collected on.
All the franking device providers have to get a contract together with the Mail Services Department of the nation. Also, most of the machines of a specific supplier are setup in the network of supplier's servers and such machines connect to the hosts through customer's phone line. The customer first must deposit a preliminary amount in the bank designated from the postal services department, to utilize the franking machine. The servers of mail services department, machine supplier and banks have been in agreement with one another.
In Indian, the greatest supplier of franking alternatives is Forbes. They provide devices with several configurations according to your requirements. Different types of machines are supplied by Forbes depending on letter and the franking speed weighing capacities.
Whenever the client uses the franking device, the hosts of the franking alternative supplier communicate with the servers of mail solutions and banks to examine if any stability is left in client's account to carry out the trade. In the event the balance is there, the transaction is successful and also the sum is subtracted from the consumer's consideration. In case there's absolutely no harmony, transaction fails in which case consumer has to best up the consideration. The entire digital transaction takes only a number of seconds. | .
Therefore franking machine discounts are pretty good. However, what else can a franking device do for me personally? Well one of the extraordinary additional advantages is the actual fact that you get a complimentary bespoke printing for the letters. This means you may promote your organization for free every time you make use of the franking machine! This not just saves costs, but raises publicity.
Probably the best utilization of the Franking privilege was during war time when Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines were enabled to deliver mail home to their own family member's by merely creating "Free" where the stamp would typically carry on a correspondence. I suppose and hope that this franking privilege has been completed today by our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the place of the postage-stamp, every item of mail was to bears the authorized signature or "the joe", of the representative or senator and that indicates the USPS was to deliver mail free of charge to him. The initial U.S. Congress passed a franking law in 1789. At different times improvement persons in the employment of the authorities were extended the privileges of free mail, including the VicePresident, President, the, along with the Cabinet officials. As the privilege was most likely abused "Franking" was regularly named the "Franklin Opportunity" while Benjamin Franklin was the US Postmaster Basic.
Franked mail addresses are a popular stamp lovers item. Which is, you will find collectors who need franked words of the his Cabinet Representatives, Presidents, Generals and other important officials such as Congressmen and Senators. Stamp collectors and Autograph collectors are looking for the VIP signatures on those franked covers.
Below in the Great britain we now have Four fighting franker (as us Brits like to call them) makers.
All frankers need to be licensed consequently there isn't a marketplace for used franking machines advertised via craigs list as a good example.
Among the chief methods to lower your expenditures with a franker pertains to the higher amounts of inaccuracy linked with employing stamps. Without properly evaluating and computing your post it may be difficult to recognise just how many stamps to employ.
If you use stamps to pay for business post subsequently cash is certainly being squandered. A first class postage costs 39p with the next class model in the second standing at 30p. Franker clients obtain lower prices from Royal Email that reduces the price of a first class letter down to 36p, a saving of 3p compared with using stamps. A second class correspondence costs 25p to send when using a franker, a decrease of 5p when comparing to the stamp. The benefits continue to escalate with the pounds and dimensions of snail mail items. Still another advantage of getting a franker might be the cost preserving Royal Mail provides to any or all customers.
The machines are on hand in all shapes and dimensions, and are suitable for those soho performing just several items of post regular, to the greatest of professional posting providers and businesses. The current evening digital franking device has advanced significantly out of your first Pitney Bowes Postage Meter, together with the mechanical 'brick' I had to wrestle for the postoffice with, to be able to re-credit with postage 'tokens'.
Using stamps on your own post will undoubtedly be dropping you gain, and its purely a issue that at a specific level of postage a digital franking machine will save you cash.
No overpaying for postage or maybe not having the appropriate stamp denominations exists, because the current electronic franking device comes normally integral with electronic postage scales. The product is assessed and then franked if not in regards to bigger items a tag produced to become stuck on to them. No overspending, definitely no uncertainty!
-- Saves Time: Solutions when you need to queue up in post office to purchase the postage stamps. With the franking machine at your disposal, you may buy the postage online and that you do not have to run to post-office every time to have the postage stamps.
-- Enhances Company's Expert Image: You can personalize the franking marks and contain your firm's logo and advertising text for advertising and branding. In Addition, using a franking device, you may imprint the instructions on the envelope to return it to your own workplace address just in case it is undelivered.
-- Stops Over Stamping and Under Stamping: Sometimes whenever you're not convinced of the precise pounds of the mail, you typically deliver it making use of a postage stamp of higher value or sometimes despite a lesser worth. Greater value postage stamp ends in wastage of the cash and under value shipping stamp offers an inconvenience for the recipient as he will have to settle the balance amount for the mail department. Franking device can help you avoid this since it includes an integral weighing scale with which you have the exact pounds and correct postage. Therefore, you neither over stamp it nor under stamp it.
-- Ensures Regular Shipping of Mails: Franking machines are quite quick and will frank a set of emails each minute. This may lead to regular delivery of emails by your dispatch section.
-- Cheapest Method To Handle Bulk Mails: Franking is about 30% cheaper compared to conventional stamping as each single time you know the precise postage amount.
One fantastic benefit of utilizing a franking machine for your business is that it makes your post that much simpler to process which subsequently reduces delays in the delivery side of issues.
Franking devices are not just cost efficient but in addition they allow you to keep charge of the many costs through safety protection and on-line monitoring. Making use of a franking device indicates you qualify for shipping discounts, regardless of what volumes of post you use. There are no limitations on both minimal or optimum amounts of post routed at anyone time. Any shipping reductions are calculated per-item posted which suggests you are eligible for a saving no matter how rarely or frequently you use the franking device for your mail needs.
Franking devices may also be utilized to overprint envelopes with the name of your company, the company emblem or short term promotions or messages. This kind of free promotion is quite useful at your business generally speaking and marketing your brand as your own post is clearly identified by everyone who handles your email.
Marketing within this manner is an invaluable tool that produces an identification for your personal business at every opportunity as well as on each item of mail that you just post, no matter what dimensions of notice, carton or package that you simply mail to clients or company affiliates.
As this means undelivered email is returned to you personally many companies also want to print a return address on covers. Then you're able to upgrade your database and prevent lost mailings in the foreseeable future.
You will get a hold of a device from any of the Royal Email approved supplier and manufacturer as well as the listing of businesses is found on their web site. All franking machines have to be certified with Royal Mail. There's a agreement that all franking devices should be held in great working order at all times and they should be inspected through an approved company at least once a year. These problems are part of the contract or licence you take-out using the Noble Mail.
Whether you run a small, medium or large business using a franking device will reduce the total amount of time you spend getting your mail ready for posting. It'll surely save cash to you in the long haul as you will be entitled to the discounts offered. The picture you project for your company will probably be enhanced and you'll probably be able to customize your franking mark. This implies you should use it in order to promote goods, brands and your company in general on a daily basis.
However, you will find some problems with this particular tactic; firstly, the set values of stamps suggest that you may find yourself overpaying for postage. You'll additionally have to consider each correspondence or package separately and look up the corresponding postal fee. On top of this, it is going to be required to manually keep an eye on how many stamps you've employed and how much you are spending. Whilst this is quite manageable a week if you are merely sending out a number of words, while the quantity of post increases it quickly grows more time consuming and expensive.
Enter the franking machine: this little little bit of clothing may eliminate trips to the postoffice, provides real time accounts keeping and has the added advantage of offering brand awareness - as your company name and logo might be printed alongside the shipping frank on each individual letter or parcel.
Initially, it could look like franking devices are the kingdom of huge business businesses, but these times franking machines are economical for companies with only a few of workers, and even sole traders can create savings on shipping by franking instead of purchasing reams of stamps.
Franking devices work by calculating the cost with respect to the destination correctly weighing the letter or parcel and. It's more affordable to send mail by paying for postage using a frank | 1,818 |
I see that I resolved, back in January 2015, to post more often. And I see that I didn't do that! Procrastination certainly played a part, but it is more<|fim_middle|> combination of polymer clay and wirework. These are 2 of my favorite mediums and it is a combo that I've been thinking about for several years but haven't quite wrapped my mind around. I found her pieces very inspiring and have spent the last couple of days knee deep in polymer clay. Next step is to see what I can do to make a finished product, hopefully with some wirework.
I'll post some photos of the polymer clay pieces I worked on in the past couple of days and will post those with wire when I have them done. | than that. I haven't been happy with my artistic direction over the past year or so. Not that I didn't make some pretty things that I'm very happy with, of course. But nothing has been particularly satisfying.
To try to figure out what would be satisfying, I took a wonderful course by Debora Mauser, http://www.deboramauserdesigns.com/2014/12/11/fqxbxykc4oymwvcwpfbe8sxwt27ui6. It was held at Wild Acres, the Southeast Federation of Mineral Societies' retreat in the NC mountains. Debora taught us cold connections and torch-fired enameling. I enjoyed every single minute, and Debora certainly packed a lot of information and technique into every single minute! I still can't believe how much she taught during the week. I came home and applied the techniques, but that still wasn't it. It did feed into my objective of learning a lot of techniques so that I can mix and match them as the creative urge requires. Debora teaches a lot of workshops, so check out the link above.
The other thing I did was purchase a tutorial from one of my favorites, Eni Oken, https://www.facebook.com/EniOken/. Not only is she talented in jewelry making skills, but she is one of the most entrepreneurial people I know. I have purchased over the years all of her Creative Journals and her Think & Design series, so I knew when she came out with The Crossover Method it would be worthwhile. It turns out that it is a great tool. It is complex and a challenge and is not something you can get result from overnight. I'm still working on it.
However, just this week I stumbled upon the Flickr site (https://www.flickr.com/photos/auntgriz/) of an artist that I have seen previously and admired. She has numerous tutorials on her blog, http://knighttwork.blogspot.com/, that I have used. I particularly like her border canes. What I found recently was something I hadn't seen before, her | 432 |
Huong Hai Junk- Perfect Cruise to Halong Bay, Vietnam, Huong Hai Junk, Halong Bay Cruise:The Huong Hai junk could bring to you a wonderful night in Halong bay with luxury and antique<|fim_middle|> the breath - taking beauty of the rocky Islands rising from the crystal-clear waters of the Bay.We can hear birds singing, cicadas chirping ashore and the gentle lapping of the waves against our boat, the perfect soundtrack to accompany the fresh air & gentle breez. | accommodations with perfect services proved by the crew. Spending time on the junk, you'll not only savor a unique feeling in a world of wonder but also enjoy various of such interesting activities as: watching Vietnamese folk music performance, going fishing on the bay at night, kayaking, learning Vietnamese cuisine.
Pick up from Hanoi at 8:00am and drive to Halong by Luxurious car or mini bus. On the way, we will stop at Hong Ngoc Humanity center for break. Also visit shops that sell the products be made from disable children.
Early risers can enjoy a morning view of Bay's landscapes. Sitting on ther upper deck we can enjoy | 135 |
Tag Archives: The Great Canadian Baking Show
Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary
Season 5 of The Great Canadian Baking Show premieres October 17 on CBC
September 15, 2021 Greg David 3 Comments
CBC today revealed the ten amateur bakers who will participate in the upcoming fifth season of THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW, premiering Sunday, October 17 at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT) on CBC and the free CBC Gem streaming service. Ten Canadians from across the country will bake off in the iconic tent and put their culinary chops on display in an attempt to win The Great Canadian Baking Show title.
Season five of the series will consist of eight episodes and be hosted once more by comedians, actors, writers and Second City alumni, Ann Pornel and Alan Shane Lewis. Esteemed pastry chefs Bruno Feldeisen and Kyla Kennaley return to the judges' table to sample the bakers' scrumptious offerings.
Based on the beloved British format, each episode will feature the bakers competing in three challenges – the Signature Bake, the Technical Bake, and the Show Stopper – during which they will rely on their personal interests and backgrounds to ensure that their delectable dishes stand out. Once their sweet creations have been tasted and critiqued, the judges will decide who will be the week's Star Baker and who will be sent home. In the final episode, the remaining three bakers will face off for the title of Canada's best amateur baker.
This season, audiences<|fim_middle|> by Sky Vision. In addition to the original British series, American, Australian, French and Irish versions of the format have also been produced.
CBCDan LevyJulia ChanProper TelevisionSeason 2The Great Canadian Baking Show | will get acquainted with the show's most innovative batch of bakers yet. Meet the ten contestants who are ready to whisk it for the biscuit:
Aimee DeCruyenaere, 23, an industrial design student from Ottawa, ON
Alina Fintineanu, 30, an orthodontic dental hygienist from Toronto, ON
Amanda Muirhead, 45, a paralegal from Westmoreland, P.E.I.
Caron Lau, 26, an occupational therapist from Richmond, B.C.
Dougal Nolan, 31, a mental health researcher from Dartmouth, N.S.
Kunal Ranchod, 30, a choreographer from Montreal, QC
Marian Castelino, 41, a designer from Ottawa, ON
Stephen Nhan, 30, a health administrator from Regina, SK
Steve Levitt, 54, a small business owner from Aurora, ON
Vincent Chan, 55, a graphic designer from Toronto, ON
Season four winner, Raufikat Oyawoye, a 35-year-old IT support engineer of Milton, ON took home the title after competing against semi-finalists Mahathi Mundluru from Markham, ON and Tanner Davies of Winnipeg, MB. Fans wanting to satisfy their sweet tooth can catch up on seasons one through four on CBC Gem leading up to the season five premiere.
THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW is produced by Boat Rocker's Proper Television in association with CBC and Love Productions. The executive producers are Cathie James and Lesia Capone, and the series producer is Mark Van de Ven.
CBCCBC GemThe Great Canadian Baking Show
Two new hosts enter the tent for Season 4 of The Great Canadian Baking Show
A new team will enter the tent to host season four of CBC audience favourite THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW. Comedians, actors, writers and Second City alumni Alan Shane Lewis and Ann Pornel will join returning judges Bruno Feldeisen and Kyla Kennaley to cheer on 10 new Canadian amateur bakers. Based on the hit British format and produced by Proper Television, production on the fourth season is currently underway in Toronto for broadcast and streaming on CBC and CBC Gem in winter 2021.
Canadians had a healthy appetite for season three of THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW, with the series reaching 1.2 million viewers each week on CBC TV and ranking as CBC Gem's most-watched factual entertainment series during the 2019/20 season. Audiences looking to satisfy their craving in advance of the new season can catch up on the first three seasons on CBC Gem.
Based on the beloved British format, THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW brings together 10 amateur bakers from across the country to compete in a series of themed culinary challenges that celebrate their diverse backgrounds, families and communities. Competitors on the homegrown series have the opportunity to go up against Canada's best bakers, while also competing against themselves as they strive to achieve their personal best. Each episode features three rounds including the Signature Bake, the Technical Bake and the Show Stopper. After the bakes are tasted and critiqued, the judges decide who will become the week's Star Baker and who will be sent home, with the final three bakers competing for The Great Canadian Baking Show title.
THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW is produced by Proper Television in association with CBC and Love Productions. The executive producers are Lesia Capone and Cathie James, and the series producer is Marike Emery.
CBCThe Great Canadian Baking Show
Great Canadian Baking Show
The search for Canada's best amateur bakers begins as CBC announces the return of The Great Canadian Baking Show
January 24, 2019 Greg David
Bakers, fire up your ovens! CBC today announced that hit culinary competition THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW will return for a third season (8×60) as the public broadcaster kicks off a nationwide search for Canada's best amateur bakers. Interested home bakers can apply online now at cbc.ca/greatcanadianbakingshow for the chance to participate in the upcoming season. Based on the hit British format and produced by Proper Television, Season 3 will begin production in Toronto this summer and will air on CBC and the free CBC Gem streaming service in the fall. Amateur bakers can apply online now until Sunday, March 10, 2019 at 11 p.m. ET.
Canadians had a big appetite for Season 2 of THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW, which was CBC's most-watched factual entertainment series during the 2017/18 broadcast season and reached 1.4 million viewers in Canada each week*. Fifty-eight-year-old software engineering consultant Andrei Godoroja from Vancouver, B.C. won the Season 2 Great Canadian Baking Show title and trophy, following a tight competition with finalists Megan Stasiewich of Leduc, Alberta, and Sachin Seth of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Baking fans can catch up on the first two seasons of the series on CBC Gem.
THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW is produced by Proper Television in association with CBC and Love Productions.
CBCDan LevyJulia ChanThe Great Canadian Baking Show
CBC announces a new batch of bakers for The Great Canadian Baking Show Season 2
August 28, 2018 Greg David 2 Comments
CBC today announced the 10 amateur bakers who will compete on the second season of THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW, premiering Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT) on CBC, the CBC TV streaming app and cbc.ca/watch. Over the course of eight episodes, this diverse group of dedicated bakers from across the country will bring their whisking skills to a series of culinary-themed challenges, each contestant aiming to be the last baker standing. Based on the beloved British format, THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW Season 2 is hosted by actor and writer Daniel Levy and actor Julia Chan, with acclaimed pastry chefs Bruno Feldeisen and Rochelle Adonis also returning as the series judges.
Each week, the bakers will compete in three challenges – the Signature Bake, the Technical Bake, and the Show Stopper – during which they will rely on their personal interests, styles and cultural backgrounds to make their delicious dishes stand out to the judges. After the bakes are tested and critiqued, the judges will decide who will be the week's Star Baker and who will be sent home. In the final episode, the remaining three bakers will vie for the title of Canada's best amateur baker. This season's bakers are:
· Tim Chauvin, 38, a hardware store manager from Brockville, ON
· Mengling Chen, 30, a market research account manager from Toronto, ON
· Timothy Fu, 19, an undergrad student from Edmonton, AB
· Andrei Godoroja, 58, a software engineering consultant from Vancouver, BC
· Sadiya Hashmi, 38, a homeschooling mom with an MBA from Edmonton, AB
· Wendy McIsaac, 54, a senior policy analyst from Cornwall, PEI
· Sachin Seth, 43, a dentist and dentist professor from Halifax, NS
· Megan Stasiewich, 30, a hair stylist from Leduc, AB
· Devon Stolz, 27, a gravestone carver and substitute teacher from Regina, SK
· Ann Marie Whitten, 49, an operations manager from Pickering, ON
Twenty-four-year-old graphic designer Sabrina Degni of Montreal, QC, the youngest baker in the first season, took the inaugural Canadian title after competing against semi-finalists Linda Longson of High River, AB and Vandana Jain of Regina, SK. Fans can relive her Season 1 journey anytime at cbc.ca/watch.
CBCDan LevyJulia ChanSchitt's CreekThe Great Canadian Baking Show
CBC announces Season 2 of The Great Canadian Baking Show; plus audition details
February 7, 2018 Greg David
Cake, battle and roll! CBC today announced that hit culinary competition THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW will return for season 2 (8×60) as the public broadcaster kicks off a country-wide search for Canada's best amateur bakers. Starting today, home bakers can apply online at cbc.ca/life/greatcanadianbakingshow for the chance to participate in the upcoming season. Based on the hit British format and produced by Proper Television, season 2 begins production in Toronto in summer 2018 and will air on CBC in the fall. Interested amateur bakers can apply online now until Sunday, March 18, 2018, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOWÂ premiered in November 2016 and was the most-watched unscripted series debut on CBC in the past five years, with the series reaching 1.4 million viewers in Canada each week.* Twenty-four-year-old graphic designer Sabrina Degni of Montreal, QC, the youngest baker in the first season, took the inaugural Canadian title after competing against semi-finalists Linda Longson of High River, AB and Vandana Jain of Regina, SK.
Hosted by Daniel Levy and Julia Chan and judged by acclaimed pastry chefs Bruno Feldeisen and Rochelle Adonis, THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW invites bakers to showcase their talents and diverse stories on a national stage as they compete in the kitchen. Competitors on the homegrown series have the opportunity to go up against Canada's best bakers, while also competing against themselves as they strive to achieve their personal best.
Based on the beloved British format, THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW brings together 10 amateur bakers from across the country to compete in a series of themed culinary challenges. Each episode features three rounds including the Signature Bake, the Technical Bake and the Show Stopper. After the bakes are tasted and critiqued, the judges decide who will become the week's Star Baker and who will be sent home. The final three bakers compete for the Great Canadian Baking Show title.
THE GREAT CANADIAN BAKING SHOW is produced by Proper Television in association with CBC and Love Productions. The format is owned by Love Productions and distributed | 2,246 |
When you initially became pregnant, birthing your baby and having him or her whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) by hospital staff was most likely not in your plan.
Many parents know that bonding after childbirth is important for both parents and baby, and you may have had some ideas about what this meant to you. You might have visualized yourself holding your baby right after the birth, looking into his or her eyes lovingly, or<|fim_middle|> baby's unique circumstances. Certain factors – such as mom's health, the baby's medical issues, diagnoses and gestation at birth – will affect the ways in which families can bond. For example, a baby born at 25 weeks cannot be held right away due to its size and medical instability, but a baby born at 34 weeks may be held, depending on his or her medical issues. Even so, some babies are able to tolerate touch very well, while others cannot tolerate touch at all during the initial phase of life. If you were unable to hold your baby within the first 24 hours or the first several weeks of life, please rest assured that your opportunity to bond with your baby was not completely lost. Bonding truly is a process.
Before exploring ways to bond with your fragile infant, it's important to understand your infant's nervous system and the active role you play in its development. All babies are born with immature and underdeveloped nervous systems and depend on parents and caregivers to regulate their emotions for the first couple of years of life. This emotional regulation is a learned behavior that babies are physiologically incapable of doing for themselves. The main form of communication between caregivers and babies is unconscious, through the infant's and caregiver's bodies.
Babies sense emotions from you, through your body; therefore, you send messages to your infant through facial expressions, tone of voice, touch, and tension and relaxation in your body. Because of this, it is important that you feel calm and relaxed when visiting your baby so he or she will be calm under the stressful circumstances of the NICU.
Developing a self-care regimen will help you to balance and regulate your nervous system. Take the time to listen to your body and rest when you are feeling exhausted. Take a deep breath and check-in with your body and emotions periodically during your visit with your baby. Ask yourself: "How am I feeling right now, in this moment?" (tense, tired, sad, stressed, relaxed, tightness in shoulders, aching back). Don't judge yourself or your feelings, just notice what is happening in that moment in time and feel it shift. When you are aware of what is happening within your mind and body, it is much easier to be in tune with your baby and his or her needs. Bonding with your baby starts with you!
♥ Before using touch as a tool to bond with your baby, please speak to your bedside nurse or your neonatologist about appropriate ways to touch YOUR baby. Every infant's medical situation is different, and the type of touch that is appropriate for some infants, may not be for others.
Skin to Skin Contact/Kangaroo Care. Both moms and dads can bond with baby in this way. Some benefits to baby are: helps regulate breathing, keeps baby warm, regulates muscular activity, and regulates stress level if caregiver is calm. Additionally, it helps increase milk production for mom if she is breastfeeding. If mom is not breastfeeding, she can still bottle feed baby while holding him or her skin-to-skin.
Breastfeeding. Releases oxytocin ("love" hormone), which evokes calmness in mom and baby, boosts the immune system, and regulates the heart rate and blood pressure.
Touch a Finger. Touch a finger, hand, toe, or any body part you are able to touch if you are unable to hold your baby in the above ways. This still lets your baby know you are there and brings you closer to one another.
Talk to Your Bedside Nurse. Your nurse can show you types of touch that are appropriate for your baby. He or she can also show you how to create boundaries around your baby and help your baby feel more comfortable.
Pay Attention. When visiting the NICU, pay close attention to what your infant enjoys and dislikes. Adapt your touch and interactions based on baby's preferences.
Infant Massage. Take a class through a certified infant massage instructor and utilize techniques with your MEDICALLY STABLE baby. Benefits include reduced levels of cortisol (stress hormone), increased muscle tone, and supported parent-infant interactions, among others. Speak with your baby's doctor and bedside nurse before using this technique with your medically fragile infant.
Visit Often. Spend as much time bedside as you can. When you choose to rest (please take care of yourself!), ask a family member or friend to be with your baby, if possible.
Be Present. Be with your baby in the present moment. Notice how he or she is feeling, what movements he or she is making, and just be there with love.
Make Eye Contact. If your infant is comfortable with this, stare lovingly into his or her eyes.
Hold Hands Near Baby. If your baby can tolerate it, holding your hands above your baby's body or around his or her head – without touching – can also be a powerful technique. Your presence can be felt, and you will feel more connected to baby as well.
Leave Your Scent. Check with NICU staff to learn what cloth items are appropriate to place in baby's space. Sleep with that item or wear it all day tucked under your clothing, then place in your baby's space.
Use Your Voice. Sing, speak in soft tones, whisper, hum, talk, and read to your baby.
Play Music. Once your baby is older than 40 weeks gestation you can use meditative music that has been written specifically for calming the nervous system. The NICU is stressful for babies and some families, so playing this music on a regular basis will relax you and your baby, creating more opportunities to bond.
Bring Home to the Hospital. Bring pieces of your family's life to place in your infant's isolette or crib in the form of family photos, a special blanket, artwork from siblings, and more.
Bonding with your medically fragile infant can seem challenging at first, when all you see is the medical equipment separating you from him or her. But by utilizing the bonding methods discussed above, you will overcome the barriers between you and your amazing baby and will begin the wonderful journey of connecting with him or her. Remember that bonding is a process, and once you and your baby leave the NICU, you will find new ways to strengthen your relationship with your baby.
Dawn K. Gibson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Austin, Texas, who specializes in mother/daughter counseling. For more information on Dawn and her services, please visit dawnkgibson.com.
Have you ever thought about use of webcam in NICU?
Some NICUs do employ webcam technology in their units, and parents have responded positively! | just lying skin-to-skin for a time. No matter what your vision, the reality of birthing a medically fragile infant is typically very different from these images. You may not have been able to hold, let alone touch, your baby right away and you may now be worried that you have lost a major opportunity to bond with your baby. Please know that this is not true. There are many other ways to bond with your baby – even during his or her NICU stay.
Bonding will look different for each individual family due to each | 109 |
VP Harris reportedly working on economic strategy for Central America, has yet to visit the Southern border
Vice President Harris is set to meet with the heads of 12 companies Thursday to encourage economic opportunity, and hopefully lower immigration to the U.S. A White House official spoke to Reuters on the details of the meeting.
According to the reported anonymous source, some companies have already made commitments. Microsoft agreed to provide internet access to three million more people in the Northern Triangle by July 2022. Nespresso will buy at least $150 million worth of its coffee from El Salvador and Honduras by 2025. Mastercard will provide banking services to five million people who previously had no access to financial institutions. Also, the banking company will give electronic banking access to one million micro and small businesses.
Chobani has agreed to bring its incubator program for Guatemalan entrepreneurs. It's a program that trains small business owners in the food business. Up until now, it's only been available in the U.S. and Australia.
This meeting comes months since Harris was appointed as border czar. She has yet to visit the southern border herself.
You can follow Jenny Goldsberry on Twitter @jennyjournalism
Related Topics:Border CrisisChobaniKamala HarrisMastercardMicrosoftNespressoNorthern Triangle
Biden spends $1.65 trillion taxpayer dollars while vacationing<|fim_middle|>ibus spending package.
The whopping 4,155 pages was supported by only nine House Republicans and 13 Senate Republicans. Majority of criticism from the GOP includes concerns that the bill was rushed and crammed with wasteful spending by a lame-duck Democratic-dominated Congress. The recourse will punish American families by adding to the national debt and exacerbate inflation.
"Today, I signed the bipartisan omnibus bill, ending a year of historic progress. It'll invest in medical research, safety, veteran health care, disaster recovery, VAWA funding — and gets crucial assistance to Ukraine," Biden tweeted. "Looking forward to more in 2023."
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell "praised the bill on the grounds that it represents a real decrease in discretionary spending. He presented it as a positive that nondefense spending jumped by only 5.5 percent, from $730 billion to $772.5 billion, amid an inflation rate of 7.1 percent" writes National Review.
"The bipartisan government-funding bill that Senators Shelby and Leahy have finished negotiating does exactly the opposite of what the Biden administration first proposed," he said. "This bill provides a substantial real-dollar increase to the defense baseline . . . and a substantial real-dollar cut to the non-defense, non-veterans baseline," McConnell insisted as negotiations were wrapping up.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, however, stated his strong disapproval of the bill before it even advanced. Affirming a letter from 13 House Republicans, McCarthy demanded the bill is reckless, irresponsible, and a "purposeful refusal to secure and defend our borders."
For example, it failed to incorporate protections for Title 42, the pandemic policy that allows illegal immigrants to be expelled on a public-health basis, which currently hangs in the balance at the Supreme Court.
National Review adds, "The funding in the bill, which averted a federal government shutdown before the new year, includes an allocation of $45 billion in defense assistance to Ukraine. Some Republican priorities, such as Electoral Count Act reform and a bigger military budget, were nested in with Democratic appropriations, such as increased funding for Medicaid and food stamps." | in St. Croix
While vacationing in the island of St. Croix for the holidays, President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law the massive $1.65 omn | 37 |
Whitley Neill has developed its award-winning range of craft gins and vodkas with the addition of two new exciting new flavours – zesty Blood Orange Gin and fruity Raspberry Gin, with the entire Whitley Neill range now being available in Morrisons.
In striking white and orange and raspberry coloured bottles, these innovative new g<|fim_middle|> Orange Gin offers a refreshing, intense orange aroma, followed by a hint of liquorice and lastly coriander, for a smooth finish that effortlessly balances citrus with spice.
New Whitley Neill Raspberry Gin celebrates the flavoursome fruit of the British countryside and delivers an invigorating tartness from Scottish raspberries, complemented perfectly by undertones of liquorice and coriander, for a well-rounded finish. | ins work brilliantly in cocktails, add fantastic flavour to a classic G&T and the vibrant bottles are ideal for those wanting to impress with the appearance of their gin collection, as well as the spirit inside.
Harnessing the iconic scents of Sicily, new Whitley Neill Blood | 57 |
Report on the 61st Session of the Commission on the Status of Women
THE SIXTY-FIRST SESSION<|fim_middle|>OS HACER? | OF THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN (CSW61)
Report by Anastassiya Perevezentseva for Augustinians International
During my visit to the UN 61 session of the Commission on the Status of Women on the 21st of March, I was fortunate to attend two Lehigh-led events: one briefing in the UN HQ and one side event at UNCC.
The first event was called "Young Women's Leadership and Voices at the UN" and was organized in partnership with United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI), DPI/NGO Relations and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the second one, "Developing Africa with Active Citizenship: Empowering Women and Girls", was sponsored by the NGO African Citizens Development Foundation (ACDF) situated in Lagos, Nigeria. The panelists of the first briefing included: Rena Zhu (Lehigh, AAUW), Aasha Shaik (Rutgers, AAUW), Alina Saba, Antoinette Gingerelli (Harvard, AAUW), Aishu Narasimhadevara (Women's Medical Association member of DPI steering committee), and Noluthando Nzimande (GLUNN 2017 intern at Grail Link to the United Nations Network). The panelists of the second event included Kayode Ajayi-Smith (ACDF, Lehigh), Dr. Belinda Archibong (Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College), Dr Ugochi Ohajuruka (CEO and Founder of "Health for All Initiative") and the event itself was moderated by Lehigh University Youth Representatives for ACDF Kelsey Leck, Sam Hau, and Frederick Coleman. The two events highlighted important issues related to women empowerment and gave a voice to women from different parts of the world to talk about their own experience.
The first event that I visited was dedicated to representing young women at the United Nations. The event was opened with remarks by Antoinette Gingerelli and moderated by Rena Zhu, who tied in her experience and reactions to the speeches. Aasha Shaik has performed a song dedicated to women and girls. She has continued with her speech about the importance of intersectionality in the feminist public discourse. She had also pinpointed how girls rights can get lost when we try to fit their unique problems and issues under women or under children. In addition, she stated that religion, culture, and ethnicity contribute to the idea of intersectionality and that each single women and girl will have a different experience. Alina Saba has talked about the generational divide between women and girls and the need to cooperate together across generations for women's and girl's rights. Noluthando Nzimande shared her unique experience of being a 16 year old that grew up in a rural area of Africa. She has brought the public attention to the interconnectedness of climate change and economic underdevelopment to the problems that young rural women face where she had grown up and throughout the world. She was grateful to the UN for caring about her unique experience and allowing her to share it on an international platform. Aishu Narasimhadevara has shared her experience of interacting with high schoolers from Japan, from a region that experienced experienced nuclear and ecological catastrophes. She has highlighted that internally displaced people faced a lot of discrimination. However, though we might have different life circumstances we can come together to help those in need through the power of social media and initiatives like Better Together. She also had pointed out the importance of raising awareness of the Refugee Crisis and addressing the created negative mindset by media coverage of refugees. An overarching message of the briefing was to work together to support women and girls.
The second, side-event initiated by ACDF talked about women's issues but also provided a context for them in the case of Nigeria. ACDF is promoting active citizenship in Africa and building a cultural society. Key achievement of the NGO was the establishment of the Citizens Comprehensive College in Lagos. The paradigm of the Citizens Comprehensive College is to develop a child's "soft" and "hard" skills. Kayode then has read the opening statement from the President of the NGO who was in Nigeria at the time, and the locus of the speech was that women empowerment is a prerequisite to world peace. ACDF demands free and compulsory education up to university level for women and girls. The panelists were asked questions by the moderators and later the floor was open for Q&A. The highlights from Dr. Archibong's answers included that there is an economic problem behind the issue of a gender gap. Girls tend to drop out and skip school more because there is no sanitary accommodations for them. In addition, when there are economic or health shocks and crises, it affects female school attendance and will not male. That happens because the family will view a girl's education to be a less costly sacrifice for the family than the boy's. Safety nets would help parents to protect girls from early marriage in order to get bridal prices and keep them in schools. Dr Ohajuruka has also added that there are safety issues that face girls such as sexual abuse and abduction. Girls risk being molested even at school and that is another factor to their non-attendance in addition to economic issues. Dr Ohajuruka's NGO partnered with UNICEF to provide a sanitary kit reusable for three months which gives girls opportunity to stay in school and gives them confidence in themselves. The government of Nigeria should be continued to be pressured to provide acceptable sanitary conditions. Kayode added that within the Citizens Comprehensive College young girls and boys are groomed equally. Also, cultural reforms are needed to change the power dynamics structures in Nigerian family that gives preference to males. Dr. Archibong noted that one thing that could be done to lower the opportunity cost for parents would be to create social protection for parents that they do not have to make this decisions of who to send to school at the expense of the other, the boy or the girl. Increase education in Nigeria could help the society to transform the culture by showing that educating girls even shows great long-term economic gains. This could be done both through social media and community meetings. Dr. Ohajuruka noted that it is important to promote awareness, sensitization, and education among parents around facts such as that mortality rates are reduced when more women are educated. A deep rooted culture of child brides and inequality could be changed through a grassroots approach. Kayode also noted the importance of mentorship among youth.
In regards to the question concerning public health in Nigeria, panelists noted cultural obstacles that will push people to turn to spiritual healers but not doctors, a lack of machinery and infrastructure, as well as issues of health assessment. Economic distribution in the family that in many cases disadvantages the female could also contribute to the women in the family not receiving the health care needed because of the male-heads irresponsible financial decisions. Another serious issue that was raised was concerning sexual assault and women trafficking. This is a very important topic for Nigeria, especially after the Chibok girls tragedy. The panelists talked about untold domestic violence in the country and that the stigma of rape also often affects the girl, who is actually the victim. Again, this issue should be brought to light with awareness and sensitization. The girls and women affected by the problem should be supported and justice should be sought for the crimes committed against them. Dr. Archibong noted that as an economist, she sees how the issue of trafficking is intrinsically connected to economic underdevelopment. A lot of women due to the situation in Nigeria can buy into the lie that "the grass is greener on the other side". In addition, the costs of doing act of violence legally should be very high. Kayode also talked about another sort of discrimination: sexual harassment in the workplace in Nigeria, which is systematic. A discussion was also started about the need to have more female leadership in political offices. It was proposed to create a system of affirmative action for female politicians such as the initiative in India, which gave effective results in promoting gender equality. Later, during the Q&A many participants who were from Nigeria and other African countries shared their own experiences and proposed solutions. The event was very beneficial to understanding how gender inequality manifests itself in a local context within a specific country.
It could be potentially valuable to connect with the African Citizens Development Foundation NGO with on the ground Augustinians International. The contact could be achieved through Lehigh Youth Representatives.
The two events that NGOs initiated highlight the main concerns of women that the NGO could solve on the ground through a Catholic perspective.
¿Por qué los Agustinos están en las Naciones Unidas? →
← ¿QU´E PODEM | 1,772 |
'Cagney & Lacey' star Tyne Daly will play bartender Phyllis when the 'Murphy Brown' revival joins the CBS lineup next season.
How's this for dream casting to wow longtime TV viewers?
Emmy winner Tyne Daly will join "Murphy Brown" when the sitcom revival returns to CBS<|fim_middle|> good as Daly's casting, CBS should have a hit. | next season.
She will play bar owner Phillis, the sister of Phil, the bartender who is now deceased. Pat Corley, who played Phil, died in 2006.
Phyllis "has taken over the bar and is a friend and confidante to Murphy and the gang," CBS said in announcing the casting Thursday.
"Murphy Brown" debuted in 1988 and ran a decade on CBS. Candice Bergen, who won five Emmys for playing TV journalist Murphy, will return with fellow cast members Faith Ford, Joe Regalbuto and Grant Shaud.
Joining the cast will be Jake McDorman, as Murphy's journalist son, and Nik Dodani as the social media director for the news magazine where Murphy works.
"Murphy Brown" joins the trend of updating fondly remembered series. NBC's revived "Will & Grace" this season to positive reviews. And ABC brought back "Roseanne," which has emerged as the No. 1 series this season.
If the "Murphy Brown" writing is as | 216 |
London -- Leading companies from the mobile industry have signed a memorandum of understanding to apply for a mobile Top Level Domain ("mobile TLD") from the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) during the current application round, which closes March 15. If the application is successful and the mobile TLD is granted by ICANN, the industry leaders have agreed to form a new joint venture to manage the mobile TLD. A mobile TLD would be a key step in bridging the world of mobility and the Internet to the benefit of customers and the entire mobile industry.
A mobile TLD on the Internet creates the opportunity to streamline the deployment<|fim_middle|> Internet experience for mobile subscribers and increasing the ease of use and speed of delivery of mobile Internet services.
The participating companies are Microsoft Corp., Nokia, Vodafone, 3, GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. These companies and others that will join over the coming months represent software developers, device manufacturers, network operators, infrastructure providers and content providers. The mobile TLD brings together mobile-industry-leading companies to catalyze business opportunities for companies servicing mobile customers with compelling new mobile services and applications.
Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, the companies intend to form a registry company to manage the distribution of the new mobile TLD names. The mobile TLD would be designed to enable efficient application and network services and reliability for mobile customers and service providers.
The registry company will seek participation of additional, members to ensure broad customer and industry input. | of new Internet sites optimized for mobile usage. This effort is driven by the aim of simplifying the | 20 |
Man of the Match Mata is targeting the trophy
Adam Bostock
Juan Mata's Carabao Cup love affair continued on Wednesday night when he scored his 50th goal for Manchester United, claimed an assist and collected the Man of the Match award as the Reds reached the quarter-finals.
The Spaniard, who netted significantly against Manchester City and semi-final opponents Hull City when United last won the competition in 2017, is determined to go on and get his hands on the silverware again this season after starring in the third round at Luton Town last week and now at the expense of Brighton & Hove Albion.
Our hosts at the Amex Stadium were looking comfortable, and capable of avenging their home Premier League defeat to the Reds at the weekend, when Mata seemed to take the proceedings by the scruff of the neck by making a surging run into their territory and drawing a foul from his pursuer, the towering Seagulls centre-back Dan Burn.
Juan Mata earned a free-kick with this run - and then used it to create United's first goal.
"I tried to put my body in front of him and I think it was a foul," said Juan, in a post-match interview with Sky Sports.
"Then after [with the free-kick], I just tried to put the ball into the area where normally we try to bring two or three players who can head it.
"It was tight, I think it was just onside, so it was a great header by Scotty. It was important to score in the first half because we know how difficult if we don't score the chances that we create."
After creating the first goal of the game for McTominay, Mata registered the 50th goal of his Reds career when he linked up with a new team-mate he already admires hugely. Donny van de Beek's ability and awareness in the box enabled our no.8 to beat Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele with an accomplished finish into the bottom right-hand corner, even with his less-favoured right foot.
"It was a very clever assist," praised Juan. "Donny is a very clever player. I love playing with him because he finds pockets and spaces, he understands football in a way that I like which is playing one-twos, passing and moving, and the goal was like that.
"He's always in the right position, he flicked the ball to me and I could finish with my right."
Mata's no.8 shirt adcard
Mata was crowned Man of the Match on Sky Sports and also by United fans following the game in our Official App - he picked up 60 per cent of the votes cast there, making him the winner by a landslide margin as the runner-up, van de Beek, gleaned 15 per cent.
Individual accolades are not the Spaniard's priority, however. When asked what the Carabao Cup means to his club, Juan replied: "It means a trophy. That is what's in our minds, to try to lift trophies for our fans.
"We did it in 2017 so we want to do it again. We try to win every game in every competition. Of course, this one is different this year because we're playing at an early stage but hopefully we can go through the quarter-finals and semi-finals, and play at Wembley which is always nice."
Mata poses proudly with his Man of the Match trophy.
With the competition put to bed now until December, when the Reds will face opponents decided by Thursday night's fifth-round draw, Mata's attention will now turn to other fronts and he will no doubt be itching for some Premier League action against his former Chelsea and United manager Jose Mourinho on Sunday. If Juan is called upon for the Spurs game, he'll be ready.
"I feel good, as always, physically and mentally," declared the 32-year-old. "I'm hungry, I have still passion for the game and I feel I have still a lot of football in my legs and in my<|fim_middle|> be a mental thing as well, but Juan has set himself up mentally and he's physically looking in great shape.
"He's been Man of the Match in two League Cup games now so I wouldn't be surprised to see Juan playing in the Premier League quite soon."
Order United Review for Spurs on Sunday article
You can keep part of the matchday ritual alive by having a copy of the programme delivered to your door.
JuanMata
Ole reacts to Brighton 0 United 3 in Carabao Cup | mind. I am enjoying football as much as ever."
Mata's performance and attitude earned praise from Sky pundit and his former team-mate Darren Fletcher, who said: "It was refreshing to hear Juan say he was mentally ready. Tiredness can | 52 |
Quintus Minucius Rufus war ein Mitglied des römischen Plebejergeschlechts der Minucier und 197 v. Chr. Konsul.
Abstammung und frühe Laufbahn
Nach dem Zeugnis der Fasti Capitolini führten sowohl der Vater als auch der Großvater des Quintus Minucius Rufus das Pränomen Gaius.
Quint<|fim_middle|>essen errang Cethegus einen bedeutenden, sehr blutigen Sieg über die Insubrer und Cenomanen, woraufhin Minucius im Land der Boier keine größere Schlacht zu bestehen hatte. Ebenso waren nun die Ilvaten friedenswillig.
Nach Abschluss ihrer Feldzüge kamen beide Konsuln gleichzeitig in Rom an und beriefen den Senat in den Tempel der Bellona ein. Gemeinsam verlangten sie einen Triumph für ihre militärischen Leistungen, doch zwei Volkstribunen widersetzten sich dieser Forderung und bestanden darauf, dass die Konsuln ihr Ersuchen um einen Triumph getrennt vorbringen müssten. Es folgte eine zweitägige Auseinandersetzung, in der sich die Volkstribunen durchsetzten. Cethegus erhielt den Triumph einstimmig genehmigt, während Minucius diese hohe Auszeichnung verwehrt wurde, da er nur geringe Erfolge erzielt und hohe Verluste erlitten habe. Minucius feierte auf eigene Kosten seinen eigenen, auch in den Fasti verzeichneten Triumph über Ligurer und Boier auf dem Albanerberg. Umstritten ist, ob diese Siegesfeier einer Ovatio entspricht oder eine höhere Ehre darstellt.
Späteres Leben
Nachdem die Römer den Seleukidenherrscher Antiochos III. besiegt hatten, war Quintus Minucius Rufus 189 v. Chr. der rangälteste Führer jener zehn Senatoren, die nach Kleinasien entsandt wurden, um die dortigen Verhältnisse neu zu ordnen. Sein Gentilgenosse Quintus Minucius Thermus gehörte ebenfalls dieser Zehnerkommission an. In jenem erhaltenen Senatsbeschluss, der sich mit dem von Livius ausführlich behandelten Bacchanalienskandal des Jahres 186 v. Chr. befasst, wird Minucius als Urkundenzeuge an dritter Stelle verzeichnet.
183 v. Chr. war Minucius wahrscheinlich Mitglied einer vom Konsul von 196 v. Chr., Lucius Furius Purpureo, angeführten Dreiergesandtschaft, die zu den in Norditalien eingefallenen transalpinen Kelten reiste. Sehr unsicher ist seine Identifikation mit jenem Quintus Minucius, der 174 v. Chr. mit einer Flotte von zehn Schiffen nach Kreta segelte, um dort innere Zwistigkeiten beilegen zu helfen. Minucius' Todesjahr ist unbekannt.
Literatur
Anmerkungen
Konsul (Römische Republik)
Rufus, Quintus Minucius
Geboren im 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr.
Gestorben im 2. Jahrhundert v. Chr.
Mann | us Minucius Rufus könnte mit jenem vom römischen Geschichtsschreiber Titus Livius nur als Quintus Minucius bezeichneten Römer identisch sein, der im Zweiten Punischen Krieg gegen Hannibal 212–211 v. Chr. als Legat des Appius Claudius Pulcher während der Kämpfe um Capua diente und 210 v. Chr. an den Senatsberatungen über das weitere Los der mittlerweile eroberten Stadt teilnahm.
201 v. Chr. hatte Minucius das Amt eines plebejischen Ädils inne und veranstaltete in dieser Funktion prächtige Spiele. Die nächste Station seines cursus honorum war die Prätur, die er 200 v. Chr. ausübte. Dabei verwaltete er das in Süditalien gelegene Bruttium. Er führte Nachforschungen in einem Fall von Räubereien durch, die in einem Heiligtum der Proserpina in Lokroi verübt wurden. Ebenso ermittelte er wegen einer aufgedeckten Verschwörung. Da diese Untersuchungen in seiner Amtszeit als Prätor noch nicht zu Ende gediehen waren, erhielt er die Erlaubnis, sie im nächsten Jahr 199 v. Chr. als Proprätor abzuschließen. Damals sollen auch negative Omina in Bruttium aufgetreten sein und Minucius diesbezüglich über zwei Fälle von Missgeburten, u. a. ein Füllen mit fünf Beinen, berichtet haben.
Konsulat
197 v. Chr. stieg Quintus Minucius Rufus zum Konsul auf, wobei er Gaius Cornelius Cethegus zum Amtskollegen hatte. Die Aufgabe beider Konsuln bestand darin, verschiedene Stämme in Norditalien zu bekämpfen. Dabei koordinierten sie ihre Feldzüge miteinander. Von Genua aus drang Minucius in Ligurien ein, besiegte die Einwohner dieses Landstrichs mit Ausnahme der Ilvaten, überschritt anschließend den Apennin und verwüstete das Territorium der Boier. Das militärische Aufgebot dieses Volkes hatte vorher den Po überschritten, um die Insubrer und Cenomanen in deren Kampf gegen den anderen Konsul Cethegus zu unterstützen. Wegen Minucius' Einfall in das Gebiet der Boier kehrten deren gegen Cethegus entsandten Hilfskontingente aber in ihre Heimat zurück, um diese gegen Minucius zu verteidigen. Unterd | 610 |
Dmitri Galitzine - At This Stage
Image courtesy of Dmitri Galitzine copyright © 2018
Dmitri Galitzine - At This Stage, 2018 (48 minutes) is a multi screen HD<|fim_middle|>, filmed over a four-month residency at The Dance Attic Studios, a music and dance rehearsal studios in the old Fulham Bath House, London. A sanctuary to all the great stars over the years, it is known as one of the most acclaimed and celebrated institutions in the industry. Presented across three screens in the otherwise deserted club venue, At This Stage is a touching and at times hilarious portrayal of life behind the scenes and in front of the rehearsal mirror.
Multi channel HD video (48mins)
Shown on the hour, every hour
April 20th - May 7th
SWG3 - Warehouse
Mon – Sat: 10am-6pm / Sun: 12 noon-6pm
Commissioned by SWG3 as part of Glasgow International 2018
Hugo Scott - On the Edge of Town
Judy Blame - Available Nowhere | video installation | 2 |
[ January 17, 2021 ] WATCH LIVE: Court Is Now In Session From the Brevard County Jail Complex Brevard Crime News
[ January 17, 2021 ] CO<|fim_middle|> business success," said Port CEO Capt. John Murray.
"A.R. Savage & Sons is a top-notch organization, and one of only a few ASBA-certified ship agents in the United States."
In commenting on their expansion plan, Savage said Port Canaveral is vital for cargoes crucial to the economy of central Florida, and the company is proud to play a part in supporting industry and jobs in this state.
He expects to handle shipments in Port Canaveral on a regular basis and is exploring new ways to serve customers with operations there.
"Throughout our 75 years serving the shipping industry in Florida, we have always focused on our customers' needs wherever they are, and we are proud to open this new chapter on Florida's east coast," said Arthur Savage, President and owner of the company.
"Port Canaveral is a wonderful port and a major asset to shipping and logistics in Florida. We have long hoped to operate in Port Canaveral, one of the state's premier seaports, and we are thrilled to begin."
A.R. Savage & Son has served shipping and logistics companies for more than 75 years in Florida with ship agency services and ocean freight forwarding.
A.R. Savage & Son, a fourth-generation, family-owned firm is expanding geographically to begin operations at Port Canaveral on Florida's east coast after 75 years operating in the wider Tampa Bay region. (Port Canaveral image)
They are bonded and insured to work with ship owners, ship managers, and charterers who are cargo shippers and receivers in the shipment of products on ocean-going vessels.
The company is particularly experienced in all types of dry and liquid bulk and break-bulk cargoes and can serve customers in other ports through the Association of Shipbrokers and Agents (ASBA) and Federation of National Associations of Ship Brokers and Agents (FONASBA) networks.
Known in the industry for its deep knowledge and detailed planning, A.R. Savage & Son understands the many facets of ports, as well as the cargoes and vessels loading and discharging.
The company's highly trained team ensures that cargo is loaded and unloaded in a timely manner, compliant with all national and international regulations. This minimizes delays while speeding turnaround at the lowest possible cost.
Carnival Cruise Line Cancels Voyages From Port Canaveral Through February, Mardi Gras Ship Debut Pushed Back to April 24
WATCH LIVE: Court Is Now In Session From the Brevard County Jail Complex
WATCH: Palm Bay Fire Rescue Host Second Annual Awards Ceremony at Heritage High School | COA PRIDE: Former Cocoa Tigers Jamel Dean, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson Square Off in NFC Divisional Playoff Game Brevard News
Fourth Generation, Family-Owned Firm A.R. Savage & Son to Debut Shipping Services at Port Canaveral
By Port Canaveral // December 10, 2020
A.R. Savage & Son has been operating in the wider Tampa Bay region for 75 years
A.R. Savage & Son, a fourth-generation, family-owned firm is expanding geographically to begin operations at Port Canaveral on Florida's east coast after 75 years operating in the wider Tampa Bay region.
BREVARD COUNTY • PORT CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – A.R. Savage & Son, a fourth-generation, family-owned firm is expanding geographically to begin operations at Port Canaveral on Florida's east coast after 75 years operating in the wider Tampa Bay region.
The new Port Canaveral service gives the legacy shipping agent the opportunity to serve ships and cargoes on both sides of Central Florida, one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.
"We are thrilled to welcome Arthur Savage and his team as a new partner at our Port and looking forward to sharing in their continued | 258 |
As LED's penetration in the lighting industry increases, it is clear that enabling slimmer fixtures is an important area of market differentiation, an area where Samsung<|fim_middle|> the diffusion plate and the LED modules in the fixture, the spaces between packages on the module can appear as dark spots. To prevent this, the diffusion plate has to be placed further away from the module, which unfortunately increases the thickness of the fixture. In contrast, LAM solution enables slim luminaire design. The diffusion plate can be placed much closer to the module using LAM's diffusion-improving optic technology – as close as 45 millimeters, a significantly smaller space than the 80 to 100 millimeters needed for conventional T5/T8 fluorescent tubes. | Lens-attached LED modules deliver the most efficient, homogeneous design solutions in LED lighting. It is now mass-producing a value-added line-up of highly efficient LAM, for use in office LED lighting applications that include linear and line lighting, cove lighting and troffers.The LAM series is created by attaching lenses on top of the LED packages in each module. The lenses add wide beam angles for their light sources using advanced optic technology, so that each LED package can brighten a space larger than that of conventional packages.
Unlike fluorescent and incandescent lamps, conventional LED lighting features individual LED packages, each of which emits light. As a result, depending on the distance between | 136 |
You're standing on the edge of a cliff, in the middle of a desert, or on the shore of an ocean being buffeted by the waves. You are at the threshold of what you feel you can bear. Your breath is taken away and, despite everything in you trying, you cannot seem to cry out to God. "Help me!" You're lost, and alone, and confused..
We've all experienced it. We've all been through it! In those times when, were it not for those who love us being there to help us through and never giving up on us, we weren't sure that we would even make it through.
A pressure builds in your chest; whether ache or sadness, you do not know. What you do know is that you cannot survive this alone. You need someone to be there. You need comfort. You need peace.
In times like these we tend to let ourselves get carried away in the confusion and, not knowing what to do, we take steps that have a profound impact on our lives; sometimes even a negative one. It is in these very moments that holding on to God is the most important thing that we can do! It is in these moments that we pull closer to those that love us and trust that, even though it may<|fim_middle|> and prideful. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance! No matter what we face, it never loses faith and never doubts God, it never doubts itself, it simply doesn't doubt and it doesn't fear! It will not mislead us, or forsake us!
Stop, and look to God! It may seem tough at times, but all you have to do is look and you will find Him! Breathe! Just, breathe! You are loved, even though you may not see it or feel it; you will always be loved! You are more valuable than you can comprehend, so valuable to God in fact that He sacrificed Himself!
Remember, no matter what, just breathe. You are not alone! | be confusing and we may not know what to do next, God IS still there.
I love the scripture about the prodigal son because it speaks so clearly to us about God's love! We may squander away what He has given us, and waste our inheritance, but He never gives up! Even when we turn away from Him, He is still there waiting and watching; never giving up on seeing us walk back through that field coming home to Him.
It's a beautiful thing really! My God waits for me! He stares off into the distance, looking for me to come home! When I was lost in sin, worry, confusion, fear, doubt, strife, envy, lust, greed, malice, and in all of the things that are contrary to Him; when I was in that hypothetical pig sty of life, He was waiting patiently to have me!
I hope that I'm not losing you, because this is SO important to understand! Our God didn't only come to save us, He waits for us! Eagerly awaiting the day that we turn around and walk to Him! Not only so, when we do, He welcomes us with open arms!
This is not an imaginary love, it is real; more real than anything else, in fact! It is hope, and mercy! It is peace to those who ache, and grace to those who feel as though they do not deserve it! He is many things, but above all things He is love!
We read the words in the book, but we either don't really let them sink in or we simply cannot understand for all of our reading. God is love! This is His purpose for us, that we live in love! Not just love, but His love! That we should be an image of His love at all times, to all people; including to ourselves!
See, we can wallow in the hypothetical pig sty and we can get covered in filth but love will always welcome us back! We only have to do our best and make the effort!
Love is patient; it never stops waiting, no matter how bad things may get it never loses forbearance! It does not demand its own way; it has no concept of thinking only of itself, but of others and of God, never leading us into a position that is selfish | 472 |
Adele Shares Apology Video for Canceling Show in Phoenix
By Megan McCluskey
<|fim_middle|> apologize to her fans for canceling Wednesday night's show in Phoenix. The 25 artist shared a video of herself explaining how she had tried to push through her illness but had finally accepted that she wouldn't be able to perform.
"I did my show last night and I loved it," she says in the clip. "But I pushed too hard and my cold has gotten the better of me, and as you can hear, even if I did the show it wouldn't be very good."
But not to worry—she also promises to make it up to fans by rescheduling the concert. Adele's website has since been updated to reflect this change, listing the show's new date as Nov. 21.
Write to Megan McCluskey at megan.mccluskey@time.com.
Amy Schumer Hints That Her Show Has Ended | August 18, 2016 10:54 AM EDT
After coming down with a nasty cold during the west coast leg of her Live 2016 tour, Adele took to social media to | 48 |
Satyug Darshan Institute of Education and Research has been set up by Satyug Darshan Trust (Regd.) to promote educational development in the country, through continuous improvement in teaching skills and ability of teachers by way of proper training and education.
The mission<|fim_middle|> affiliated to Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak. | of this Institute is to develop skilled professionals in teaching with highest level of dedication, commitment to harness the true potential of children and develop them into progressive, peace loving citizens with communitarian attitude.
Every pupil teacher at this Institute is effectively guided, counseled and trained in, not only latest techniques and methods of teaching but are also familiarized with spiritualism and true value system of humanity purely on principles of Equanimity and Even-sightedness, contentment, endurance, truthfulness and righteousness. This is done with an objective so that they could nurture future generations and imbibe good moral values and character among students as a part of teaching and learning process.
It is an endeavour of the Institute to provide its pupil teachers with best possible learning environment for all round development so as to transform them into responsible, committed and ideal teachers, the greatest asset for the society.
The institute offers B.Ed. course for women with well equipped hostel facility. It is | 191 |
Blog > Podcast: The Lead Generation
[Podcast] Produce Your Own Success with Lou Bortone
Posted by Bob Sparkins | Apr 16, 2019 May 03, 2019
The Lead Generation features conversations with today's entrepreneurs willing to tell the truth about what it takes to be your own boss and the transformative impact you can have on your audience.
In this episode, we're bringing you a conversation with Lou Bortone and the lessons he's learned growing his video marketing business.
Lou helps busy small business owners fully leverage and express themselves by using video marketing in authentic ways. A former marketing executive for radio and television, including with Fox Family (now ABC Family) and E! Entertainment, Lou's consulted entrepreneurs with their video strategies and action plans since 2002.
Lou shares how to get the right mindset for incorporating video into your campaigns, thoughts on the entrepreneurial life while being an active parent to teenagers, and the tools he uses to accelerate the projects he and his clients work on.
Want to get notified about fresh episodes?
Top takeaways
If you're short on time, here are a few golden nuggets from our conversation and the resources mentioned.
With today's tech and resources, small business owners are essentially their own TV stations. Your role is producer, director, and actor of the shows you wish to make.
To be successful on camera, you don't need to adopt some stranger's persona – just be you.
With people sometimes watching 2 or 3 screens at the same time, it's important to keep your videos short and attention grabbing.
You don't have to start from scratch. Use templates from services like Leadpages and Envato marketplace to get a head start on your marketing.
It's awesome if everything you do is successful, but don't be afraid to fail. Even Major League Baseball players are MVPs when they get hits less than 4 out of every 10 at bats.
Resources mentioned
Lou Bortone
Felicia Slattery
David Perdew, NAMS
Leadpages landing page software
Shankminds, Peter Shankman
Beastie Boys Book, Micheal Diamond and Adam Horovitz
After enjoying this episode, what are your top takeaways from Lou?
And what's one lesson you learned in this episode that you'll take action on over the next week?
Get to know Lou
Bob: Lou, my friend, it is so great to have you on for this episode.
Lou: Thanks. It's good to catch up with you. I thought you said the gross story of Lou Bortone. That's a whole different one though, right?
Bob: Indeed, and we'll see if it fits that billing or not. As you are well aware from that opening sentence, Lou's a pretty comical and fun dude. Before we get into some of the business stuff that you do, Lou, give us an idea of how your customers are impacted by the work that you do.
Lou: The main thing I think is that they are empowered. They feel like they have more control over their destiny. I help folks with video marketing, and I help them get comfortable on camera, and things like that. What I've seen and what I really like is when people really start to build and grow their business because they're starting to use video, and they're starting to get more reach and more visibility.
Bob: That's awesome. So yeah, let's get back to the beginning of the story a little bit. As members of The Lead Generation listening today, they're in the middle of growing their own success story in their business, and you weren't always an entrepreneur in the video world. You did some other stuff first. So how did you get started as a video marketing expert?
Lou: I actually came from the TV side of the business. I worked in television and cable for many, many years in Boston and Los Angeles. As the TV business was sort of converging with the internet, which is something that we talked about years ago, but it didn't really happen until much more recently. I just moved over into the online world and the virtual world. And I think the key for me was when one of my colleagues sold his $<|fim_middle|> I'm part of a mastermind group with Peter Shankman, who is the founder of HARO (Help A Reporter Out). He's got a really good group of folks that meet fairly regularly. So what I try and do is just find these groups, and I did a lot of stuff as you know with Michael Port and his groups, and I called it like my clients for a while were like six degrees of Michael Port, cause I could trace their lineage back to a certain conference or event.
I'm reading a lot of different stuff. I've remembered my Beastie Boys book that I just got, which is very thick, but it's just fascinating that those guys were kind of like musical entrepreneurs. So I try and look outside of, not just the online world of the video world, but I try and find some other stuff that's interesting reading.
Bob: I think that's really, really cool. It gets the brain firing on a few different cylinders then what normally would be like. That's really cool. *
Sell 'em what they want, what they really, really want
Bob: My next question for you is something about marketing change for you. You mentioned the mindset shifted for you. You were doing work as a company guy and then you had to sell your own stuff. How has your perception of marketing evolved over that time? What was it like at the beginning and how do you think about selling right now? Cause a lot of people do have that sense that it's a four letter word.
"I struggled a lot in the first few years of my business. I was producing what I thought people would want instead of what they were asking for. It took me a while to really figure it out and get it right."
Lou: Yeah. And I struggled a lot in the first few years of my business and people are like, oh my God, you must be killing it cause you're doing video. I'm like, well it took me a while to really figure it out and get it right.
Part of it was I was producing what I thought people would want instead of what they were actually asking for. I finally figured out, oh, you know what, I'm going to sell the course first and then create it if people buy it. So part of it's that.
Part of it is the old marketing lie, oh my God, I don't want to be too salesy, or I don't want to put myself out there. I got over that pretty quick and I did some of it, like you said, with humor and things like that. You have to be your own biggest cheerleader. So marketing for me has been a matter of studying like, okay I hate sales and marketing too. Now I embrace sales and marketing, but I'll put my own spin on it.
Bob: Yeah. Cause you definitely want to look at yourself in the mirror and feel really excited about what you're putting out there.
Lou: Yeah.
Bob: So as we come to the end to this episode, I'd love to ask you if you have a particular key to success that you love to share? I know that you have a lot of knowledge and there's a lot of different things that make a business really successful, but what do you think boils down to like one thing that's a key to success as people start and grow their own businesses?
Lou: I think it's really don't be afraid to fail. I mean, you're gonna miss a lot, and I kind of go back. My son played baseball for many years and I go back to the old analogy of like, look, if you get up to bat and you get a hit 3 times out of 10 you're an awesome baseball player. It's the same with entrepreneurship. It's like, I'm going to try 10 things and 3 or 4 of them might work. So I try and double down on those things that are working and not be afraid to miss 7 out of 10 times because you may.
Bob: Yeah, that's true. I think the rewards of those three hits can be doubles, triples, even home runs, and breakout in just a little bit of time. Hopefully, you don't make a longer-term mistake from what you've put together.
Lou: Exactly.
Bob: Very cool. Lou, thanks so much for joining me for this week's episode. Where can people go to find out more about your video marketing services and just connect for some humorous tips on getting themselves on camera better?
Lou: Sure. You can go to loubortone.com, which at the moment is a Lead Page, which is another fun thing about Leadpages. It's like, okay, I don't want to update my website yet, so I'm just going to put up a lead page, gateway page as my websites. So that's been a big help. And of course, @LouBortone on all the socials.
Bob: Excellent. Thanks so much, Lou.
Lou: Thank you.
Ready to take action?
What are your top take-aways from Lou?
Tell us in the comments section below! | 15,000 fancy, news gathering camera, and said, oh, I'm just going to use my iPhone from now on. I'm like, okay, well I guess that's it. So here we go.
Bob: So as you look back to that transition from being employed in a 9 to 5 slash/8 to 10 kind of job in the media world, what kind of frustrations did you see at the very beginning that you love to help people, maybe not get around entirely, but maybe shortcut a little bit towards their own?
"We now have access to the same tools that only a few years ago, only the big media companies had."
Lou: It was kind of bumpy because even I don't really like being on camera, having been on the other side of the camera. I had to get used to putting myself out there. And I think that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. They can talk about other people, they can promote other people, but they can't do it as well for themselves.
What I was trying to do with both myself and my clients was really help them with video marketing and video branding and helping them realize that, hey, we now have access to the same tools that only a few years ago, only the big media companies had. And all of us now are sort of like our own little TV station. I'm trying to help folks help folks realize that they have a lot of power and influence right within their reach.
False personas non grata
Bob: One of the things I really love about the way that you do your marketing is you're A, not afraid to let people know that you're a small business, and B, you also let your personality and sense of humor really shine through. What kind of advice would you have for people who might be a little nervous, like letting themselves really step into the spotlight and let their personality really shine?
Lou: Yeah, it is funny because I'm an introvert that I sort of, my defense mechanism is if I can make fun of something, myself included, I do that. And a lot of people think that they have to take on a different persona to be on video. I just try and help people realize that like all you need to do is be you. You don't need to be loud, you don't need to be over the top, you don't need to be funny. You just have to be yourself and share yourself on camera, kind of let loose a little bit and just put yourself out there.
I think Facebook live is actually helped with that a lot. I sort of say that they've lowered the bar on video, but not in a bad way. It's they've made it just so much more accessible and so much more informal that people can kind of like, okay, if I just click the go-live button, here we go.
Bob: Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think it's fair to say that you would likely agree with me that video, the number one thing is the audio, and then secondly is content. Is there anything else that's a high priority when you're thinking about with your clients what do they need to get right?
Lou: Brevity is important in most cases unless you're doing teaching, or demo, or something like that. Just because people have such short attention spans. And I know, again, my kids, they're not kids anymore, they're 20 years old, but I keep an eye on what they're doing and I see a lot of them using second screens at the same time. They're watching TV, but they're also on YouTube on their phone, and they may even have a third screen going. So, we're in a really fragmented sort of ADHD society. So it's even harder to break through and be memorable with all that stuff going on.
Bob: That's really important. I think it's great that you're learning a little bit of the way that the younger folks are working it with your kids.
The balancing act
Bob: Speaking of kids, I was going to ask this later, but since you mentioned them, you've got twins that are off to college and you grew your business with these great kids growing up in high school and earlier. People in The Lead Generation that are doing that, they're balancing family life and they're growing their business. What kind of advice would you wish you had had when you first got started?
Lou: Build a soundproof room. I think it's, again, part of it is like, look, if I'm going to have, when the kids were younger, if they're going to run around in the background and be on my videos or my dog Rocco, the pug, is going to make his presence known, I'm just going to embrace that and make them part of the brand. So when the kids were younger I would put them in videos and if Rocco's running around I'd grab him and say, oh, here's Rocco, come and say hi. So, I think a lot of that is just including it. It's like, all right, there's not much of a difference or distinction between my business life and my personal life, so I just sort of mush it all together.
Bob: Yeah, I think that's very true. And for those of us in this world right now where there are either mega-corporations or there are just a gazillion individual people, I think helping embrace an authentic way of life seems to really be compelling to a lot of people.
Lou: Yeah, and even you look at the fancy big networks like CNN, NBC or whatever, and they're using Skype, and Zoom, and things like that. The video that went viral with the girl dancing behind the guy trying to be interviewed. So all that stuff is sort of accepted now and acceptable, which I think is a good thing. If CNN can get away with Skype then I can.
Who's in your corner?
Lou: Honestly, folks like you and Felicia Slattery, the people that we met at NAMS, which is a conference that we'd go to a few times a year in Atlanta, which actually didn't you make up the name for NAMS?
Bob: I'm sure that you didn't build your business all by yourself. I know that you likely had some cheerleaders, and mentors, and so forth. Who has been a really great cheerleader for you as you've grown your business.
Bob: I made the transition from niche affiliate marketing to Novice to Advanced Marketing Systems, but it's no longer in place as an event. But David Perdew, the gentleman who started it, still does run some workshops and still does a membership.
"I can't be an expert at everything. I'd be better off to hire somebody that's an expert at that"
Lou: Yeah, I mean those were really, really valuable because I made a lot of mistakes. And when I started going to conferences like that and hanging out with folks like you, and Felicia, and David Perdew, I sort of finally got it through my head that it's like, okay, online business is completely different than corporate and what I did at Fox, and E!, and things like that. I had to just kind of changed my whole mindset.
Bob: What was one of those mindset lessons that you learned that you're really happy that you did? Maybe it took a little longer than you might've wanted now, but you could impart upon our Lead Generation?
Lou: Well, some of it was just trying to do everything myself and realize that no, I can't be an expert at everything. So I'm trying to do Facebook ads. I can learn a little bit about it, but I'd be better off if I'm in a hurry to hire somebody that's an expert at that. And even with, honestly with the video production stuff, I had been more on the marketing side. If folks needed video production, I'd say, look, I can edit, I'm a great editor. But I don't shoot video and I don't want to go on locations, things like that.
Some of it was having to let certain things go and saying, okay, I'm not a video production person, I'm a video marketing person because my background is in marketing.
Bob: Yeah. Speaking of the video marketing side of things, I know that you are prolific at experimenting with the different software tools that are out there and seeing which ones really hold up for the longer term. Are there two or three favorites of yours that make the average individual solopreneur really start to stand out with their videos?
Lou: Yeah. It's funny cause I test a lot of different things and I usually come back to this core group of things like Zoom obviously, which we're using right now, and I use almost every day.
Another one that I used quite a bit is Loom at useloom.com, whichI use it for video email, video outreach, and things like that. And quite frankly Leadpages is something I use almost every day because rather than trying to expand my existing website, I can just do a specific Lead Page or a specific web page for the project that I'm working on.
There's been a few really core softwares that I keep coming back to over and over again. Even though I usually buy and test almost everything, which I've got a ridiculous amount of AppSumo deals and things like that, I find that I always come back to the same few core things.
"Chances are what you want to do has been done in some form or another before and you can sort of use what's come before as a guide or as a foundation."
Bob: And is there any place that you go to for some special effects for your intros or outros or any other kind of like flavor enhancers for your videos?
Lou: I used a whole series of sites call Envato Marketplace, Envato, and they have things like audiojungle.net, which is where I find a lot of audio stuff; videohive.net, which is where I do a lot of After Effects stuff. And people think, oh my God, you're a genius. I'm like, no, I just bought a template and customized it.
If I can start ahead of the game with a template or with a guide that saves a ton of time. And I think again, that's something else that entrepreneurs can realize is that they don't have to start from scratch. Chances are what you want to do has been done in some form or another before and you can sort of use what's come before as a guide or as a foundation.
Bob: Yeah. Those are really good tips.
Instant gratification builds your list faster
Bob: You mentioned a moment ago that you're an active and prolific user of Leadpages. Of course, I see your pages on Linkedin a lot, and on Facebook, and so forth. Obviously you're using it to build your list as well as sell your programs. Do you have a favorite lead magnet or style of lead magnet that's really been really helpful for you that you know gets great conversions?
Lou: I have a couple of those. One that I did because people always say, I don't know what to talk about it on video. So I made a list, I think it was on a flight or something one time, of like, okay, here are 99 things you can do for videos. So I turned that into a lead magnet and like, okay, 99 video topics, 99 video ideas, and put up that Lead Page. That one does really well, it converts really well.
I think people like something that they can get immediate gratification with, and have a checklist or one sheet that they can just kind of use right away rather than having to wait. I mean you think that like, oh, you must do a lot of videos series and stuff like that, but people don't necessarily want to wait or watch a seven-part video series. So I try to do things that offer immediate gratification.
Bob: I think we find that in the rest of the Leadpages base too, something quick to consume, quick to make, and something just that you can test obviously with ease.
Mindset & growth
Bob: So as we're looking at people who have taught you in the past, you mentioned Felicia, myself, David Perdew, etc. What kind of learning are you doing now? What are you reading? What kind of podcasts are you listening to?
Lou: | 2,589 |
I enjoy grooming my<|fim_middle|> you do them first, the dog is rewarded by the bit they enjoy more, having their body brushed. The second was to keep the feet trimmed - sensible in winter anyway; push the hair underneath up between the toes and trim it with scissors, then trim round the top. My Aled was the demo dog at the party and his feet look really tidy and neat and there's no long fur to battle with or get filthy in this weather! | dogs very routinely. They look forward to the nightly routine....that is until I try to brush their slippers. They both tend to not like to have their slippers groomed. I have used pin brushes and Mason brushes and it still is a " no go " for both of them. They prefer not to have their slippers brushed at all and will pull back their paws. Any helpful grooming tips ?
I just started positive rewards with treats but it still is an issue. Nail clipping for the younger dog is a challenge still and I do this slowly and with great care. Nail clipping with the older dog has always been uneventful. This also is not a preferred activity for him.
The groomer who gave a demo and talk at the Midlands Christmas party had a couple of useful tips. The first was to start with the feet - usually they're the last thing we do, but if | 181 |
The James M. Cox Foundation Awards $250,000 for COVID-19 Response Efforts
Patient engagement staff at the Chula Vista Family Health Center's COVID-19 walk-up testing station prepare for the more than 100 tests they will help to administer throughout the day. Photo courtesy of Cox Communications.
In response to the growing strain on hospitals and community organizations as the number of COVID-19 cases continue to climb, Cox Communications announced, in partnership with the James M. Cox Foundation, a granted total of $250,000 to two San Diego County nonprofits: the Monarch School and Family Health Centers of San Diego.
The James M. Cox Foundation is the charitable arm of Cox Enterprises, the parent company of Cox Communications.
"As our region continues to experience the challenges of COVID-19, Cox is committed to supporting our local nonprofits so they can continue the important work they do every day to address the needs in our community, whether it's ensuring homeless youth have the technology and resources for their education and well-being, or providing quality health care to low-income families during the pandemic," said Sam Attisha, senior vice president and region manager for Cox Communications. "We're all in this together, and Cox is here for our community."
Located in the Barrio Logan neighborhood in the city of San Diego, the Monarch School received a $150,000 grant to support crisis needs related to COVID-19 for their 300 K-12 students experiencing homelessness, including distance learning support (wireless hotspots and one on one academic tutoring) and basic needs including<|fim_middle|> source of stability and hope for those we serve and we are very grateful to the James M. Cox Foundation for the generous grant to support these efforts."
Family Health Centers of San Diego provides caring, affordable, high-quality healthcare and supportive services to everyone with a special commitment to uninsured, low-income and medically underserved persons. The nonprofit received a $100,000 grant to support their COVID-19 response efforts, focused on providing community testing at multiple sites across the county and processing over 1,000 tests per week. In addition to increasing access to testing, the funds will also support multi-language community education specific to COVID-19 and a plan to promote immunizations for those community members who are delaying health care services due to COVID-19 fears.
"We thank the James M. Cox Foundation for their generous support of our continued efforts to provide accessible, high-quality health care to our patients during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Fran Butler-Cohen, CEO of Family Health Centers of San Diego. "Our organizations share a dedication to supporting our communities and improving the quality of life for everyone, and this grant will help us continue to move that mission forward."
The James M. Cox Foundation is named in honor of Cox Enterprises' founder and provides funding for capital campaigns and special projects in communities where the company operates. James M. Cox was Ohio's first three-term governor and the 1920 Democratic nominee for president of the United States. The foundation concentrates its community support in several areas, including conservation and environment; early childhood education; empowering families and individuals for success; and health.
Two Adjacent Hotels to Open in Oceanside in 2021
Veterans Create Portable Workout Machine
DOE Funds Local Efforts to Develop Next Gen Batteries
Walla Resolves to Keep Studios in Top Biz Shape
Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon Satellite | emergency housing, food assistance and mental health and therapy services for families.
"There has never been a more important time to support our students," said Afira DeVries, CEO of Monarch School. "During these uncertain times, it's critical that Monarch School continue to be a | 56 |
UK public transport operator Stagecoach<|fim_middle|> the UK's first fully autonomous single deck bus," said Stagecoach UK's bus engineering director, Sam Greer.
Ken Scott, group engineering director at ADL, added, "We are renowned for harnessing the latest technology solutions to enhance our products and services to benefit our customers, their passengers and the wider environment. | has partnered with bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL) and technology company Fusion Processing to produce a single deck autonomous bus.
Once complete, the 40ft-long (12m) ADL Enviro200 vehicle will be completely autonomous and able to operate without a driver in a non-public road environment, with the technology also delivering road safety benefits when driven in manual mode on normal transit routes.
Work on the vehicle is being carried out at ADL's site in Guildford and the bus is expected to be ready for use by the end of this year. In the short term, the bus will only be used in autonomous mode within the depot environment, to carry out movements such as parking and moving into the fueling station and bus wash. Using vehicles in self-driving mode within depots more widely could help improve safety, efficiency and space usage within the facility.
Legal restrictions mean the vehicle will not be used in autonomous mode in passenger service for some time. However, the system can be used straight away to help improve the safety of road users. For example, when the bus is driven in manual mode, its sophisticated sensor system, while not engaged to drive the vehicle, can still be used to provide assistance to the driver by warning of cyclists or pedestrians that may be in the blind spot or arrive unexpectedly close to the vehicle.
Over time, autonomous bus technology is expected to be used more widely, including on services carrying passengers, depending on legal developments.
The Stagecoach bus will be fitted with the CAVstar system provided by Fusion Processing, which was used successfully earlier this year in the UK's largest public trial of autonomous vehicles to date, the Greenwich GATEway Project, and a number of other trials, including the Venturer project's Wildcat vehicle.
"We have long been at the heart of innovation within the bus industry, and this is an exciting trial that will deliver | 380 |
Blade and Rose Series, Blood of the Wolf, Falken, Nicolette Masson, Queen of the Shining Sea
Blood of the Wolf, Chapter 1
Beneath the warm midday sun, Nic pulled up the hood of her cloak as she disembarked the Nonna, a large Sileni trade vessel. Finally, after two weeks at sea, she'd at last made it to her next job—only the biggest of her life.
The Grand Divinus.
The woman was undoubtedly cruel and power hungry, a worthy sacrifice to Nox, but she was also the head of the Divinity of Magic. Handling her would be a walk on eggshells, followed by a leap through a flaming ring, with a final tiptoe through a pit of vipers. Far beyond her usual targets. But the Grand Divinus fit the mold—an enemy of the people.
And the fact that she was a threat to a child made the job tough to turn down. Marcel had been clever to use his infant son to persuade her. Or he'd been lucky. Gods-damned lucky.
But enemies of the people had been her forte for some time now. The Noxian Rebellion had been nearly twenty years ago, yet her sister Osana's pyre burned just as bright in her mind. Because of cruel and power-hungry targets like Baron Lemancourt. And the Grand Divinus.
Lemancourt met Nox. And so will the Grand Divinus. Now Lemancourt's plump, skirt-chasing layabout son ruled the barony—he was no hero, but at least he didn't do his own people harm.
She just needed to stay well hidden until the time was right.
Her bag over her shoulder, Nic descended the gangplank, eyeing the bright coast. A few fishing boats dotted the crystalline coastal waters of Amiata, a small village just north of Magehold. Several people worked on the beach—mostly women searching the shallows for noble pen shells and their threads of sea silk. This was what Amiata was known for, and what made Marchese Taddeo Fiorensi so vastly wealthy. A wealth he invested back into his domain, at least, if the well-maintained cobblestone streets and impeccable orange clay-tiled roofs were any sign.
No one paid her any attention as she wove her way through the dock workers, which was as she desired it. She hadn't become one of the Black Rose's highest-paid assassins without acquiring a few items of value—among them Shade, her recondite ring, whose mentalism enchantment gently suggested she didn't merit attention, as well as black-dyed cloth-of-arcanir attire, whose outer netting hid her anima well from geomancers and spiritualists.
The salty scent of smoked fish wafted from the market, and she resupplied in her easy Sileni. Even with Shade and careful transacting, a stay in town could lead to rumors, an unnecessary risk. In any case, it wasn't her first arrival in Amiata, and there was a perfect place to stay in the wilds en route to Magehold, right off an old dirt path.
Munching on the local street food—thin, circular flatbread soaked in lamb stock, topped with tomato paste and a semi-coddled egg, then conveniently rolled—she took the forest path to the north. A couple horse-drawn carts passed her by, and she slipped into the back of a semolina cart, smooth and quiet. The ride would reduce half a day's walk to a couple hours. She'd camp in the woods, then make her way to Magehold tomorrow.
In the early afternoon, the cart passed the old dirt path, and she jumped off with fluid ease. It had been two years since she'd been here, but enough of the locals must have known the spot to maintain the path. Hopefully none would be present tonight, so she could get some peace to think through her plans.
Dusting off her black cloak, she picked her way through the deadfall, listening for the sound of running water. It would be a soothing break before this gods-damned job.
An infiltration could be very simple, and it usually was. A few key details, some observation, and that might be all a job needed. But not in Magehold. The city was teeming with mages, all on high alert since the Magister Trials, both for heretics and Immortals. And the castle itself was a fortress, well guarded by both magic and arms.
A local informant would prove immensely useful, but she'd need to keep her ear to the ground in Magehold for a few days—or longer—to find one she could trust. There was no telling how paranoid the Divinity would be now, perhaps even to the point of setting traps.
The telltale<|fim_middle|> lower pools were warm, but the higher ones were hotter, and she made her way up to the top.
Above the highest pool, a veil of falling water tumbled over the limestone, flowing with a calming splash into the steaming hot water. With no one around, she threw off her clothes silently, but quickly nonetheless, leaving one of her daggers strapped to her leg.
Two weeks aboard the Nonna had been long enough without a thorough soak, and a minute longer without one wouldn't do. She tied her things inside her cloak nearby, then tested the water with a careful foot. It was hot, but in three seconds, she wasn't scalded. It was just right, perfectly right, as she remembered.
Slipping in, she tensed up as the heat climbed her body, but slowly, it soothed into her muscles, melting soreness from the ship's cramped quarters. At last, she submerged up to her shoulders and leaned her head back against the smooth stone. This would be her one indulgence on this job, and she'd indulge thoroughly.
It helped that the Grand Divinus wouldn't smell her from ten feet away either.
Tomorrow, she'd have to camp on the outskirts of Magehold and mingle carefully, listening for dissenters. There had to be someone in the city who knew the castle but hated the Grand Divinus. At least enough to let a "thief" in. If all went well, the job would be clean—except that she had no idea where to look for Marcel's blood.
But he was certainly paying well enough. With that money… With that money, her village wouldn't just be set for the winter. It would be set for years. A decade, even.
She sighed, closing her eyes. The trees rustled in the wind, and dry leaves fluttered like papers, crisping against one another. She switched Shade from her left hand to her right, giving her finger a reprieve.
An abrupt splash.
Her eyes flew open. She drew her dagger.
Nothing. An animal?
"Where did you come from?" a deeply accented voice demanded in Sileni, from behind the veil of falling water.
No splash. The speaker hadn't moved. A trap? A spy? Had someone known her movements and plans even in Courdeval? How had she missed another person here?
If she threw the dagger now, she would hit him. "Show yourself," she snarled.
A long quiet. If he tried anything, this steaming hot pool would run red.
The iridescent veil of water parted. A ghost emerged, pale as the white cliffs behind him, ethereal eyes as cold as the grave.
Blood of the Wolf, Chapter 2>>> | hum of a waterfall finally sounded in the distance, and she hurried her pace through denser and denser forest, then found her footing in the rockier ground near the cliffs. The hum mixed with a trickling, a splashing, and the aura of cloudy steam higher above, puffing into the slate-blue sky. Then the thick smell of sulfur.
She dug into the white cliffside, grabbing for one powdery handhold after another, until she scrambled up to a series of cascading plateaus—and pools. Hot springs.
The white limestone formations, shaped by centuries or millennia of flowing water, looked like ice, like snow-covered glaciers atop a frosty mountain in the arctic north of Skadden. The turquoise waters, however, with their rising tendrils of mist, gave them away. These | 164 |
Another world - the tourist town Selimiye in Side was built at the same time as the Temple of Apollo and was similar in appearance due to its marble, but had a slightly larger footprint, 20 x 35 m. In the 5th century AD. a large three-aisled basilica was built north of the temples, and around the two temples an atrium courtyard in the south part of the church was erected. Materials of the temples were reused for the construction of the basilica and later for the houses in Selimiye. The basilica was destroyed in a fire, according to which a small chapel was erected in the nave in the 8th or 9th century, when most of the population must have left the city already.
To the east, but still near the coast and right on the city wall, are the remains of the Men's Temple dedicated to the Anatolian Moon God Men. The temple, which dates back to the end of the 2nd century AD., is semicircular. A staircase led from the west into the interior of the temple to a podium, where four Corinthian columns stand. Next to it are the remains of a small Byzantine fountain.
From the Men Temple, a column-lined street ran north across the city and<|fim_middle|>, built in Byzantine times and still in good condition. It measures 40 x 30 m and consists of four larger halls and three smaller rooms, all of which are arched, as well as two sports fields. Northeast of it stands a vaulted Byzantine house.
Almost exactly in the middle of the city, where the ancient port lay, lie the remains of a smaller Roman bath, the harbor bath. Along the quays were probably arcades with storage houses, shops and inns. The silting of the harbor was a constant problem for Side, and a Roman proverb for a difficult and infinitely long work was "like the port of Side." When the original harbor sanded in the 5th century, a new harbor basin was built northwest of it. | up to the theater, but this street is now blocked. On this street, not far from the Men Temple, is the largest of Sides' three public baths | 33 |
BOSTON -- Rick Middleton raised his No. 16 to the TD Garden<|fim_middle|>'s number would be the 11th retired by the team, the first since longtime forward and current Bruins president Cam Neely's No. 8 was hoisted to the rafters in 2004.
In all, 19 players have worn No. 16 for the Bruins -- including center Derek Sanderson, who Middleton said he wore the number in honor of. Kaspars Daugavins was the last to wear it in 2013.
"In the last six or seven years, I've been seeing that it's not out there; nobody's wearing it," Middleton said. "All of a sudden, it happened. In July, a phone call in July; I never thought it would ever happen that way, but I just have to thank Cam so much for doing it. ... It culminated tonight."
Middleton was joined by Neely, Ray Bourque, Johnny Bucyk and Terry O'Reilly -- whose numbers have all been retired by the Bruins -- along with former Bruins coach Don Cherry at center ice for the pregame ceremony. | rafters Thursday night, nearly three decades after playing his final game with the Bruins.
Middleton, nicknamed "Nifty," spent 12 seasons with the black and gold from 1976 to 1988, scoring 402 goals and totaling 898 points. The right wing ranks third in goals and fourth in points in Bruins history.
"I've had four months to think about it, and I hate repeating myself, but honestly, I believe it is the biggest honor that certainly a retired athlete can get in his career," the 64-year-old Middleton said before the Bruins faced the New York Islanders.
The Bruins announced in July that Middleton | 138 |
Eleven years after local builder Jonathan Brown began developing 4.2 acres at Thistle Creek, two young builders are poised to finish off the King Street development.
An open house will take place tonight, Jan. 29, from 5 to 7 p.m., for the second home completed in a Home, Inc./Village collaboration to increase affordable housing in the village.
Home, Inc. recently hired Brittany Parsons to serve in a newly created position, development coordinator.
Unified support around a proposed policy change to hold landlords responsible for their tenants' utility debts emerged again at Village Council's May 4 meeting, when Council voted 5–0 in favor of the change.
Home, Inc., broke ground on the Village's first public affordable housing project on Friday, Aug. 15, with future homeowners Erica and Caleab Wyant digging in.
Yellow Springs Home, Inc. invites<|fim_middle|>ick. A workshop hopes to address the problem. | the public to join them in celebrating the groundbreaking of the first phase of the Cemetery Street project on Friday, Aug 15 at 3:30 p.m. Learn more about the project, see the plans, and enjoy refreshments!
The local horn band Ohio Brass & Electric will perform tonight, Friday, June 20, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Emporium during the Summer Art Stroll.
Losing one's home to foreclosure is most often traumatic. Foreclosures hurt communities, too. Though Yellow Springs has weathered the housing crisis well with only a small dip in home sale prices, foreclosure rates are relatively high here and may be on the uptick.
Though Yellow Springs has weathered the housing crisis well with only a small dip in home sale prices, foreclosure rates are relatively high here and may be on the upt | 176 |
This option is used to capture all the supplier returns or supplier credit notes you have received for returns or allowances on credit purchases from your creditors or suppliers. If you have purchased trading stock items, and you return these purchased stock items, you need enter your credit purchases of trading stock in the Input - Documents - Goods Returned menu option. By creating a Goods Returned document, TurboCASH will automatically write up your Purchase Journal for you.
This journal is used to record your credit purchases for the day<|fim_middle|> enter the supplier credit notes in the purchase returns or creditor allowances journal. | . You would record the supplier invoice number, date of the supplier invoice, details, the creditor (from whom you have purchased), Input VAT (if you are registered for VAT) and the amount - including or excluding VAT, if you are registered for VAT and VAT is applicable to a transaction.
Select the Purchase Journal or Purchase Returns or Creditor Allowances Journal (if you have created such a journal) from the list displaying the available Batch Types and click on the button. The Batch Entry screen for the Purchase Journal or Purchase Returns or Creditor Allowances Journal will be displayed.
If no contra account is displayed on the Batch Type selection screen, you need to set the options for the batch. If you have not yet set the purchase journal batch up, or if your requirements should change, click on the speed button or icon. Note that for Supplier Credit Notes, the Amount Entry field should be set to debit.
Reference number - Enter the purchase returns or other applicable number you allocate to the supplier credit note.
Account - select the Creditor Account.
Contra Account - Select the account to be credited with the credit purchase (expense or asset).
Tax Account - Select the applicable Input Tax Account for the expense or purchase. NOTE - this is only applicable if Input VAT is allowed on a transaction and if you are registered as a VAT Vendor and VAT has been charged on the original supplier invoice. If no VAT is applicable to the transaction, or all transactions in this batch, select the No Tax code. You may also select to hide the Tax column and lookup facility in the Setup Options for the Purchase Returns Journal.
Amount enter the amount of the transaction (Inclusive or Exclusive of VAT) in the Debit amount column.
TurboCASH will generate balancing entries to the sales account and the Input VAT account. If the Consolidate balancing option is selected in the Setup Options for this batch, the description for the balancing entries or transactions, will be displayed as "BALANCING ENTRY Purchase Returns Jnl" or the name of your Returns Journal. It is a good idea to overtype this description as it is not very meaningful to an outside auditor or accountant. If you overtype these it will definitely make it easier to trace and reconcile transactions.
Overtype the description with "Supplier Credit Notes March 2005" in the description column.
Overtype the VAT description with "Input VAT -Supplier ReturnsMarch2005" in the description column.
If the Consolidate Balancing Entries option was not selected when the options for this batch was set, the individual supplier credit notes would have been listed or posted to the selected General Ledger Accounts and Input VAT account.
If you have supplier credit notes, you need to set the amount entry to debit in the setup options for the purchase journal batch before entering the supplier credit notes in the purchase journal. Alternatively, you may | 578 |
Christina Andersson is a licensed psychologist, yoga teacher. She is doing her research on Compassion as a new stress management method at Karolinska Institutet. She co-authored the first Swedish course book on Compassion-focused Therapy and conducted the first study on Compassion Training on Relatives to Cancer Patients 2012<|fim_middle|> is seeing clients in Compassion-focused therapy and has continuous supervision by the founder of CFT Professor Paul Gilbert. | at Karolinska Institutet.
Christina is also affiliated with the Stockholm School of Economics and runs an ongoing research project called Compassion at Work, focusing on studying compassion in organizations through compassion training for employees and its impact on culture. She is one of the founders of the Research Center Center for Social Sustainability (CSS) at Karolinska Institutet and is in the Board of the Ekskäret Foundation.
Christina | 88 |
The Ministry of Economic Development and Technologies, the Spirit Slovenija State Agency<|fim_middle|>18. In addition to the application, companies wishing to participate in the conference must provide a short presentation in the ppt format and a short promo video. | and the Russian space agency Roskosmos will hold a three-day research and business conference dealing with the Transition of Economy to Digital Format Using Space Technologies in Ljubljana on 18–20 April 2018. This is a pilot project of said Ministry, which is striving to strengthen cooperation with Russian state structures, to establish business ties between Russian and Slovenian companies and institutions in the digital economy.
In parallel, such events increase the opportunities and prospects for cooperation between various subjects of international business and scientific organizations within the framework of the New Space global project, and also allow for the exchange of knowledge, experience and lay the foundation for subsequent mutually beneficial business cooperation.
The conference will be held at the Noordung Centre for Space Technologies in Vitanje and in the Modri Salon Hall of the Grand Hotel Union in Ljubljana. The event will bring together companies and institutions working in the field of innovative digital projects with an emphasis on space technologies.
Registration for participation is open until 9 April 20 | 210 |
We are more than just a gym, we are a fitness community located in Long Island City, New York. Our programs are designed for universal<|fim_middle|>Fit Bell online.
Get started right away by booking a private 1-on-1 On-Ramp Program, or wait for the next On-Ramp Group Class. We'll teach you the movements and help you acclimate to the program.
Your road to fitness has begun. Browse the membership options at CrossFit Bell and see which package suits you best. Stay dedicated, come often and get involved with the community.
Pick your meals at Crossfit Bell.
Tailored Treatment in Traditional & Sports Acupuncture.
Chiropractic Services & Rehabilitation Care. | scalability making them the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We use the same routines for elderly individuals with light exercise needs to professional fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don't change programs. It's our belief that athlete requirements differ by degree, not kind.
Come check out the facility. Beginners: Register for a free trial class at CrossFit Bell in person or online. Advanced athletes can register for a drop-in at Cross | 95 |
Running 26.2 miles is grueling work, but ASICS is hoping to make the upcoming New York Marathon on Nov. 6 just a little bit easier — with the help of RFID chips.
Marathoners who sign up for ASICS's "Support Your Marathoner" will activate an RFID tag they can attach to their shoes. That tag, given to all marathoners<|fim_middle|> things to come? Will you leave a message of support or, if you're a runner, do you want to receive one? | , will then trigger messages of love and support specific to each of the runners on an LED screen as they run past it. There will be three screens in total placed at miles nine, 12 and 22.
Support Your Marathoner actually started at last year's marathon, but ASICS has added networks such as Facebook to collect support messages, videos and images.
Even if runners can't stop and watch the screens during the marathon, each runner will have access to their personalized gallery of messages, videos and pictures to keep after the race.
Any runner can register for the program and any person can leave a message for any runner thanks to the website's search function. The program currently has received more than 2,750 support messages since it began in mid-October.
Messages of support are certainly not a new concept, but the use of RFID chips brings it into the digital era. It's nice to think of haggard marathoners getting a needed boost of love at mile 22, thanks to a tiny piece of tech.
Is Support Your Marathoner a taste of | 220 |
Too many brands still focus on who they are and lack the noble cause and purpose required to meet the expectations of modern consumers, Silicon Valley brand guru, Allen Olivo, claims.
Speaking at this year's ADMA Global Forum, the former Apple, PayPal, Yahoo! and Amazon marketing expert shared key lessons in the art of building brands that matter to the end consumer, and why "humanising" is more important than ever in sustaining brand success.
"When we talk about brands, we often use words like relevance and modern. But one of the most important words we forget about is sustainability," Olivo told attendees. "You don't want to have to keep rebuilding and rebranding your company and lose track of what you stand for.
This makes spending time to identify what your noble purpose is as an organisation vital, Olivo said. That has to not only be unified across countries and towns, it's just as important for B2B brands as it is for B2C.
Finding your noble cause is about knowing what you stand in a way customers know and believe is true, Olivo continued.
Another core focus needs to be on the customer journey, Olivo said. "What are they going through as human beings, and how do you find places for your brand to add value? Because you're not<|fim_middle|> extended into a payment mechanism for the wider Internet, then offline via the phone.
So the brand repositioned back on the human element – that money matters to everyone and they can determine what to do with it on their terms.
"If you understand the human journey and make it really simple and understand what they are trying to accomplish, you start to create a much more robust customer experience approach," Olivo added.
Through all of this, it's vital to tell the story well and simply, Olivo said, so both consumers get it, as well as your employees. | going to change the customer journey," he said.
Comparing brand sophistication to Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Needs' pyramid, Olivo said brands must move up from who they are and what they do, to articulating how they do it and most importantly of all, why they do it that way.
Olivo offered up three ways successful brands humanise their engagement. The first is they have a point of view on how stuff gets put together. Comparing Apple to other PC manufacturers of the time, for example, Olivo noted Apple offered a point of view and why you do it that gave it a higher order purpose. It was Apple that recognised it had to make the computer the easiest thing to use for consumers, creating a human user (GUI) interface and terms such as 'cut', 'paste', and 'trash'.
The second thing human brands do is signal intent. "This is about saying, if I want you to stay with me, and be part of my ecosystem, I have to let you know where I'm going internally as well as externally," Olivo said.
The third thing human-oriented brands do to gain authenticity is solve for universal human truths, Olivo said. To illustrate this example, he pointed to PayPal, which lost its way after being bought by eBay, and had then | 263 |
But right now it's dark and we're parked just outside the gates of Tom Tower, Christ Church. It's pouring rain and there are huddled groups of soggy students hurrying along the pavement under their umbrellas, those little streamer thingies on their robes fluttering behind them. Since it is now it's 9:05 the enormous bells of the tower are ringing 101 times like they do every evening at 9:05 in honor of the original 101 scholars who were enrolled when the college was founded by Henry VIII. Some poor drenched souls are struggling along on bikes with their grocery shopping dangling from the handlebars. Speaking of poor drenched souls, Ben rode his bike home from German class this evening and squelched through the door for dinner looking like he'd just gone for a dip in the river. Damp doesn't even remotely cover it. He was spouting water from every seam like a Versailles fountain.
But what are we doing parked outside in the rain? Ben had a meeting in college about rowing for Christ Church. And since we hadn't really seen each other all day we thought he might as well take the whole family along for the ride. (Just for the ride – not to the meeting.) So we put all the kids into their pj's and bundled them into the car . . . and had a cozy little car ride and then the kids and I waited while he ran<|fim_middle|> from another perspective? I am usually complaining about living in a socialist country and all the other stuff, so your positive attitude is good good good to hear! Keep it coming!
Am off to New College for a formalish thing tomorrow night — will think of you and pray for some furniture for you and the kidlings to sleep on! | in to his quick meeting. Several of the children fell asleep right at the outset, and the others are reading and coloring. If only I had a Starbucks then this whole thing would be perfect. But the English seem to have no idea what coffee is for and the Starbucks close at 7:00. It's ridiculous.
I always love driving through the center of Oxford at night. Everyone is always on their way somewhere and the people watching is fantastic. Ben is forever getting invitations to formal dress this and black tie that . . . when they're really dressing down they specify that the attire is a lounge suit. (I confess I had no idea what that meant and had to google it – last year in the happy days when I had access to google – and discovered that a lounge suit doesn't actually mean a double knit disco outfit, but rather a suit and regular tie as opposed to suit and black tie.) Ben doesn't attend these functions unless they're mandatory (like drinks with your tutor) because, saint that he is, he dislikes dressing up and toodling out for a night on the town leaving the family at home. But the point remains that he gets these invitations constantly and thus it is that when you drive through Oxford at night you get to see some really pizzazzy outfits on all the people who are attending these shindigs. I have, I kid you not, even run across top hats. But not tonight. Tonight everyone is racing along under their umbrellas trying to get out of the deluge.
But now my soggy husband is back and it's time to head home to bed and carry sleeping, pajama clad children through the rain and up to their cozy cushions on the floor.
oh, rebekah, it's so glamorous and romantic! sleeping on the floor in oxford so your precious husband can follow his dreams. i love it!
my husband studied at oxford for just one month when our first baby was just 6 weeks old. we had such a great time! we lived in a dorm… which taught me the importance of GETTING OUT of the house with a newborn. i bonded with that little baby in the park, museums, and tea shops while poor hubby had his nose in the books. i had forgotten about the formal events every night. i kept asking "is it halloween here? what's going on?" and are there still fireworks every night? what's up with that?
i spent a fortune at mcdonalds there, b/c at the time it was the only internet cafe in town. a couple pounds for 30 minutes, something like that.
i loved those late-night little take-away stands. i remember outstanding fries, but i can't remember what else they served. curry? burgers? tacos? surely not tacos?
i hope you're having a fabulous time. it sounds like there are plenty of difficulties and inconveniences, but i pray that God's grace will wash over it all. Blessings.
When I was there, those stands served something akin to gyros (falafel?) with those outstanding chips….with vinegar and salt! Mmmmm…and at least THOSE little carts were open late into the night….I wonder if they serve coffee?
Thanks for posting from your cozy car for all of us to enjoy!
Please don't stop posting on living in England… it has been my life's dream to visit, and dare I say, to live there. The Lord had something else in mind for me, however.
You are living in a beautiful season of life and I am sure you will treasure all these moments in your heart. Thanks for sharing some of it with us.
I love your posts Bekah. Blessings on Oxford Adventure Part II!
Hi there! As one of those Oxford students who runs through the rain dressed in ridiculous clothes on my way to silly formal shindigs on a regular basis, may I say it's good to hear about it | 802 |
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Map of the Empires of China and Japan by James<|fim_middle|> 1892. (Tooley) | Wyld
£127.50 £150.00 Approx $167.32, €151.07
Author: Wyld, James
Publisher: Atlas of the World
Steel engraving with original hand colouring. Engraved by Stockley. Overall size hinged into off white fully conservation grade mount and back with decorative v groove: 42.7cms x 39.5cms; image size: 271mm x 231mm including imprint. Attractive piano key border. Note on population and area bottom right. Very good condition. James Wyld was apprenticed to William Faden, taking over the business in 1823 and becoming Geographer to His Majesty (George IV and William IV) and his maps were among the most excellent published in the Nineteenth Century. He enjoyed a very successful career but died early from overwork. His son continued and expanded the business having joined his father in the map trade at 18. He became Geographer to the Queen and H.R.H. Prince Albert and was M.P. for Bodmin from 1847-1852 and from 1857-1868. He was master of the Clothworkers Company and worked hard for the promotion of technical schools. Like his father he was held in high esteem and held no less than 17 European orders of merit. He died in 1887 in Kensington. His son James John Cooper Wyld (1845-1907) took over on his father's death but sold the family business to G.W. Bacon in | 348 |
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Little Remedies: #LittleWins
Posted in Campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Video Production
Bring on the cute babies! That was our first thought when Little Remedies approached us, asking for a campaign where we would crowd source #LittleWins moms experience every day. Raising a baby can be tough after all, so Little Remedies wanted to know what moms do to make their lives and their baby's lives a little easier. The campaign called for four short videos featuring a mom and her baby, a series of still photos in the style of the videos, a microsite to showcase user generated content and mom's #LittleWins, and an Instagram takeover of the #LittleRemedies account by well-known mommy blogger #ThriftyNiftyMom. The results were about as cute as you can imagine. Take a look for yourself!
Four videos were produced to show four #LittleWins any mom can tackle.
Messy Mealtime
https://isl.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Little-Remedies-Little-Wins-Mealtime-FINAL.mp4
Exercising with Babies
https://isl.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Little-Remedies-Little-Wins-Exercising-FINAL.mp4
Bait & Switch
https://isl.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Little-Remedies-Little-Wins-Bait-FINAL.mp4
https://isl.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Little-Remedies-Little-Wins-Mommy-Time-FINAL.mp4
Still photos were used to supplement the videos that were posted on Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram Takeover
Little Remedies partnered with #ThriftyNiftyMom, letting her takeover the #LittleRemedies Instagram account for two days. Mom blogger Janessa gave us an insider's view to what it's like to have three young children. Her posts included tips on ways to keep her babies calm, fun things she was doing with them, and how Little Remedies came to the rescue just when she needed them. Here are a few pictures she posted of her adorable family:
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Produced by David Widger
HYACINTH
By George A. Birmingham
1906
CHAPTER I
In the year 1850 or thereabouts religious and charitable society in
England was seized with a desire to convert Irish Roman Catholics to
the Protestant faith. It is clear to everyone with any experience of
missionary societies that, the more remote the field of actual work, the
easier it is to keep alive the interest of subscribers. The mission to
Roman Catholics, therefore, commenced in that western portion of Galway
which the modern tourist knows as Connemara, and the enthusiasm was
immense. Elderly ladies, often with titles, were energetic in the cause
of the new reformation. Young ladies, some of them very attractive,
collected money from their brothers and admirers. States-men and Bishops
headed the subscription-lists, and influential committees earnestly
debated plans for spending the money which poured in. Faith in the
efficacy of money handled by influential committees is one of the
characteristics of the English people, and in this particular case
it seemed as if their faith were to be justified by results. Most
encouraging reports were sent to headquarters from Gonnemara. It
appeared that converts were flocking in, and that the schools of the
missionaries were filled to overflowing. In the matter of education
circumstances favoured the new reformation. The leonine John McHale, the
Papal Archbishop of Tuam, pursued a policy which drove the children of
his flock into the mission schools. The only other kind of education
available was that which some humorous English statesman had called
'national,' and it did not seem to the Archbishop desirable that an
Irish boy should be beaten for speaking his own language, or rewarded
for calling himself 'a happy English child.' He refused to allow the
building of national schools in his diocese, and thus left the cleverer
boys to drift into the mission schools, where they learnt carefully
selected texts of Scripture along with the multiplication-table. The
best of them were pushed on through Dublin University, and crowned the
hopes of their teachers by taking Holy Orders in the Church of England.
There are still to be met with in Galway and Mayo ancient peasants and
broken-down inhabitants of workhouses who speak with a certain pride
of 'my brother the minister.' There are also here and there in English
rectories elderly gentlemen who have almost forgotten the thatched
cottages where they ate their earliest potatoes.
Among these cleverer boys was one AEneas Conneally, who was something
more than clever. He was also religious in an intense and enthusiastic
manner, which puzzled his teachers while it pleased them. His ancestors
had lived for generations on a seaboard farm, watered by salt rain,
swept by misty storms. The famine and the fever that followed it left
him fatherless and brotherless. The emigration schemes robbed him and
his mother of their surviving relations. The mission school and the
missionary's charity effected the half conversion of the mother and a
whole-hearted acceptance of the new faith on the part of AEneas. Unlike
most of his fellows in the college classrooms, he refused to regard an
English curacy as the goal of his ambition. It seemed to him that his
conversion ought not to end in his parading the streets of Liverpool in
a black coat and a white tie. He wanted to return to his people and tell
them in their own tongue the Gospel which he had found so beautiful.
The London committee meditated on his request, and before they arrived
at a conclusion his mother died, having at the last moment made a
tardy submission to the Church she had denied. Her apostasy--so the
missionaries called it--confirmed the resolution of her son, and the
committee at length agreed to allow him to return to his native village
as the first Rector of the newly-created parish of Carrowkeel. He was
provided with all that seemed necessary to insure the success of
his work. They built him a gray house, low and strong, for it had to
withstand the gales which swept in from the Atlantic. They bought him
a field where a cow could graze, and an acre of bog to cut turf from. A
church was built for him, gray and strong, like his house. It was fitted
with comfortable pews, a pulpit, a reading-desk, and a movable table of
wood decently covered with a crimson cloth. Beyond the church stood the
school he had attended as a boy, whitewashed without and draped inside
with maps and illuminated texts. A salary, not princely but sufficient,
was voted to Mr. Conneally, and he was given authority over a
Scripture-reader and a schoolmaster. The whole group of mission
buildings--the rectory, the church, and the school--stood, like types
of the uncompromising spirit of Protestantism, upon the bare hillside,
swept by every storm, battered by the Atlantic spray. Below them
Carrowkeel, the village, cowered in such shelter as the sandhills
afforded. Eastward lonely cottages, faintly smoking dots in the
landscape, straggled away to the rugged bases of the mountains. The
Rev. AEneas Conneally entered upon his mission enthusiastically, and
the London committee awaited results. There were scarcely any results,
certainly none that could be considered satisfactory. The day for making
conversions was past, and the tide had set decisively against the new
reformation. A national school, started by a clearsighted priest, in
spite of his Archbishop, left the mission school almost without pupils.
The Scripture-reader lost heart, and took to seeking encouragement
in the public-house. He found it, and once when exalted--he said,
spiritually--paraded the streets cursing the Virgin Mary. Worse
followed, and the committee in London dismissed the man. A diminishing
income forced on them the necessity of economy, and no successor was
appointed. For a few years Mr. Conneally laboured on. Then a sharp-eyed
inspector from London discovered that the schoolmaster took very little
trouble about teaching, but displayed great talent in prompting his
children at examinations. He, too, was dismissed, and the committee,
still bent on economy, appointed a mistress in his place. She was a
pretty girl, and after she had shivered through the stormy nights of
two winters in the lonely school-house, Mr. Conneally married her.
Afterwards the office of school-teacher was also left vacant. The
whitewashed school fell gradually into decay, and the committee effected
a further saving.
After his marriage Mr. Conneally's missionary enthusiasm began to flag.
His contact with womanhood humanized him. The sternness of the reformer
died in him, and his neighbours, who never could comprehend his
religion, came to understand the man. They learned to look upon him as a
friend, to seek his sympathy and help. In time they learnt to love him.
Two years passed, and a son was born. The village people crowded upon
him with congratulations, and mothers of wide experience praised the boy
till Mrs. Conneally's heart swelled in her with pride. He was christened
Hyacinth, after a great pioneer and leader of the mission work. The
naming was Mr. Conneally's act of contrition for the forsaking of
his enthusiasm, his recognition of the value of a zeal which had not
flagged. Failing the attainment of greatness, the next best thing is to
dedicate a new life to a patron saint who has won the reward of those
who endure to the end. For two years more life in the glebe house was
rapturously happy. Such bliss has in it, no doubt, an element of sin,
and it is not good that it should endure. This was to be seen afterwards
in calmer times, though hardly at the moment when the break came. There
was a hope of a second child, a delightful time of expectation; then an
accident, the blighting of the hope, and in a few days the death of Mrs.
Conneally. Her husband buried her, digging the first grave in the rocky
ground that lay around the little church.
For a time Mr. Conneally was stunned by his sorrow. He stopped working
altogether, ceased to think, even to feel. Men avoided him with
instinctive reverence at first, and afterwards with fear, as he
wandered, muttering to himself, among the sandhills and along the beach.
After a while the power of thought and a sense of the outward things of
life returned to him. He found that an aged crone from the village had
established herself in his house, and was caring for Hyacinth. He let
her stay, and according to her abilities she cooked and washed for him
and the boy, neither asking wages nor taking orders from him, until she
died.
Hyacinth grew and throve amazingly. From morning till evening he was in
the village, among the boats beside the little pier, or in the fields,
when the men worked there. Everyone petted and loved him, from Father
Moran, the priest who had started the national school, down to old
Shamus, the crippled singer of interminable Irish songs and teller of
heroic legends of the past. It was when he heard the boy repeat a story
of Finn MacCool to the old crone in the kitchen that Mr. Conneally awoke
to the idea that he must educate his son. He began, naturally enough,
with Irish, for it was Irish, and not English, that Hyacinth spoke
fluently.
Afterwards the English alphabet followed, though not for the sake of
reading books, for except the Bible and the Prayer-Book Hyacinth was
taught to read no English books. He learned Latin after a fashion, not
with nice attention to complexities of syntax, but as a language meant
to be used, read, and even spoken now and then to Father Moran.
Meanwhile the passage of the years brought changes to Carrowkeel.
The Admiralty established a coastguard station near the village, and
arranged, for the greater security of the Empire, that men in blue-serge
clothes should take it in turns to look at the Atlantic through a
telescope. Then the unquiet spirit of the Congested Districts Board
possessed the place for a while. A young engineer designed a new pier to
shelter fishing-boats. He galvanized the people into unwonted activity,
and, though sceptical of good results, they earned a weekly wage by
building it. Boats came, great able boats, which fought the Atlantic,
and the old curraghs were left to blister in the sun far up on the
beach. Instructors from the Isle of Man taught new ways of catching
mackerel. Green patches between the cottages and the sea, once the
playground of pigs and children, or the marine parade of solemn lines
of geese, were spread with brown nets. On May mornings, if the take was
good, long lines of carts rattled down the road carrying the fish to
the railway at Clifden, and the place bore for a while the appearance
of vitality. A vagrant Englishman discovered that lobsters could be had
almost for the asking in Carrowkeel. The commercial instincts of his
race were aroused in him.
He established a trade between the villagers and the fishmongers of
Manchester. The price of lobsters rose to the unprecedented figure of
four shillings a dozen, and it was supposed that even so the promoter of
the scheme secured a profit.
To AEneas Conneally, growing quietly old, the changes meant very little.
The coastguards, being bound by one of the articles of the British
Constitution, came to church on Sunday mornings with exemplary
regularity, and each man at fixed intervals brought a baby to be
christened and a woman to be churched. Otherwise they hardly affected
Mr. Conneally's life. The great officials who visited Carrowkeel to
survey the benignant activities of the Congested Districts Board
were men whose magnificent intellectual powers raised them above any
recognised form of Christianity. Neither Father Moran's ministrations
nor Mr. Conneally's appealed to them.
The London committee of the mission to Roman Catholics made no inquiry
about what was going on at Carrowkeel. They asked for no statistics,
expected no results, but signed quarterly cheques for Mr. Conneally,
presuming, one may suppose, that if he had ceased to exist they would
somehow have heard of it.
By far the most important event for Hyacinth and his father was the
death of their old housekeeper. In the changed state of society in
Carrowkeel it was found impossible to secure the services of another.
Hyacinth, at this time about fifteen years old, took to the housework
without feeling that he was doing anything strange or unmanly. He was
familiar with the position of 'bachelor boys' who, having grown elderly
under the care of a mother, preferred afterwards the toil of their own
kitchens to the uncertain issue of marrying a girl to 'do for them.'
Life under their altered circumstances was simplified. It seemed
unnecessary to carry a meal from the room it was cooked in to another
for the purpose of eating it, so the front rooms of the house, with
their tattered furniture, were left to moulder quietly in the persistent
damp. One door was felt to be sufficient for the ingress and egress
of two people from a house. The kitchen door, being at the back of the
house, was oftenest the sheltered one, so the front door was bolted, and
the grass grew up to it. One by one, as Hyacinth's education required,
the Latin and Greek books were removed from the forsaken study, and
took their places among the diminishing array of plates and cups on the
kitchen dresser. The spreading and removal of a tablecloth for every
meal came to be regarded as foolish toil. When room was required on the
table for plates, the books and papers were swept on one side. A pile of
potatoes, and the pan, with bacon or a fish perhaps still frizzling in
it, was set in the place left vacant.
Morning and evening AEneas Conneally expected his son to join with him in
prayer. The two knelt together on the earthen floor facing the window,
while the old man meditated aloud on Divine things. There were breaks in
his speech and long silences, so that sometimes it was hard to tell
when his prayer had really ended. These devotions formed a part of
his father's life into which Hyacinth never really entered at all. He
neither rebelled nor mocked. He simply remained outside. So when his
father wandered off to solitary places on the seashore, and sat gazing
into the sunset or a gathering storm, Hyacinth neither followed nor
questioned him. Sometimes on winter nights when the wind howled more
fiercely than usual round the house, the old man would close the book
they read together, and repeat aloud long passages from the Apocalypse.
His voice, weak and wavering at first, would gather strength as he
proceeded, and the young man listened, stirred to vague emotion over the
fall of Babylon the Great.
For the most part Hyacinth's time was his own. Even the hours of study
were uncertain. He read when he liked, and his father seemed content
with long days of idleness followed by others of application. It was,
indeed, only owing to his love of what he read that the boy learned at
all. Often while he tramped from his home to the village at midday his
heart was hot within him with some great thought which had sprung to him
from a hastily construed chorus of Euripides. Sometimes he startled the
fishermen when he went with them at night by chanting Homer's rolling
hexameters through the darkness while the boat lay waiting, borne
gunwale down to the black water with the drag of the net that had been
shot.
There was a tacit understanding that Hyacinth, like his father, was
to take Holy Orders. He matriculated in Trinity College when he was
eighteen, and, as is often done by poorer students, remained at home,
merely passing the required examinations, until he took his degree,
and the time came for his entering the divinity school. Then it became
necessary for him to reside in Dublin, and the first great change in his
life took place.
The night before he left home he and his father sat together in the
kitchen after they had finished their evening meal. For a long time
neither of them spoke. Hyacinth held a book in his hand, but scarcely
attempted to read it. His thoughts wandered from hopeful expectation of
what the future was to bring him and the new life was to mean, to vague
regrets, weighted with misgivings, which would take no certain shape.
There crowded upon him recollections of busy autumn days when the grain
harvest overtook the belated hay-making, and men toiled till late in
the fields; of long nights in the springtime when he tugged at the
fishing-nets, and felt the mackerel slipping and flapping past his
feet in the darkness; of the longer winter nights when he joined the
gatherings of the boys and girls to dance jigs and reels on the earthen
floor of some kitchen. It seemed now that all this was past and over for
him. Holiday time would bring him back to Carrowkeel, but would it be
the same? Would he be the same?
He looked at his father, half hoping for sympathy; but the old man sat
gazing--it seemed to Hyacinth stupidly--into the fire. He wondered if
his father had forgotten that this was their last evening together. Then
suddenly, without raising his eyes, the old man began to speak, and it
appeared that he, too, was thinking of the change.
'I do not know, my son, what they will teach you in their school of
divinity. I have long ago forgotten all I learned there, and I have not
missed the knowledge. It does not seem to me now that what they taught
me has been of any help in getting to know Him.'
He paused for a long time. Hyacinth was familiar enough with his
father's ways of speech to know that the emphatic 'Him' meant the God
whom he worshipped.
'There is, I am sure, only one way in which we can become His friends.
_These are they which have come out of great tribulation!_ You remember
that, Hyacinth? That is the only way. You may be taught truths about
Him, but they matter very little. You have already great thoughts,
burning thoughts, but they will not of themselves bring you to Him. The
other way is the only way. Shall I wish it for you, my son? Shall I give
it to you for my blessing? May great tribulation come upon you in your
life! _Great tribulation!_ See how weak my faith is even now at the very
end. I cannot give you this blessing, although I know very well that it
is the only way. I know this, because I have been along this way myself,
and it has led me to Him.'
Again he paused. It did not seem to Hyacinth to be possible to say
anything. He was not sure in his heart that the friendship of the Man of
Sorrows was so well worth having that he would be content to pay for it
by accepting such a benediction from his father.
'I shall do this for you, Hyacinth: I shall pray that when the choice is
given you, the great choice between what is easy and what is hard, the
right decision may be made for you. I do not know in what form it will
come. Perhaps it will be as it was with me. He made the choice for me,
for indeed I could not have chosen for myself. He set my feet upon the
narrow way, forced me along it for a while, and now at the end I see His
face.'
Hyacinth had heard enough of the brief bliss of his father's married
life to understand. He caught for the first time a glimpse of the
meaning of the solitary life, the long prayers, and the meditations. He
was profoundly moved, but it did not even then seem to him desirable to
choose such a way, or to have such attainment thrust on him.
Next morning the autumn sunlight chased the recollection of his emotion
from his mind. The fishermen stopped his car as he drove through the
street to shake hands with him. Their wives shouted familiar blessings
from the cabin doors. Father Moran came bare-headed to the gate of his
presbytery garden and waved a farewell.
CHAPTER II
There is that about the material fabric, the actual stone and mortar, of
Trinity College, Dublin, which makes a vivid appeal to the imagination
of the common man. The cultured sentimentalist will not indeed be
able to lave his soul in tepid emotion while he walks through these
quadrangles, as he may among the cloisters and chapels of the Oxford
colleges. The amateur of the past cannot here stand at gaze before any
single building as he does before the weather-beaten front of Oriel,
tracing in imagination the footsteps of Newman or Arnold. Yet to the
average man, and far more to the newly emancipated schoolboy, Trinity
College, Dublin, makes an appeal which can hardly be ignored. In Oxford
and Cambridge town and University are mixed together; shops jostle and
elbow colleges in the streets. In Dublin a man leaves the city behind
him when he enters the college, passes completely out of the atmosphere
of the University when he steps on to the pavement. The physical
contrast is striking enough, appealing to the ear and the eye. The
rattle of the traffic, the jangling of cart bells, the inarticulate
babel of voices, suddenly cease when the archway of the great
entrance-gate is passed.
An immense silence takes their place. There is no longer any need for
watchfulness, nor risk of being hustled by the hurrying crowds.
Instead of footway and street crossing there are broad walks, untrodden
stretches of smooth grass. The heavy campanile is in front, and heights
of gray building frown down on each side. It needs no education, not
even any imagination, to appreciate the change. It is not necessary to
know that great scholars inhabited the place, to recall any name or
any man's career. The appeal is not to a recollected impression of the
Middle Ages, or indeed of any past, remote or near. It is the spirit of
scholarship itself, abstract, intangible, which creates this atmosphere.
Knowledge, a severe goddess, awes while she beckons.
Hyacinth Conneally had submitted himself to such emotions time after
time when, fresh from the wilds of Connemara, he made his way to the
examination-hall, an outside student in a borrowed cap and gown. Now,
when for the first time he entered into the actual life of the college,
could look up at windows of rooms that were his own, and reckon on his
privilege of fingering tomes from the shelves of the huge library, the
spirit of the place awed him anew. He neither analyzed nor attempted
an expression of what he felt, but his first night within the walls was
restless because of the inspiration which filled him.
Yet this college does not fail to make an appeal also to the thinking
mind, only it is a strange appeal, tending to sadness. The sudden
silence after the tumult of the streets has come for some minds to
be the symbol of a divorce between the knowledge within and the life
without. And this is not the separation which must always exist between
thought and action, the gulf fixed between the student and the merchant.
It is a real divorce between the nation and the University, between
the two kinds of life which ought, like man and woman, to complete each
other through their very diversity, but here have gone hopelessly apart.
Never once through all the centuries of Ireland's struggle to express
herself has the University felt the throb of her life. It is true
that Ireland's greatest patriots, from Swift to Davis, have been her
children; but she has never understood their spirit, never looked on
them as anything but strangers to her family. They have been to her
stray robber wasps, to be driven from the hive; while to the others they
have seemed cygnets among her duckling brood. It is very wonderful that
the University alone has been able to resist the glamour of Ireland's
past, and has failed to admire the persistency of her nationality.
There has surely been enough in every century that has passed since the
college was founded to win it over from alien thought and the ideals of
the foreigner.
All this Hyacinth came to feel afterwards, and learnt in bitterness of
spirit to be angry at the University's isolation from Irish life. At
first quite other thoughts crowded upon his mind. He felt a rebellion
against his father's estimate of what he was to learn. It seemed to him
that he had come into vital touch with the greatest life of all. He was
to join the ranks of those who besieged the ears of God for knowledge,
and left behind them to successors yet unborn great traditions of the
enigmas they had guessed. In entering upon the study of theology he
seemed to become a soldier in the sacred band, the elite of the army
which won and guarded truth. Already he was convinced that there could
be no greater science than the Divine one, no more inspiring moment in
life than this one when he took his first step towards the knowledge of
God.
He crossed the quadrangle with his mind full of such thoughts,
and joined a group of students round the door of one of the
examination-halls. It did not shock his sense of fitness that some of
his fellow-students in the great science wore shabby clothes, or that
others scorned the use of a razor. Bred as he had been at home, he felt
no incongruity between dirty collars and the study of divinity. It
was not until he caught scraps of conversation that he experienced an
awakening from his dream. One eager group surrounded a foreseeing youth
who had written the dates of the first four General Councils of the
Church upon his shirt-cuff.
'Read them out, like a good man,' said one.
'Hold on a minute,' said another, 'till I see if I have got them right.
I ground them up specially this morning. Nicaea, 318--no, hang it! that's
the number of Bishops who were present; 325 was the date, wasn't it?'
'What was the row about at Chalcedon?' asked a tall, pale youth. 'Didn't
some monk or other go for Cyril of Alexandria?'
'You'll be stuck anyhow, Tommy,' said a neat, dapper little man with a
very ragged gown.
Hyacinth slipped past the group, and approached two better dressed
students who stood apart from the others.
'Is this,' he asked, 'where the entrance examination to the divinity
school is to be held?'
For answer he received a curt 'Yes' and a stare. Apparently his suit of
brown Connemara homespun did not commend him to these aristocrats. They
turned their backs on him, and resumed their conversation.
'She was walking up and down the pier listening to the band with two
of the rankest outsiders you ever set eyes on--medicals out of Paddy
Dunn's. Of course I could do nothing else but break it off.'
'Oh, you were engaged to her, then? I didn't know.'
'Well, I was and I wasn't. Anyhow, I thought it better to have a clear
understanding. She came up to me outside the door of Patrick's on Sunday
afternoon just as if nothing had happened. "Hullo, Bob," says she;
"I haven't seen you for ages." "My name," said I, "is Mr. Banks"--just
like that, as cool as you please. I could see she felt it. "I've called
you Bob," says she, very red in the face, "and you've called me Maimie
ever since we went to Sunday-school together, and I'm not going to begin
calling you Mr. Banks now, my boy-o! so don't you think it!"'
It was a relief to Hyacinth when he was tapped on the arm by a boy with
a very pimply face, who thrust a paper into his hand, and distracted
his attention from the final discomfiture of Maimie, which Mr. Banks was
recounting in a clear, high-pitched voice, as if he wished everyone in
the neighbourhood to hear it.
'I hope you'll come,' said the boy.
'Where?'
'It's all in the paper. The students' prayer-meeting, held every
Wednesday morning at nine o'clock sharp. Special meeting to-morrow.'
Hyacinth was bewildered. There was something quite unfamiliar in this
prompt and business-like advertisement of prayer. The student with the
papers began to be doubtful of him.
'You're not High Church, are you?' he asked. 'We're not. We don't have
printed offices, with verses and responds, and that sort of thing. We
have extempore prayer by members of the union.'
'No; I'm not High Church,' said Hyacinth--'at least, I think not. I
don't really know much about these things. I'll be very glad to go to
your meeting.'
'That's right,' said the other. 'All are welcome. There will be special
prayer to-morrow for the success of the British arms. I suppose you
heard that old Kruger has sent an ultimatum. There will be war at once.'
There was a sudden movement among the students; gowns were pulled
straight and caps adjusted.
'Here he comes,' said someone.
Dr. Henry, the divinity professor, crossed the square rapidly. He was a
middle-aged man, stout, almost ponderous, in figure; but he held himself
rigidly upright, and walked fast across the square. The extreme neatness
of his clothes contrasted with the prevailing shabbiness of the students
and the assistant lecturers who followed him. Yet he did not seem to be
a man who gave to externals more than their due share of consideration.
His broad forehead gave promise of great intellectual power, a promise
half belied by the narrow gray eyes beneath it. These were eyes which
might see keenly, and would certainly see things just as they are,
though they were not likely to catch any glimpse of that greater
world where objects cannot be focussed sharply. Yet in them, an odd
contradiction, there lurked a possibility of humorous twinkling. The
man was capable perhaps of the broad tolerance of the great humorist,
certainly of very acute perception of life's minor incongruities. His
thin lips were habitually pressed together, giving a suggestion of
strength to the set of his mouth. A man with such a mouth can think and
act, but not feel either passionately or enduringly. He will direct men
because he knows his own mind, but is not likely to sway them because
he will always be master of himself, and will not become enslaved to
any great enthusiasm. The students trooped into the hall, and the
examination began. The assistant lecturers helped in the work. Each
student was called up in turn, asked a few questions, and given a
portion of the Greek Testament to translate. For the most part their
capacities were known beforehand. There were some who had won honours
in their University course before entering the divinity school. For
them the examiners were all smiles, and the business of the day was
understood to be perfunctory. Others were recognised as mere pass men,
whom it was necessary to spur to some exertion. A few, like Hyacinth,
were unknown. These were the poorer students who had not been able to
afford to reside at the University sooner than was absolutely necessary.
Their knowledge, generally scanty, was received by the examiners with
undisguised contempt. It fell to Hyacinth's lot to present himself to
Dr. Henry. He did so tremulously.
The professor inquired his name, and looked him over coldly.
'Read for me,' he said, handing him a Greek Testament. The passage
marked was St. Paul's great description of charity. It was very familiar
to Hyacinth, and he read it with a serious feeling for the words. Dr.
Henry, who at first had occupied himself with some figures on a sheet of
paper, looked up and listened attentively.
'Where were you at school,' he asked. 'Who taught you Greek?'
'My father taught me, sir.'
'Ah! You have got a very peculiar pronunciation, and you've made an
extraordinary number of mistakes in accentuation and quantity, but
you've read as if St. Paul meant something. Now translate.'
'You have given me,' he said, when Hyacinth had finished, 'the
Authorized Version word for word. Can you do no better than that?'
'I can do it differently,' said Hyacinth, 'not better.'
'Do you know any Greek outside of the New Testament?'
Hyacinth repeated a few lines from Homer.
'That book of the "Odyssey" is not in the college course,' said Dr.
Henry. 'How did you come to read it?'
Hyacinth had no explanation to give. He had read the book, it seemed,
without being forced, and without hope of getting a prize. He recited it
as if he liked it. The remainder of the examination disclosed the fact
that he was lamentably deficient in the rudiments of Greek grammar, and
had the very vaguest ideas of the history of the Church.
Afterwards Professor Henry discussed the new class with his assistants
as they crossed the square together.
'The usual lot,' said Dr. Spenser--'half a dozen scholars, perhaps one
man among them with real brains. The rest are either idlers or, what is
worse, duffers.'
'I hit on one man with brains,' said Dr. Henry.
'Oh! Thompson, I suppose. I saw that you took him. He did well in his
degree exam.'
'No,' said Dr. Henry; 'the man I mean has more brains than Thompson.
He's a man I never heard of before. His name is Conneally. He looks
as if he came up from the wilds somewhere. He has hands like an
agricultural labourer, and a brogue that I fancy comes from Galway.
But he's a man to keep an eye on. He may do something by-and-by if he
doesn't go off the lines. We must try and lick him into shape a bit.'
Hyacinth Conneally knew extremely little about the politics, foreign or
domestic, of the English nation. His father neither read newspapers nor
cared to discuss such rumours of the doings of Governments as happened
to reach Carrowkeel. On the other hand, he knew a good deal about
the history of Ireland, and the English were still for him the 'new
foreigners' whom Keating describes. His intercourse with the fishermen
and peasants of the Galway seaboard had intensified his vague dislike
of the series of oscillations between bullying and bribery which make up
the story of England's latest attempts to govern Ireland. Without in the
least understanding the reasons for the war in South Africa, he felt
a strong sympathy with the Boers. To him they seemed a small people
doomed, if they failed to defend themselves, to something like the
treatment which Ireland had received.
It was therefore with surprise, almost with horror, that he listened for
the first time to the superlative Imperialism of the Protestant Unionist
party when he attended the prayer-meeting to which he had been invited.
The room was well filled with students, who joined heartily in the
singing of 'Onward, Christian soldiers,' a hymn selected as appropriate
for the occasion. An address by the chairman, a Dublin clergyman,
followed. According to this gentleman the Boers were a psalm-singing
but hypocritical nation addicted to slave-driving. England, on the
other hand, was the pioneer of civilization, and the nursing-mother of
missionary enterprise. It was therefore clear that all good Christians
ought to pray for the success of the British arms. The speech bewildered
rather than irritated Hyacinth. The mind gasps for a time when immersed
suddenly in an entirely new view of things, and requires time to adjust
itself for pleasure or revolt, just as the body does when plunged into
cold water. It had never previously occurred to him that an Irishman
could regard England as anything but a pirate. Anger rapidly succeeded
his surprise while he listened to the prayers which followed. It was
apparently open to any student present to give utterance, as occasion
offered, to his desires, and a large number of young men availed
themselves of the opportunity. Some spoke briefly and haltingly, some
laboriously attempted to adapt the phraseology of the Prayer-Book to the
sentiment of the moment, a few had the gift of rapid and even eloquent
supplication. These last were the hardest to endure. They prefaced their
requests with fantastic eulogies of England's righteousness, designed
apparently for the edification of the audience present in the flesh, for
they invariably began by assuring the Almighty that He was well aware
of the facts, and generally apologized to Him for recapitulating
them. Hyacinth's anger increased as he heard the fervent groans which
expressed the unanimous conviction of the justice of the petitions. No
one seemed to think it possible that the right could be on the other
side.
When the meeting was over, the secretary, whose name, it appeared, was
Mackenzie, greeted Hyacinth warmly.
'Glad to have you with us,' he said. 'I hope you'll always come. I shall
be delighted to propose you as a member of the union. Subscription
one shilling, to defray necessary expenses. In any case, whether you
subscribe or not, we shall be glad to have you with us.'
'I shall never come again,' said Hyacinth.
Mackenzie drew back, astonished.
'Why not? Didn't you like the meeting? I thought it was capital--so
informal and hearty. Didn't you think it was hearty? But perhaps you are
High Church. Are you?'
Hyacinth remembered that this identical question had been put to him the
day before by the pimply-faced boy who distributed leaflets. He wondered
vaguely at the importance which attached to the nickname.
'I am not sure,' he said, 'that I quite know what you mean. You see, I
have only just entered the divinity school, and I hardly know anything
about theology. What is a High Churchman?'
'Oh, it doesn't require any theology to know that. It's the simplest
thing in the world. A High Churchman is--well, of course, a High
Churchman sings Gregorian chants, you know, and puts flowers on
the altar. There's more than that, of course. In fact, a High
Churchman------' He paused and then added with an air of victorious
conviction: 'But anyhow if you were High Church you would be sure to
know it.'
'Ah, well,' said Hyacinth, turning to leave the room, 'I don't know
anything about it, so I suppose I'm not High Church.'
Mackenzie, however, was not going to allow him to escape so easily.
'Hold on a minute. If you're not High Church why won't you come to our
meetings?'
'Because I can't join in your prayers when I am not at all sure that
England ought to win.'
'Good Lord!' said Mackenzie. It is possible to startle even the
secretary of a prayer union into mild profanity. 'You don't mean to tell
me you are a Pro-Boer, and you a divinity student?'
It had not hitherto struck Hyacinth that it was impossible to combine a
sufficient orthodoxy with a doubt about the invariable righteousness of
England's quarrels. Afterwards he came to understand the matter better.
CHAPTER III
Mackenzie was not at heart an ill-natured man, and he would have
repudiated with indignation the charge of being a mischief-maker. He
felt after his conversation with Hyacinth much as most men would if they
discovered an unsuspected case of small-pox among their acquaintances.
His first duty was to warn the society in which he moved of the
existence of a dangerous man, a violent and wicked rebel. He repeated
a slightly exaggerated version of what Hyacinth had said to everyone
he met. The pleasurable sense of personal importance which comes with
having a story to tell grew upon him, and he spent the greater part
of the day in seeking out fresh confidants to swell the chorus of his
commination.
In England at the time public opinion was roused to a fever heat of
patriotic enthusiasm, and the Irish Protestant Unionists were eager to
outdo even the music-halls in Imperialist sentiment, the students of
Trinity College being then, as ever, the 'death or glory' boys of
Irish loyalty. It is easy to imagine how Hyacinth's name was whispered
shudderingly in the reading-room of the library, how his sentiments were
anathematized in the dining-hall at commons, how plots were hatched for
the chastisement of his iniquity over the fire in the evenings, when
pipes were lit and tea was brewed.
At the end of the week Hyacinth was in an exceedingly uncomfortable
position. Outside the lecture-rooms nobody would speak to him. Inside he
found himself the solitary occupant of the bench he sat on--a position
of comparative physical comfort, for the other seats were crowded, but
not otherwise desirable. A great English poet had just composed a poem,
which a musician, no doubt equally eminent, had set to a noble tune.
It embodied an appeal for funds for purposes not clearly specified, and
hazarded the experiment of rhyming 'cook's son' with 'Duke's son,' which
in less fervent times might have provoked the criticism of the captious.
It became the fashion in college to chant this martial ode whenever
Hyacinth was seen approaching. It was thundered out by a choir who
marched in step up and down his staircase. Bars of it were softly
hummed in his ear while he tried to note the important truths which
the lecturers impressed upon their classes. One night five musicians
relieved each other at the task of playing the tune on a concertina
outside his door. They commenced briskly at eight o'clock in the
evening, and the final sleepy version only died away at six the next
morning.
Dr. Henry, who either did not know or chose to ignore the state of
the students' feelings, advised Hyacinth to become a member of the
Theological Debating Society. The election to membership, he said, was
a mere form, and nobody was ever excluded. Hyacinth sent his name to
the secretary, and was blackbeaned by an overwhelming majority of the
members. Shortly afterwards the Lord-lieutenant paid a visit to the
college, and the students seized the chance of displaying their loyalty
to the Throne and Constitution. They assembled outside the library,
which the representative of Queen Victoria was inspecting under the
guidance of the Provost and two of the senior Fellows. It is the nature
of the students of Trinity College to shout while they wait for the
development of interesting events, and on this occasion even the library
walls were insufficient to exclude the noise. The excellent nobleman
inside found himself obliged to cast round for original remarks about
the manuscript of the 'Book of Kells,' while the air was heavy with the
verses which commemorate the departure of 'fifty thousand fighting men'
to Table Bay. When at length he emerged on the library steps the tune
changed, as was right and proper, to 'God save the Queen.' Strangely
enough, Hyacinth had never before heard the national anthem. It is not
played or sung often by the natives of Connemara, and although the ocean
certainly forms part of the British Empire, the Atlantic waves have
not yet learned to beat out this particular melody. So it happened
that Hyacinth, without meaning to be offensive, omitted the ceremony of
removing his hat. A neighbour, joyful at the opportunity, snatched the
offending garment, and skimmed it far over the heads of the crowd. A few
hard kicks awakened Hyacinth more effectually to a sense of his crime,
and it was with a torn coat and many bruises that he escaped in the end
to the shelter of his rooms, less inclined to be loyal than when he left
them.
After a few weeks it became clear that the British armies in South
Africa were not going to reap that rich and unvarying crop of victories
which the valour of the soldiers and the ability of the generals
deserved. The indomitable spirit of the great nation rose to the
occasion, and the position of those who entertained doubts about the
justice of the original quarrel became more than ever unbearable.
Hyacinth took to wandering by himself through parts of the city in which
he was unlikely to meet any of his fellow-students. His soul grew bitter
within him. The course of petty persecution to which he was subjected
hardened his original sentimental sympathy with the Boer cause into a
clearly defined hatred of everything English. When he got clear of the
college and the hateful sound of the 'cook's son, Duke's son' tune, he
tramped along, gloating quietly over the news of the latest 'regrettable
incident.'
He was very lonely and friendless, for not even the discomfiture of his
enemies can make up to a young man for the want of a friend to speak to.
An inexpressible longing for home came over him. There was a shop in a
by-street which exposed photographs of Galway scenery in its windows for
a time. Hyacinth used to go day by day to gaze at them. The modest front
of the Gaelic League Hyce was another haunt of his. He used to stand
Debating his eyes on the Irish titles of the books in the window, and
repeating the words he read aloud to himself until the passers-by turned
to look at him. Once he entered a low-browed, dingy shop merely because
the owner's name was posted over the door in Gaelic characters. It was
one of those shops to be found in the back streets of most large towns
which devote themselves to a composite business, displaying newspapers,
apples, tobacco, and sweets for sale. The afternoon light, already
growing feeble in the open air, had almost deserted the interior of
the shop. At first Hyacinth saw nothing but an untidy red-haired
girl reading in a corner by the Ught of a candle. Ho asked her for
cigarettes. She rose, and laid her book and the candle on the counter.
It was one of O'Growney's Irish primers, dirty and pencilled. Hyacinth's
heart warmed to her at once. Was she not trying to learn the dear Irish
which the barefooted girls far away at home shouted to each other as
they dragged the seaweed up from the shore? Then from the far end of the
shop he heard a man's voice speaking Irish. It was not the soft liquid
tongue of the Connaught peasants, but a language more regular and
formal. The man spoke it as if it were a language he had learned,
comparatively slowly and with effort. Yet the sound of it seemed to
Hyacinth one of the sweetest things he had ever heard. Not even the
shrinking self-distrust which he had been taught by repeated snubbings
and protracted ostracism could prevent him from making himself known to
this stranger.
'The blessing of God upon Ireland!' he said.
There was not a moment's hesitation on the part of the stranger. The
sound of the Gaelic was enough for him. He stretched out both hands to
Hyacinth.
'Is it that you also are one of us--one of the Gaels?' he asked.
Hyacinth seized the outstretched hands and held them tight. The feeling
of offered friendship and companionship warmed him with a sudden glow.
He felt that his eyes were filling with tears, and that his voice would
break if he tried to speak, but he did not care at all. He poured out a
long Gaelic greeting, scarcely knowing what he said. Perhaps neither
the man whose hands he held nor the owner of the shop behind the counter
fully understood him, but they guessed at his feelings.
'Is it that you are a stranger here and lonely? Where is your home? What
name is there on you?'
'Maiseadh, I am a stranger indeed and lonely too,' said Hyacinth.
'You are a stranger no longer, then. We are all of us friends with each
other. You speak our own dear tongue, and that is enough to make us
friends.'
The tobacconist, it appeared, also spoke Irish of a kind. He cast
occasional remarks into the conversation which followed, less, it seemed
to Hyacinth, with a view of giving expression to any thought than for
the sake of airing some phrases which he had somewhat inadequately
learned. Indeed, it struck Hyacinth very soon that his new friend was
getting rather out of his depth in his 'own dear tongue.' At last the
tobacconist said with a smile:
'I'm afraid we must ask Mr. Conneally--didn't you say that Conneally was
your name?--to speak the Beurla. I'm clean beaten with the Gaelic, and
you can't go much further yourself, Cahal. Isn't that the truth, now.'
'And small blame to me,' said Cahal--in English, Charles--Maguire.
'After all, what am I but a learner? And it's clear that Mr. Conneally
has spoken it since ever he spoke at all.'
Hyacinth smiled and nodded. Maguire went on:
'What are you doing this afternoon? What do you say to coming round with
me to see Mary O'Dwyer? It's her "at home" day, and I'm just on my way
there.'
'But,' said Hyacinth, 'I don't know her. I can hardly go to her house,
can I?'
'Oh, I'll introduce you,' said Maguire cheerfully. 'She allows me to
bring anyone I like to see her. She likes to know anyone who loves
Ireland and speaks Gaelic. Perhaps we'll meet Finola too; she's often
there.'
'Meet who?'
'Finola. That's what we call Miss Goold--Augusta Goold, you know. We
call her Finola because she shelters the rest of us under her wings when
the Moyle gets tempestuous. You remember the story?'
'Of course I do,' said Hyacinth, who had learnt the tale of Lir's
daughter as other children do Jack the Giant-Killer. 'And who is Miss
O'Dwyer?'
'Oh, she writes verses. Surely you know them?'
Hyacinth shook his head.
'What a pity! We all admire them immensely. She has something nearly
every week in the _Croppy_. She has just brought out a volume of lyrics.
Her brother worked the publishing of it in New York. He is mixed up with
literary people there. You must have heard of him at all events. He's
Patrick O'Dwyer, one of the few who stood by O'Neill when he fought the
priests. He gave up the Parliamentary people after that. No honest man
could do anything else.'
He conducted Hyacinth to one of the old squares on the north side of the
city. When the tide of fashion set southwards, spreading terraces and
villas from Leeson Street to Killiney, it left behind some of the finest
houses in Dublin. Nowadays for a comparatively low rent it is possible
to live in a splendid house if you do not aspire to the glory of a smart
address. Miss O'Dwyer's house, for instance, boasted a spacious hall and
lofty sitting-rooms, with impressive ceilings and handsome fireplaces;
yet she paid for it little more than half the rent which a cramped villa
in Clyde Road would have cost her. Even so, it was somewhat of a mystery
to her friends how Miss O'Dwyer managed to live there. A solicitor who
had his offices on the ground-floor probably paid the rent of the whole
house; but the profits of verse-making are small, and a poetess, like
meaner women, requires food, clothes, and fire. Indeed, Miss O'Dwyer,
no longer 'M. O'D.,' whose verses adorned the _Croppy_, but 'Miranda,'
served an English paper as Irish correspondent. It was a pity that a
pen certainly capable of better things should have been employed
in describing the newest costume of the Lord Lieutenant's wife at
Punchestown, or the confection of pale-blue tulle which, draped round
Mrs. Chesney, adorned a Castle ball. Miss O'Dwyer herself was heartily
ashamed of the work, but it was, or appeared to her to be, necessary to
live, and even with the aid of occasional remittances from Patrick in
New York, she could scarcely have afforded her friends a cup of tea
without the guineas earned by torturing the English language in a
weekly chronicle of Irish society's clothes. Even with the help of such
earnings, poverty was for ever tapping her on the shoulder, and no one
except Mary herself and her one maid-servant knew how carefully fire
and light had to be economized in the splendid rooms where an extinct
aristocracy had held revels a century before.
Hyacinth and his friend advanced past the solicitor's doors, and up
the broad staircase as far as the drawing-room. For a time they got no
further than the threshold. The opening of the door was greeted with a
long-drawn and emphatic 'Hush!' from the company within. Maguire laid
his hand on Hyacinth's arm, and the two stood still looking into the
room. What was left of the feeble autumn twilight was almost excluded by
half-drawn curtains. No lamp was lit, and the fire cast only fitful rays
here and there through the room. It was with difficulty that Hyacinth
discerned figures in a semicircle, and a slim woman in a white dress
standing apart from the others near the fire. Then he heard a voice,
a singularly sweet voice, as it seemed to him, reciting with steady
emphasis on the syllables which marked the rhythm of the poem:
'Out there in the West, where the heavy gray clouds are
insistent,
Where the sky stoops to gather the earth into mournful
embraces,
Where the country lies saturate, sodden, round saturate
hamlets--
'Out there in the sunset where rages and surges Atlantic,
And the salt is commingled with rain over desolate beaches,
Thy heart, O beloved, is still beating--fitfully, feebly.
'Is beating--ah! not as it beat in the squadrons of Sarafield,
Exultantly, joyously, gladly, expectant of battle,
With throbs like the notes of the drums when men gather for
fighting.
'Beats still; but, ah! not as it beat in the latest Fitzgerald,
Nobly devote to his race's most noble tradition;
Or in Emmet or Davis, or, last on their list, in O'Brien.
'Beats fitfully, feebly. O desolate mother! O Erin!
When shall the pulse of thy life, which but flutters in
Connaucht,
Throb through thy meadows and boglands, and mountains and
cities?'
A subdued murmur of applause greeted the close of the recitation, and
praise more sincere than that with which politeness generally greets the
drawing-room performances of minor poets. Hyacinth joined in neither.
It seemed to him that the verses were too beautiful to speak about, so
sacred that praise was a kind of sacrilege. Perhaps some excuse may be
found for his emotion in the fact that for weeks he had heard no poetry
except the ode about 'wiping something off a slate.' The violence of the
contrast benumbed his critical faculty. So a man who was obliged to gaze
for a long time at the new churches erected in Belfast might afterwards
catch himself in the act of admiring the houses which the Congested
Districts Board builds in Connaught.
'I am afraid I must have bored you.' It was Miss O'Dwyer who greeted
him. 'I didn't see you and Mr. Maguire come in until I had commenced my
poor little poem. I ought to have given you some tea before I inflicted
it on you.'
'Oh,' said Hyacinth, 'it was beautiful. Is it really your own? Did you
write it?'
Miss O'Dwyer flushed. The vehement sincerity of his tone embarrassed
her, though she was accustomed to praise.
'You are very kind,' she said. 'All my friends here are far too kind to
me. But come now, I must give you some tea.'
The tea was nearly stone cold and weak with frequent waterings. The
saucer and spoon, possibly even the cup, had been used by someone else
before. Mr. Maguire secured for himself the last remaining morsel of
cake, leaving Hyacinth the choice between a gingerbread biscuit and
a torn slice of bread and butter. None of these things appeared to
embarrass Miss O'Dwyer. They did not matter in the least to Hyacinth.
'Do you know the West well?' he asked.
'Indeed, I do not. I've always longed to go and spend a whole long
summer there, but I've never had the chance.'
'Then how did you know it was like that? I mean, how did you catch the
spirit of it in your poem?'
'Did I?' she said. 'I am so glad. But I don't deserve any credit for
it. I wrote those verses after I had been looking at one of Jim Tynan's
pictures. You know them, of course? No? Oh, but you must go and see them
at once if you love the West. And you do, don't you?'
'It is my home,' said Hyacinth.
When he had finished his tea she introduced him to some of the people
who were in the room. Afterwards he came to know them, but the memories
which Miss O'Dwyer's verses called up in him made him absent and
preoccupied. He scarcely heard the names she spoke. Soon the party broke
up, and Hyacinth turned to look for Maguire.
'I'm afraid Mr. Maguire has gone,' said Miss O'Dwyer. 'He has a lecture
to attend this afternoon. You must come here again, Mr. Conneally. Come
next Wednesday--every Wednesday, if you like. We can have a talk about
the West. I shall want you to tell me all sorts of things. Perhaps
Finola will be here next week. She very often comes. I shall look
forward to introducing you to her. You are sure to admire her immensely.
We all do.'
'Yes, I've heard of her,' said Hyacinth. 'Mr. Maguire told me who she
was.'
'Oh, but he couldn't have told you half. She is magnificent. All the
rest of us are only little children compared to her. Now be sure you
come and meet her.'
CHAPTER IV
Ever since Pitt and Castlerea perpetrated their Act of Union two
political parties have struggled together in Ireland. Both of them have
been steadily prominent, so prominent that they have sometimes attracted
the attention of the English public, and drawn to their contest a little
quite unintelligent interest. The simplest and most discernible line
of division between them is a religious one. The Protestant party has
hitherto been guided and led by the gentry. It has been steadily loyal
to England and to the English Government. It has not been greatly
concerned about Ireland or Ireland's welfare, but has been consistently
anxious to preserve its own privileges, powers, and property. It has not
come well out of the struggle of the nineteenth century. Its Church has
been disestablished, its privileges and powers abolished, and the last
remnants of its property are being filched from it. It is a curious
piece of irony that this party should have hastened its own defeat
by the very policy adopted to secure victory. No doubt the Irish
aristocracy would have suffered less if they had been seditious instead
of loyal. The Roman Catholic party has been led by ecclesiastics, and
has always included the bulk of the people. Its leaders have not cared
for the welfare of Ireland any more than the Protestant party, but they
have always pretended that they did, being in this respect much wiser
than their opponents. They have pulled the strings of a whole series of
political movements, and made puppets dance on and off the stage as they
chose. Also they have understood how to deal with England. Unlike the
Protestant party, they have never been loyal, because they knew from the
first that England gives most to those who bully or worry her. They have
kept one object steadily in view, an object quite as selfish in reality
as that of the aristocracy--the aggrandisement of their Church. For
this they have been prepared at any time to sacrifice the interests
of Ireland, and are content at the present moment to watch the country
bleeding to death with entire complacency. The leaders of this party
enter upon the twentieth century in sight of their promised land. They
possess all the power and nearly all the wealth of Ireland. If the
Bishops can secure the continuance of English government for the next
half-century Ireland will have become the Church's property. Her
money will go to propagating the faith. Her children will supply the
English-speaking world with a superfluity of priests and nuns.
Outside both parties there have always been a few men united by no ties
of policy or religion, unless, as perhaps we may, we call patriotism
a kind of religion. Other lands have been loved sincerely, devotedly,
passionately, as mothers, wives, and mistresses are loved. Ireland alone
has been loved religiously, as men are taught to love God or the
saints. Her lovers have called themselves Catholic or Protestant: such
distinctions have not mattered to these men. They have scarcely ever
been able to form themselves into a party, never into a strong or a wise
party. They have been violent, desperate, frequently ridiculous, but
always sincere and unselfish. Their great weakness has lain in the fact
that they have had no consistent aim. Some of their leaders have looked
for a return to Ireland's Constitution, and built upon the watchword of
the volunteers, 'The King, the Lords, and the Commons of Ireland.' Some
have dreamed of a complete independence, of an Irish republic shaping
its own world policy. Some have wholly distrusted politics, and given
their strength to the intellectual, spiritual, or material regeneration
of the people. Among these men have been found the sanest practical
reformers and the wildest revolutionary dreamers. On the outskirts of
their company have hung all sorts of people. Parliamentary politicians
have leaned towards them, and been driven straightway out of public
life. Criminals have claimed fellowship with them, and brought
discredit upon honourable men. Poets and men of letters have drawn
their inspiration from their strivings, and in return have decked their
patriotism with imperishable splendour. In the future, no doubt,
the struggle will lie between this party and the hitherto victorious
hierarchy, with England for ally, and the fight seems a wholly unequal
one. It was into an advanced and vehement group of patriots that Mary
O'Dwyer introduced Hyacinth. He became a regular reader of the _Croppy_,
and made the acquaintance of most of the contributors to its pages. He
found them clever, enthusiastic, and agreeable men and women, but, as
he was forced to admit to himself, occasionally reckless. One evening a
discussion took place in Mary O'Dwyer's room which startled and shocked
him. Excitement ran high over the events of the war. The sympathies
of the 'Independent Irelanders,' as they called themselves, fiercely
assertive even in their name, were of course entirely with the Boers,
and they received every report of an English reverse with unmixed
satisfaction.
When Hyacinth entered the room he found four people there. Mary
O'Dwyer herself was making tea at a little table near the fire. Augusta
Goold--the famous Finola--was stretched in a deep chair smoking
a cigarette. She was a remarkable woman both physically and
intellectually. It was her delight to emphasize her splendid figure
by draping it in brilliant reds and yellows. To anyone who cared to
speculate on such a subject it seemed a mystery why her clothes remained
on her when she walked. The laws of gravity seemed to demand that they
should loosen with her movements, become detached, and finally drop
down. Nothing of the sort had ever happened, so it must be presumed that
she had secret and unconventional ways of fastening them. Similarly it
was not easy to see why her hair stayed upon her head. It was arranged
upon no recognised system, and suggested that she had perfected the art,
known generally only to heroines of romances, of twisting her tresses
with a single movement into a loose knot. That she affected white frills
of immense complexity was frequently evident, owing to the difficulty
she experienced in confining her long legs to feminine attitudes.
Her complexion put it in the power of her enemies to accuse her of
familiarity with cosmetics--a slander, for she had been observed to turn
green during an attack of sea-sickness. She had great brilliant eyes,
which were capable of expressing intensity of enthusiasm or hatred,
but no one had ever seen them soften with any emotion like love. Her
attitude towards social conventions was symbolized by her clothes. In
the old days, when the houses of 'society' had still been open to her,
she was accustomed to challenge criticism by fondling a pet monkey
at tea-parties. Since she had lost caste by taking up the cause of
'Independent Ireland' the ape had been discarded, and the same result
achieved by occasional bickerings with the police. She was an able
public speaker, and could convince her audiences for a time of the
reasonableness of opinions which next morning appeared to be the outcome
of delirium. She wrote, not, like Mary O'Dwyer, verse in which any
sentiment may be excused, but incisive and vigorous prose. Occasionally
even the Castle officials got glimmerings of the meaning of one of her
articles, and suppressed the whole issue of the _Croppy_ in which it
appeared.
Near her sat a much less remarkable person--Thomas Grealy, historian
and archaeologist. He had been engaged for many years on a history of
Ireland, but no volume of it had as yet appeared. His friends suspected
that he had got permanently stuck somewhere about the period of the
introduction of Christianity into the island. His essays, published in
the _Croppy_, dwelt with passionate regret on the departed glories
of Tara. He held strong views about the historical reality of the
Tuath-de-Danaan, and got irritated at the most casual mention of Dr.
Petrie's theory of the round towers. He had proved that King Arthur
was an Irishman, with whose reputation Malory and Tennyson had taken
unwarrantable liberties. The name of Dante brought a smile of contempt
to his lips, for he knew that the 'Purgatorio' was stolen shamelessly
from the works of a monk of Cong. He nourished a secret passion for
Finola. He never ventured to declare it, but his imagination endowed
every heroine, from Queen Maev down to the foster daughter of the
Leinster farmer who married King Cormac, with Miss Goold's figure, eyes
and hair. It was perhaps the burning of this passion which rendered him
so cadaverous that his clothes--in other respects also they looked as
if they had been bought in far-off happier days--hung round him like the
covering of a broken-ribbed umbrella.
The fourth person present was Timothy Halloran, who hovered about Mary
O'Dwyer's tea-table. He was what the country people call a 'spoilt
priest.' Destined by simple and pious parents to take Holy Orders, he
got as far as the inside of Maynooth College. While there he had kicked
a fellow-student down the whole length of a long corridor for telling
tales to the authorities. A committee of ecclesiastics considered the
case, and having come to the conclusion that he lacked vocation for
the priesthood, sent him home. Timothy was accustomed to say that his
violence might have been passed over, but that his failure to appreciate
the devotion to duty which inspired the tale-bearer marked him
decisively as unfit for ordination. He never regretted his expulsion,
although he complained bitterly that he had been nearly choked before
they cast him out. He meant, it is to be supposed, that the effort to
instil a proper reverence for dogma had almost destroyed his capacity
for thought, not that the fingers of the reverend professors had
actually closed around his windpipe. His subsequent experiences had
included a period of teaching in an English Board School, a brief, but
not wholly unsatisfactory, career as a political organizer in New
York, and a return to Ireland, where he earned a precarious living as a
journalist.
All four greeted Hyacinth warmly as he entered the room.
'We were just discussing,' said Mary O'Dwyer, 'the failure of our
attempt to organize a field hospital and a staff of nurses for the
Boers. It is a shame to have to admit that the English garrison in
Ireland can raise thousands of pounds for their war funds, and the Irish
can't be got to subscribe a few hundreds.'
'The wealth of the country,' said Grealy, 'is in the hands of a
minority--the so-called Loyalists.'
'Nonsense,' said Finola sharply. 'If you ever gave a thought to anything
more recent than the High-King's Court at Tara you would know that the
landlords are not the wealthy part of the community any longer. There's
many a provincial publican calling himself a Nationalist who could buy
up the nearest landlord and every Protestant in the parish along with
him. I'm a Protestant myself, born and bred among the class you speak
of, and I know.'
'You're quite right, Miss Goold,' said Tim. 'The people could have given
the money if they liked. I attribute the failure of the fund to the
apathy or treachery of the priests, call it which you like. There isn't
a Protestant church in the country where the parsons don't preach "Give
give, give" to their people Sunday after Sunday. And what's the result?
Why, they have raised thousands of pounds.'
'After the poem you published in last week's _Croppy_,' said Hyacinth
to Mary O'Dwyer, 'I made sure the subscriptions would have come in. Your
appeal was one of the most beautiful things I ever read. It would have
touched the heart of a stone.'
'Poetry is all well enough,' said Tim. 'I admire your verses, Mary,
as much as anyone, but we want a collection at every church door after
Mass. That's what we ought to have, but it's exactly what we won't get,
because the priests are West Britons at heart. They would pray for the
Queen and the army to-morrow, like Cardinal Vaughan, if they weren't
afraid.'
'I believe,' said Finola, 'that we went the wrong way about the thing
altogether. We asked for a hospital, and we appealed to the people's
pity for the wounded Boers. Nobody in Ireland cares a pin about
the Boers. Why on earth should we? From all I can hear they are a
narrow-minded, intolerant set of hypocrites. I'd just as soon read the
stuff some fool of an English newspaper man wrote about "our brother the
Boer" as listen to the maudlin sentiment our people talk. We don't want
to help the Boers. We want to hurt the English.'
'And you think----' said Grealy.
'I think,' went on Finola, 'that we ought to have asked for volunteers
to go out and fight, instead of nurses to cocker up the men who are
fools enough to get themselves shot. We'd have got them.'
'You would not,' said Tim. 'The clergy would have been dead against you.
They would have nipped the whole project in the bud without so much as
making a noise in doing it.'
'That's true,' said Grealy. 'Remember, Miss Goold, it was the priests
who cursed Tara, and the monks who broke the power of the Irish Kings. I
haven't worked the thing out yet, but I mean to show----'
Finola interrupted the poor man ruthlessly:
'Let's try it, anyway. Let's preach a crusade.'
'Not the least bit of good,' said Tim. 'Every blackguard in the country
is enlisted already in the Connaught Bangers or the Dublin Fusiliers,
or some confounded Militia regiment. There's nobody left but the nice,
respectable, goody-goody boys who wouldn't leave their mothers or miss
going to confession if you went down on your knees to them.'
'Well, then, the Irish troops ought to shoot their officers, and walk
over to the Boer camp,' said Finola savagely.
Hyacinth half smiled at what seemed to him a monstrous jest. Then, when
he perceived that she was actually in earnest, the smile froze into a
kind of grin. His hands trembled with the violence of his indignation.
'It would be devilish treachery,' he blurted out. 'The name of Irishman
will never be disgraced by such an act.'
Augusta Goold flung her cigarette into the grate, and rose from her
chair. She stood over Hyacinth, her hands clenched and her bosom heaving
rapidly. Her eyes blazed down into his until their scorn cowed him.
'There is no treachery possible for an Irishman,' she said, 'except
the one of fighting for England. Any deed against England--yes, _any_
deed--is glorious, and not shameful.'
Hyacinth was utterly quelled. He ventured upon no reply. Indeed, not
only did her violence render argument undesirable--and it seemed for
the moment that he would find himself in actual grips with a furious
Amazon--but her words carried with them a certain conviction. It
actually seemed to him while she spoke as if a good defence might be
made for Irish soldiers who murdered their officers and deserted to an
enemy in the field. It was not until hours afterwards, when the vivid
impression of Finola's face had faded from his recollection, when he had
begun to forget the flash of her eyes, the poise of her figure, and the
glow of her draperies, that his moral sense was able to reassert itself.
Then he knew that she had spoken wickedly. It might be right for an
Irishman to fight against England when he could. It might be justifiable
to seize the opportunity of England's embarrassment to make a bid for
freedom by striking a blow at the Empire. So far his conscience went
willingly, but that treachery and murder could ever be anything but
horrible he refused altogether to believe.
Another conversation in which he took part about this time helped
Hyacinth still further to understand the position of his new friends.
Tim Halloran and he were smoking and chatting together over the fire
when Maguire joined them.
'What's the matter with you?' asked Halloran. 'You look as if you'd been
at your mother's funeral.'
'You're not so far out in your guess,' said Maguire grimly. 'I spent the
morning at my sister's wedding. Would you like a bit of the cake?' He
produced from his pocket a paper containing crushed fragments of white
sugar and a shapeless mass of citron and currants. 'With the compliments
of the Reverend Mother,' he said. 'Try a bit.'
'What on earth do you mean?' said Hyacinth.
'Oh, I assure you the Sisters of Pity do these things in style,' said
Maguire. 'It's a pretty fancy, that of the wedding-cake, isn't it?
But you're a Protestant, Conneally; you don't understand this delicate
playfulness. I was present to-day at the reception of my only sister
into the Institute of the Catholic Sisters of Pity, founded by Honoria
Kavanagh. I've lost Birdie Maguire, that's all, the little girl that
used to climb on to my knee and kiss me, and instead of her there's a
Sister Monica Mary, who will no doubt pray for my soul when she's let.'
'What was the figure in her case?' asked Tim in a perfectly
matter-of-fact tone.
'Six hundred pounds,' said Maguire. 'It must have put the old man to the
pin of his collar to pay it. The only time he ever talked to me about
his affairs he told me he had got four hundred pounds put by for
Birdie's fortune, and that I was to have my medical course and whatever
the old shop would fetch when he was gone. They must have put the screw
on pretty tight to make him spring the extra two hundred. I dare say I
shall suffer for it in the end. He must have borrowed the money.'
Hyacinth felt intensely curious about this young nun. Like most
Protestants he had grown up to regard monasticism in all its forms as
something remote, partly horrible, wholly unintelligible.
'Why did she do it?' he asked. 'What sort of a girl was she? Do you mind
telling me?'
'Not in the least,' said Maguire. 'Only I'm not sure that I know. Three
years ago--that is, when I left home--she was the last sort of girl you
could imagine going into a convent. She was pretty, fond of nice clothes
and admiration, as keen as every girl ought to be on a dance. I never
supposed she had a thought of religion in her head--I mean, beyond the
usual confessions and attendances at Mass.'
'I suppose,' said Hyacinth, 'your people wanted it.'
'I don't think so,' said Maguire. 'Perhaps my mother did. I don't know.'
'You see, Conneally,' said Tim Halloran, 'it is a sort of hall-mark
of respectability among people like Maguire's to have a girl in a good
convent. A little lower down in the social scale, in the class I come
from, the boys are made priests. A doctor is a more expensive article to
manufacture, so Maguire's father selected that line of life for him. Not
that they could have made a priest of you, Maguire, in any case. You'd
have disgraced Maynooth, as I did.'
'I don't understand,' said Hyacinth. 'I thought a vocation for the life
was necessary.'
'Oh, so it is,' said Tim Halloran, 'but, you see, there's the period of
the novitiate. Given a girl at an impressionable age, the proper convent
atmosphere, and a prize of six hundred pounds for the Order, and it
will go hard with the Reverend Mother if she can't work the girl up to
a vocation. It takes a man a lifetime to make six hundred pounds in
a country shop, but there's many a one who does it by hard work and
self-denial; then down come the nuns and sweep it away, and it's
wasted. It ought to be invested in a local factory or in waterworks, or
gas-works, or fifty other things that would benefit the town it's made
in. It ought to be fructifying and bearing interest; instead of which
off it goes to Munich for stained glass, or to Italy for a marble altar.
Is it any wonder Ireland is crying out with poverty?'
'Yes,' said Maguire, 'and that's not the worst of it. I'd be content to
let them take the damned money and deck their churches with it, but the
girls--there are hundreds of them caught every year for nuns, and swept
out of life. It isn't the Irish convents alone that get them. American
nuns come over and Australian nuns, and they go round and round the
country picking up girls here and there, and carry them off. There,
I don't want to talk too much about it. The money is nothing, but the
girls and boys----'
'It seems strange to me,' said Hyacinth, 'that when you think that way
you should go on belonging to your Church.'
'Desert the Church!' said Maguire. 'We'll never do that. How could we
live without religion? And what other religion is there? I grant you
that your priests wouldn't rob us, but--but think of the cold of it.
You can't realize it, Conneally, but think what it would mean to
a Catholic--a religion without saints, without absolution, without
sacrifice. Besides, what we complain of is not Catholicism. It's a
parasitic growth destroying the true faith, defiling the Church.'
'Yes,' said Tim Halloran, 'and even from my point of view how should we
be the better of a change? Your Church is ruled by old women who think
the name of Englishman the most glorious in the world. You preach
loyalty, and I believe you pray for the Queen in your services. A nice
fool I would feel praying that the Queen should have victory over her
enemies.'
For a long time afterwards this conversation dwelt in Hyacinth's mind.
Tim Halloran he knew to be practically a freethinker, but Maguire
regularly heard Mass on Sundays, and often went to confession. It was a
puzzle how he could do so, feeling as he did about the religious Orders.
So insistent did the problem become to his mind that he found himself
continually leading the conversation round to it from one side or
another. Mary O'Dwyer told him that she also had a sister in a nunnery.
'She teaches girls to make lace, and wonderful work they do. She is
perfectly happy. I think her face is the sweetest and most beautiful
thing I have ever seen. There is not a line on it of care or of
fretfulness. It seems to me as if her whole life might be described as
a quiet smile. I always feel better by the mere recollection of her face
for a long time after I have visited her. Oh, I know it wouldn't do
for me. I couldn't stand it for a week. I should go mad with the quiet
restraint of it all. But my sister is happy. I can't forget that. I
suppose she has a vocation.'
'Vocation,' said Hyacinth thoughtfully. 'Yes, I can understand how that
would make all the difference. But how many of them have the vocation?'
'Don't you think vocation might be learnt? I mean mightn't one grow into
it, if one wished to very much, and if the life was constantly before
one's eyes, beautiful and calm?'
It was almost the same thought which Timothy Halloran had suggested.
Mary O'Dwyer spoke of growing into vocation, Tim of the working of it
up. Was there any difference except a verbal one?
On another occasion he spoke to Dr. Henry about the position of the
Church of Ireland in the country.
'We have proved,' said the professor, 'that the Roman claims have no
support in Scripture, history, or reason. Our books remain unanswered,
because they are unanswerable. We can do no more.'
'We might offer the Irish people a Church which they could join,' said
Hyacinth.
'We do. We offer them the Church of St. Patrick, the ancient, historic
Church of Ireland. We offer them the two Sacraments of the Gospel,
administered by priests duly ordained at the hands of an Episcopate
which goes back in an unbroken line to the Apostles. We present them the
three great creeds for their assent. We use a liturgy that is at once
ancient and pure. The Church of Ireland has all this, is beyond dispute
a branch of the great Catholic Church of Christ.'
'It may be all you say,' said Hyacinth, 'but it is not national. In
sentiment and sympathy it is English and not Irish.'
'I know what you mean,' said Dr. Henry. 'I think I understand how you
feel, but I cannot consent to the conclusion you want to draw. There
is no real meaning in the cry for nationality. It is a sentiment, a
fashion, and will pass. Even if it were genuine and enduring, I hold it
to be better for Ireland to be an integral part of a great Empire than a
contemptible and helpless item among the nations of the world, a prey to
the intrigues of ambitious foreign statesmen.'
Hyacinth sighed and turned to go, but Dr. Henry laid a hand upon his
shoulder and detained him.
'Conneally,' he said kindly, 'let me give you a word of advice. Don't
mix yourself up with your new friends too much. You will ruin your own
prospects in life if you do. There is nothing more fatal to a man among
the people with whom you and I are to live and work than the suspicion
of being tainted with Nationalist ideas. You can't be both a rebel and
a clergyman. You see,' he added with a smile, 'I take enough interest in
you to know who your friends are, and what you are thinking about.'
CHAPTER V
Augusta Goold's scheme for enrolling Irish volunteers to help the Boers
was duly set forth in the next issue of the _Croppy_. It included two
appeals--one for money and one for men. The details were worked out
with the frank contempt for possibility which characterizes some of the
famous suggestions of Dean Swift. She had the same faculty that he had
for bringing absurdities within the range of the commonplace; but there
was this difference between them--Miss Goold quite believed in her own
plans, while the great Dean no doubt grinned over the proof-sheets of
his 'Modest Proposal.'
It happened, most unfortunately, that the appeal synchronized with
another, also for funds, which was issued by Mr. O'Rourke, the leader
of the Parliamentary party. Since the death of John O'Neill the purse
of the party had been getting lean. The old tactics which used to draw
plaudits and dollars from the United States, as well as a tribute from
every parish in Ireland, had lately been unsuccessful. There were still
violent scenes in the House of Commons, but they no longer produced
anything except contemptuous smiles. Members of Parliament still
succeeded occasionally in getting the Chief Secretary to imprison them,
but the glory of martyrdom was harder to win than in the old days.
Latterly things had come to such a pass that even the reduced stipends
offered to the members fell into arrear. The attendance at Westminster
dropped away. The Government could afford to smile at Mr. O'Rourke's
efforts to make himself disagreeable, and the Opposition were frankly
contemptuous of a people who could not profit them by more than a dozen
votes in a critical division. It became impossible to wring even a
modest Land Bill from the Prime Minister, and Mr. Chesney, now much at
ease in the Secretary's office in the Castle, scarcely felt it necessary
to be civil to deputations which wanted railways. It was clear that
something must be done, or Mr. O'Rourke's business would disappear.
He decided to appeal for funds _orbi et urbi_. The world--in this case
North America--was to be visited, exhorted, and, it was hoped, taxed by
some of his most eloquent lieutenants. Even Canada, with its leaven
of Orangemen, was to be honoured with the speeches of an orator of
second-rate powers. The city--Dublin, of course--was the chosen scene of
the leader's personal exertions. Since his revolt against John O'Neill,
O'Rourke had been a little shy of Dublin audiences, but the pressing
nature of the present crisis almost forced him to pay his court to the
capital. He found some comfort in the recollection that during the five
years that had elapsed since O'Neill's death he had missed no public
opportunity of shedding tears beside his tomb. He remembered, too, that
he had put his name down for a large subscription towards the erection
of a statue to the dead leader, a work of art which the existing
generation seemed unlikely to have the pleasure of seeing.
Thus it happened that on the very day of the publication of Miss Goold's
scheme Mr. O'Rourke announced his intention of addressing an appeal for
funds to a public meeting in the Rotunda. Miss Goold was disconcerted
and irritated. She was well aware that Mr. O'Rourke's appeal would give
the respectable Nationalists an excellent excuse for ignoring hers, and
unfortunately the respectable people are just the ones who have most
money. She was confident that she could rely on the extreme section of
the Nationalists, and on that element in the city population which loves
and makes a row, but she could not count on the moneyed classes. They
were, so far as their words went, very enthusiastic for the Boer
cause; but when it came to writing cheques, it was likely that the
counter-attractions of the Parliamentary fund would prove too strong.
Since it seemed that Mr. O'Rourke would certainly spoil her collection,
the obvious thing to do was to try to spoil his. If he afforded people
an excuse for not paying the travelling expenses of her volunteers to
Lorenzo Marques, she would, if possible, suggest a way of escape from
paying for his men's journeys to London. After all, no one really wanted
to subscribe to either fund, and it might be supposed that the public
would very gladly keep their purses shut altogether.
For an Irishman it is quite possible to be genuinely enthusiastic and at
the same time able to see the humorous side of his own enthusiasm. This
is a reason why an Irishman is never a bore unless, to gain his private
ends, he wants to be. Even an Irish advocate of total abstinence, or an
Irish antivaccinationist, if such a thing exists, is not a bore,
because he will always trot out his conscientious objections with a
half-humorous, half-deprecating smile. This same capacity for avoiding
the slavery of serious fanaticism enables an Irishman to cease quite
joyfully from the pursuit of his own particular fad in order to corner
an obnoxious opponent. Thus Augusta Goold and her friends were genuinely
desirous of striking a blow at England, and really believed that their
volunteers might do it; but this did not prevent them from finding
infinite relish in the prospect of watching Mr. O'Rourke squirming on
the horns of a dilemma. They took counsel together, and the result of
their deliberations was peculiar. They proposed to invite Mr. O'Rourke
to join his appeal to theirs, to pool the money which came in, and to
divide it evenly between the volunteers and the members of Parliament.
It was Tim Halloran who hit upon the brilliant idea. Augusta Goold
chuckled over it as she grasped its consequences. Mr. O'Rourke, Tim
argued, would be unwilling to accept the proposal because he wanted all
the money he could get, more than was at all likely to be collected.
He would be equally unwilling to reject it, because he could then be
represented as indifferent to the heroic struggle of the Boers. In
the existing state of Irish and American opinion a suspicion of such
indifference would be quite sufficient to wreck his chances of getting
any money at all.
Of course, the obvious way of making such a proposal would have been by
letter to Mr. O'Rourke. Afterwards the correspondence--he must make a
reply of some sort--could be sent to the press, and sufficient publicity
would be given to the matter. This was what Tim Halloran wanted to do,
but such a course did not commend itself to Augusta Goold. It lacked
dramatic possibilities, and there was always the chance that the leading
papers might refuse to take any notice of the matter, or relegate
the letters to a back page and small print. Besides, a mere newspaper
controversy would not make a strong appeal to the section of the Dublin
populace on whose support she chiefly relied. A much more attractive
plan suggested itself. Augusta Goold, with a few friends to act as
aides-de-camp, would present herself to Mr. O'Rourke at his Rotunda
meeting, and put the proposal to him then and there in the presence of
the audience.
In the meantime the few days before the meeting were occupied in
scattering suggestive seed over the hoardings and blank walls of the
city. One morning people were startled by the sight of an immense
placard which asked in violent red letters, 'What is Ireland going
to do?' Public opinion was divided about the ultimate purpose of the
poster. The majority expected the announcement of a new play or novel;
a few held that a pill or a cocoa would be recommended. Next morning the
question became more explicit, and the hypothesis of the play and the
pill were excluded. 'What,' the new poster ran, 'is Ireland going to do
for the Boers?' The public were not intensely anxious to find an answer
to the conundrum thrust thus forcibly on their attention, but they
became curious to know who the advertisers were who hungered for the
information. Men blessed by Providence with sagacious-looking faces made
the most of their opportunity, and informed their friends that the thing
was a new dodge of O'Rourke's to get money. Their reputation suffered
when the next placard appeared. The advertisers had apparently changed
their minds, for what they now wanted to know was, 'What are the Irish
M.P.'s going to do for the Boers?' Clearly Mr. O'Rourke could have
nothing to gain by insisting on an answer to such a question. The public
were puzzled but pleased. The bill-stickers of the city foresaw
the possibility of realizing a competence, for the next morning the
satisfied inquirers published the result of their investigations. 'The
Em Pees '(it was thus that they now referred to the honourable members
of Parliament) 'are supporting the infamies of England.' It was at
this point that the eye of a Castle official was caught by one of the
placards as he made his way to the Kildare Street Club for luncheon.
He discussed the matter with a colleague, and it occurred to them that
since they were paid for governing Ireland, they ought to give the
public some value for their money, and seize the opportunity of doing
something. They sent a series of telegrams to Mr. Chesney's London
house, which were forwarded by his private secretary to the Riviera.
The replies which followed kept the Castle officials in a state of
pleasurable excitement until quite late in the evening. At about eight
o'clock large numbers of Metropolitan police sallied out of their
barracks and tore down the last batch of placards. Next morning fresh
ones were posted up, each of which bore the single word, 'Why?' The
bill-stickers were highly pleased, and many of them were arrested for
drunkenness. Mr. O'Rourke was much less pleased, for he began to guess
what the answer was likely to be, and how it would affect his chances of
securing a satisfactory collection. The officials were perplexed. They
suspected the 'Why?' of containing within its three letters some hideous
sedition, but it was not possible to deal vigorously with what might,
after all, be only the cunning novelty of some advertising manufacturer.
More telegrams harried Mr. Chesney, but before any definite course of
action had been decided on the morning of the Rotunda meeting arrived,
and with it an answer to the multifarious 'Whys': Because O'Rourke wants
all the money to spend in the London restaurants.' There was a great
deal of laughter, and many people, quite uninterested in politics,
determined to go to the meeting in hopes of more amusement.
When Mr. O'Rourke took the chair the hall was crowded to its utmost
capacity. Under ordinary circumstances this would have augured well for
the success of his appeal, for it showed that the public were at all
events not apathetic. On this particular occasion, however, Mr. O'Rourke
would have been better pleased with a smaller audience. The placards
had shown him that something unpleasant was likely to occur, though they
afforded no hint of the form which the unpleasantness would take. When
he rose to his feet he was greeted with the usual volley of cheers, and
although some rude remarks about the Boers were made in the corners of
the hall, they did not amount to anything like an organized attempt at
interruption. He began his speech cautiously, feeling the pulse of
his audience, and plying them with the well-worn platitudes of the
Nationalist platform. When these evoked the usual enthusiasm he waxed
bolder, and shot out some almost original epigrams directed against the
Government, working up to a really new gibe about officials who sat
like spiders spinning murderous webs in Dublin Castle. The audience
were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone
shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard
on Wednesday.' Mr. O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to
sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as 'ill-omened
tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to
disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr. O'Rourke was not a
man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles
as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been sucking
blood were to repent and disgorge it. 'Where,' he went on to ask, 'do
they spend their immense revenues? Is it in Ireland?' Here he made one
of those dramatic pauses for which his oratory was famous. The audience
waited breathlessly for the denunciation which was to follow. They were
treated, unexpectedly, to a well-conceived anticlimax. A voice spoke
softly, but quite clearly, from the back of the hall:
'Bedad, and I shouldn't wonder if it was in the London restaurants.'
A roar of laughter followed. The orator might no doubt have made an
effective reply, but every time he opened his mouth minor wits, rending
like wolves the carcase of the original joke, yelled 'turtle-soup'
at him, or 'champagne and oysters.' He got angry, and consequently
flurried. He tried to quell the tumult by thundering out the
denunciation which he had prepared. But the delight which the audience
took in shrieking the items of their imaginary bill of fare was too much
for him. He forgot what he had meant to say, floundered, attempted to
pull himself together, and brought out the stale jest about providing
each landlord with a single ticket to Holyhead.
'And that same,' said his original tormentor, 'would be cheaper than
giving you a return ticket to London.'
The audience was immensely tickled. So far the entertainment, if not
precisely novel, was better than anything they had hoped for, and
everyone had an agreeable conviction that there was still something
in the way of a sensation in store. Perhaps it was eagerness for the
expected climax which induced them to keep tolerably quiet during the
remainder of Mr. O'Rourke's speech. He set forth at some length the
glorious achievements of his party in the past, and explained the
opportunities of future usefulness which lay to be grasped if only the
necessary funds were provided. He sat down to make way, as he assured
the audience, for certain tried and trusty soldiers of the cause who
were waiting to propose important resolutions. So far as these
warriors were concerned, he might as well have remained standing. Their
resolutions are to this day unproposed and uncommended--a secret joy,
no doubt, to those who framed them, but not endorsed by any popular
approval.
Hyacinth Conneally was not admitted to the secret councils of Augusta
Goold and her friends. He knew no more than the general public what kind
of a coup was meditated, but he gathered from Miss O'Dwyer's nervous
excitement and Tim Halloran's air of immense and mysterious importance
that something quite out of the common was likely to occur. By arriving
an hour and a half before the opening of the meeting he secured a seat
near the platform. He enjoyed the discomfiture of O'Rourke, whom he had
learnt from the pages of the _Croppy_ to despise as a mere windbag, and
to hate as the betrayer of O'Neill. A sudden thrill of excitement went
through him when O'Rourke sat down. The whole audience turned their
faces from the platform towards the door at the far end of the hall, and
Hyacinth, without knowing exactly what he expected, turned too.
There was a swaying visible among the crowd near the door, and almost
immediately it became clear that someone was trying to force a way
through the densely-packed people. Curses were to be heard, and even
cries from those who were being trodden on. At last a way was made.
Augusta Goold, followed by Grealy, Halloran, and Mary O'Dwyer, came
slowly up the hall towards the platform. Those of the audience whose
limbs had not been crushed or their feet mangled in preparation for her
progress cheered her wildly. Indeed, she made a regal appeal to them.
Even amidst a crowd of men her height made her conspicuous, and she had
arrayed herself for the occasion in a magnificent violet robe. It flowed
from her shoulders in spacious folds, and swept behind her, splendidly
contemptuous of the part it played as scavenger amid the accumulated
filth of the floor. Her bare arms shone out of the wide sleeves which
hung around them. Her neck rose strong and stately over the silver clasp
of a cloak which she had thrown back from her shoulders. She wore a hat
which seemed to hold her hair captive from falling loose around her. One
great tress alone escaped from it, and by some cunning manipulation was
made to stand straight out, as if blown by the wind from its fastenings.
In comparison her suite looked commonplace and mean. Poor Miss O'Dwyer
was arrayed--'gowned,' she would have said herself in reporting the
scene--in vesture not wanting in splendour, but which beside Miss
Goold's could not catch the eye. Thomas Grealy, awkward and stooped,
peered through his glasses at the crowd. Tim Halloran walked jauntily,
but his eyes glanced nervously from side to side. He was certainly ill
at ease, possibly frightened, at the position in which he found himself.
A hurried consultation took place among the gentlemen on the platform,
which ended in Mr. O'Rourke stepping forward with a smile and an
outstretched hand to welcome Augusta Goold as she ascended the steps.
The expression of his face belied the smile which he had impressed upon
his lips. His eyes had the same look of furtive malice as a dog's
which wants to bite but fears the stick. Augusta Goold waved aside the
proffered hand, and stepped unaided on to the platform. Mr. O'Rourke
placed a chair for her, but she ignored it and stood, with her followers
behind her, facing the audience. O'Rourke and two of his tried and
trusty members of Parliament approached her. They stood between her
and the audience, and talked to her for some time, apparently very
earnestly. Augusta Goold looked past them, over them, sometimes it
seemed through them, while they spoke, but made them no answer whatever.
At last Mr. O'Rourke shrugged his shoulders, and withdrew to his chair
with a sulky scowl.
'I wish,' said Augusta Goold, 'to ask a simple question of your
chairman.'
Mr. O'Rourke rose.
'This meeting,' he said, 'is convened for the purpose of raising funds
for the carrying on of the national business in the House of Commons. If
Miss Goold's question relates to the business in hand, I shall be most
happy to answer it. If not, I am afraid I cannot allow it to be asked
here. At another time and in another place I shall be prepared to listen
to what Miss Goold has to say, and in the meantime if she will take her
seat on the platform she will be heartily welcome.'
'My question,' said Augusta Goold, 'is intimately connected with the
business of the meeting. It is simply this: Are you, Mr. O'Rourke,
prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish
people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'
It was manifestly absurd to ask such a question at all. Mr. O'Rourke
had no intention of collecting money for the Boers, who seemed to have
plenty of their own, and he could not without breach of trust have
applied funds subscribed to feed and clothe members of Parliament to
arming volunteers. Nevertheless, it was an awkward question to answer
in the presence of an audience excited by Augusta Goold's beauty and
splendid audacity. A really strong man, like, for instance, O'Rourke's
predecessor, John O'Neill, might have faced the situation, and won, if
not the immediate cheers, at least the respect of the Irish people. But
Mr. O'Rourke was not a strong man, and besides he was out of temper and
had lost his nerve. He took perhaps the worst course open to him: he
made a speech. He appealed to his past record as a Nationalist, and to
his publicly reiterated expressions of sympathy with the Boer cause.
He asked the audience to trust him to do what was right, but he neither
said Yes nor No to the question he was asked.
Augusta Goold stood calm and impassive while he spoke. A sneer gathered
on her lips and indrawn nostrils as he made his appeal for the people's
confidence. When he had finished she said, very slowly, and with that
extreme distinctness of articulation which women speakers seem to learn
so much more easily than men:
'Are you prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by
the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'
Mr. O'Rourke was goaded into attempting another speech, but the audience
was in no mood to listen to him. He was interrupted again and again with
shouts of 'Yes or no!' 'Answer the question!' The bantering tone with
which they had plied him earlier in the evening with suggestions for a
menu had changed now into angry insistence. He passed his hand over his
forehead with a gesture of despair, and sat down. At once the tumult
ceased, and the people waited breathless for Augusta Goold to speak
again.
'Are you prepared'--she seemed to have learnt her question off by
heart--'to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish
people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'
Mr. Shea, a red-headed member of Parliament from Co. Limerick, being
himself one of those most deeply interested in the contents of the
party's purse, sprang to his feet. It was clear that he was in a
condition of almost dangerous excitement, for he stammered, as he
shouted to the chairman:
'Sir, is this--this--this woman to be allowed to interrupt the meeting?
I demand her immediate removal.'
Augusta Goold smiled at him. It was really a very gracious, almost a
tender, smile. One might imagine the divine Theodora in her earlier days
smiling with just such an expression on a plebeian lover whose passion
she regarded as creditable to him but hopeless.
'I assure you, Mr. Shea, that I shall not interrupt the business for
more than a minute. Mr. O'Rourke has only got to say one word--either
Yes or No. Are you prepared to give any portion of the funds entrusted
to you by the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for
freedom?'
Mr. Shea was not at all mollified either by the smile or the politeness
of her tone.
'We shall not permit the meeting to be interrupted any more,' he
shouted. 'Either you will withdraw at once, or we shall have you removed
by force.'
She smiled at him again--a pitying smile, as if she regretted the
petulance of his manner, and turned to the chairman.
'Are you prepared to give----'
Then Mr. Shea's feelings became too strong for his self-control. He
sprang forward, apparently with the intention of laying violent hands
upon Augusta Groold. Hyacinth Conneally started up to protect her, and
the same impulse moved a large part of the audience. There was a rush
for the platform, and a fierce, threatening yell. Mr. Shea hung back,
frightened. Augusta Goold held up her hand, and immediately the rush
stopped and the people were silent. She went on with her question,
taking it up at the exact word which Mr. Shea had interrupted, in the
same level and exquisitely irritating tone.
'--Any of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to assist the
Boers in their struggle for freedom?'
Mr. O'Rourke had sat scowling silently since the failure of his last
attempt to explain himself. This final disjointed repetition of the
galling question roused him to the necessity of doing something. He
was a pitiful sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There
were blotches of purple red and spaces of pallor on his face; his hands
twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his
collar limp. His words were a stammering mixture of bluster and appeal.
'You mustn't--mustn't--mustn't interrupt the meeting,' So far he tried
to assert himself, then, with a glance at the contemptuous face of the
woman before him, he relapsed into the tone of a schoolboy who begs off
the last strokes of a caning. 'Is this nice conduct? Is it ladylike to
come here and attack us like this? Miss Goold, I'm ashamed of you.'
'I am glad to hear,' said Augusta Goold, departing for the first time
from her question, 'that there is anything left in the world that Mr.
O'Rourke is ashamed of. I didn't think there was.'
It was Mr. Shea and not his leader who resented this last insult. His
lips drew apart, leaving his teeth bare in a ghastly grin. He clenched
his fists, and stood for a moment trembling from head to foot. Then he
leaped forward towards Augusta Goold. The man who stood next Hyacinth
lurched suddenly forward, wrenched his right hand free of the crowd
round him, and flung it back behind his head. Hyacinth saw that he held
a large stone in it.
'You are a cowardly blackguard, Shea,' he yelled--'a damned, cowardly
blackguard! Would you strike a woman?'
Shea turned on the instant, saw the hand stretched back to fling the
stone. He seized the chair behind him--the very chair which, while an
appearance of politeness was still possible, Mr. O'Rourke had offered
to Augusta Goold--and flung it with all his force at the man with the
stone. One of the legs grazed Hyacinth's cheek, scraping the skin
off. The corner of the seat struck the man beside him full across the
forehead just above his eyes. The blood poured out, blinding, and then,
as he gasped, choking him. He reeled and huddled together helplessly.
He could not fall, for the pressure of the crowd round him held him up.
Hyacinth felt his hands groping wildly as if for support, and reached
out his own to grasp him. But the man wanted no help for himself. As
soon as he felt another hand touch his he pressed the stone into it.
'I can't see,' he whispered hoarsely. 'Take it, you, and kill him, kill
him, kill him! smash his skull!'
Hyacinth took the stone. The feel of the man's blood warm on it and the
fierce yelling and stamping of the crowd filled him with a mad lust of
hate against Shea, who stood as if suddenly paralyzed within a few feet
of him. He wrenched his hand free, and with a mighty effort flung the
stone. He saw it strike Shea fair on the forehead. In spite of the
tumult around him, he fancied he heard the dull thud of its impact.
He saw Shea fling up his hands and pitch forward. He saw Augusta Goold
gather her skirts in her hand, and sweep them swiftly aside lest the man
should fall on them. Then the crowd pressing towards the platform swept
him off his feet, and he was tossed helplessly forward. A giddy
sickness seized him. The pressure slackened for an instant, and he fell.
Someone's boot struck him on the head. He felt without any keen regret
that he was likely to be trampled to death. Then he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER VI
Next morning the Dublin daily papers laid themselves out to make the
most of the sensational fight at the Rotunda. Even the habitually
cautious _Irish Times_ felt that the occasion justified the expression
of an opinion, and that there would be no serious risk of alienating the
sympathies of subscribers and advertisers by condemning the bloodshed.
It published an exceedingly dignified and stodgy leading article,
drawing the largest and finest words from the dictionary, and weaving
them with extraordinary art into sentences which would have been
creditable to anyone bent upon imitating the style of Dr. Samuel
Johnson. The British Empire and the whole of civilized Europe were
called upon to witness the unspeakably deplorable consequences which
invariably followed the habitual neglect of the cultivation of the
elementary decencies of public life. The paper disclaimed any sympathy
with either of the belligerent parties, and pointed out with sorrowful
solemnity that if the principles sedulously inculcated upon its readers
in its own columns were persistently flouted and contemned by those who
claimed the position of national representatives, little else except a
repetition at frequent intervals of the painful and humiliating
scenes of the night before could possibly be anticipated by reasonable
observers of the general trend of democratic institutions. The _Daily
Express_ openly exulted over the rioters. Its leading article--the
staff may have danced in a ring round the office table while composing
it--declared that now at length the Irish had proved to the world
that they were all, without a solitary exception, irredeemably
vicious corner-boys. Miss Augusta Goold was warmly praised for having
demonstrated once for all that 'patriotism' ought to be written 'Pat
riotism.' Deep regret was expressed that those who attended the meeting
had not been armed with revolvers instead of stones, and that the
platform had not been defended with Maxim guns instead of comparatively
innocuous wooden chairs. Had modern weapons of precision been used the
_Daily Express_ would have been able to congratulate mankind on getting
rid of quite a considerable number of Irishmen.
The _Freeman's Journal_ and the _Daily Independent_ were awkwardly
situated. Their sympathies were entirely with Mr. O'Rourke, and
they were exceedingly angry with Miss Goold for interfering with the
collection of funds for the Parliamentary party. At the same time,
they felt a difficulty in denouncing her, not for want of suitable
language--the Irish Nationalist press has a superb command of words
which a self-respecting dictionary would hesitate to recognise--but
because they felt that push of the horns of the dilemma on which
O'Roun'y-had been impaled, and they were obliged to sand their
denunciations between layers of stoutest pro-Boer sentiment.
All four papers contained reports of the proceedings which were
practically identical up to a certain point. It was about the
commencement of the actual bloodshed that they differed. The _Irish
Times_ reporter believed that Mr. Shea had begun the fray by striking
Augusta Goold behind the ear with his clenched fist. The _Daily Express_
man claimed to have overheard Mr. O'Rourke urging his friends to brain
a member of the audience with a chair. The _Freeman's Journal_ held that
Augusta Goold's supporters had come into the hall supplied with huge
stones, which, at a given signal, they had flung at the inoffensive
members of Parliament who occupied the platform, adding, as a
corroborative detail, that the lady who accompanied Augusta Goold
had twice kicked the prostrate Mr. Shea in the stomach. The _Daily
Independent_ advanced the ingenious theory that the contest had been
precipitated by a malevolent student of Trinity College, who had flung
an apple of discord--on this occasion a jagged paving-stone of unusual
size--into the midst of a group of ladies and gentlemen who were
peacefully discussing a slight difference of opinion among themselves.
Beyond this point none of the papers gave any account of the
proceedings, all four reporters having recognised that, not being
retained as war correspondents, they were not called upon to risk their
lives on the battlefield. The accounts all closed with the information
that the wounded had been carried to Jervis Street Hospital, and were
under treatment suitable to their injuries. Hyacinth had suffered a
slight concussion of the brain and a flesh wound. Other sufferers were
in the same ward, Mr. Shea himself occupying a bed, so that Hyacinth had
the satisfaction of seeing him stretched out, a melancholy figure,
with a bandage concealing most of his red hair. After the surgeon
had finished his rounds for the morning a police official visited the
sufferers, and made a careful note of their names and addresses. He
inquired in a perfunctory manner whether any of them wished to swear an
information. No one, except Mr. Shea, was sufficiently satisfied with
his own share of the meeting to wish for more fame than was unavoidable.
As no further use was ever made of Mr. Shea's narrative, it may be
presumed that the authorities regarded it as wanting in accuracy.
No blame, however, ought to be attached to the author for any petty
deviation from the truth of which he may have been guilty. No man's mind
is perfectly clear on the morning after he has been struck on the head
with a stone, and perhaps afterwards kicked twice in the stomach by a
lady journalist. Besides, all members of Parliament are, in virtue of
their office, 'honourable gentlemen.'
An excited and sympathetic nurse provided Hyacinth with copies of the
four morning papers, which he read with interest and a good deal of
amusement. Only the account in the _Daily Independent_ caused him any
uneasiness. No doubt, as he fully recognised, the suggestion about
the Trinity student was nothing but a wild guess on the part of the
reporter. It was highly unlikely that anyone would seriously consider a
theory so intrinsically improbable. Still, if the faintest suspicion of
the part he had played reached the ears of the college authorities, he
felt that his career as a divinity student was likely to be an extremely
brief one. His chief fear was that a prolonged absence from college
would give rise to inquiry, and that his bandages would excite suspicion
when he reappeared. Fortunately, the house surgeon decided that he was
sufficiently recovered to be allowed to leave the hospital early in the
afternoon. The boot which had put an end to his share in the riot had
raised its bruise under his hair, so he was able to remove the bandages
from his head as soon as he got into the street. There still remained a
long strip of plaster meant to keep a dressing of iodoform in its place
over the cut on his cheek which Mr. Shea's chair-leg had inflicted.
This he could not get off, and thinking it wiser to make his entry into
college after nightfall, he sought a refuge in Mary O'Dwyer's rooms.
He found the poetess laid on a sofa and clad in a blue dressing-gown.
She stretched a hand of welcome to Hyacinth, and then, before he had
time to take it, began to laugh immoderately. The laughing fit ended in
sobs, and then tears flowed from her eyes, which she mopped convulsively
with an already damp pocket-handkerchief. Before she had recovered
sufficient self-possession to speak, she signed to Hyacinth to fetch a
bottle of smelling-salts from the chimney-piece. He hastened to obey,
and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her
nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had
not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and quite
unstrung in consequence. Another fit of immoderate and tearful laughter
followed, and Hyacinth, embarrassed and alarmed, fetched a tumbler of
soda-water from the syphon on the sideboard. The lady refused to
swallow any, and, just as he had made up his mind to risk an external
application, recovered again. During the lucid interval which followed
she informed him that his own conduct had been superb and heroic. What
seemed to be an effort to celebrate his achievements in extemporary
verse brought on another fit. Hyacinth determined to risk an appearance
in the college square in broad daylight rather than continue his
ministrations. While he was searching for his hat Miss O'Dwyer became
suddenly quite calm, and began to explain to him how immensely the cause
of Ireland's independence had benefited by the demonstration in the
Rotunda. Hyacinth listened anxiously, waiting for the next explosion,
and experienced very great relief when the door opened and Augusta Goold
walked in.
Unlike Mary O'Dwyer, she was entirely mistress of herself. Her cheeks
were not a shade paler than usual, nor her hand at all less cool and
firm. She stretched herself, after her usual fashion, in the largest
available chair and lit a cigarette.
'You look excited, my dear Mary,' she said--'a little overexcited,
perhaps. Have you had tea? No? Perhaps you will be so kind as to ring
the bell, Mr. Conneally.'
Mary O'Dwyer repeated the information she had given Hyacinth about her
sleepless night, and complimented Augusta Goold on her nerve.
'As for poor little me,' she went on, 'I'm like a--like a--you remember
the kind of thing, don't you?--like a--I'm not sure if I know the name
of the thing myself.'
She relapsed into a weak giggle, and Hyacinth stooped for the bottle of
smelling-salts, which had rolled under the sofa. Augusta Goold was much
less sympathetic. She fixed her with a strong stare of amazement and
disgust. Apparently this treatment was the right one, for the giggling
stopped almost immediately.
'I see you have got some sticking-plaster on your face, Mr. Conneally,'
she said, when Mary O'Dwyer had quieted down.
'Yes,' said Hyacinth, 'and a good-sized bump behind my ear.'
'I suppose this business will be very awkward for you in college. Will
they turn you out?'
'I'm sure they will if they find out that I threw that stone at Shea.'
'You made a very good shot,' said Augusta, smiling at the recollection.
'But how on earth did you come to have a stone that size in the hall
with you?'
Hyacinth told the story of the man who had been felled by the chair and
his murderous bequest.
'That's the proper spirit,' said Augusta. 'I admire that man, and he
couldn't have passed his stone on to better hands than yours. Shea went
down as if he had been shot. I was afraid of my life he would clutch at
my skirts as he fell or squirm up against me after he was down. But he
lay quite still. By the way, Mary, I suppose your dress was ruined?'
Mary O'Dwyer was quite subdued.
'It was torn,' she said meekly enough.
'Have you another one?'
'Of course I have. I've three others, besides some old ones.'
'Well, then, you'd better go and put on one of them. An old one will do.
It's disgusting to see a woman slopping about in a dressing-gown at this
time of day. I'll have tea ready when you come back.'
Miss O'Dwyer obeyed sulkily. She wished very much that Augusta Goold had
stopped at home. It would have been a great deal pleasanter to have gone
on practising hysterics with Hyacinth as a sympathetic spectator. When
the door was shut Augusta Goold turned to Hyacinth again.
'That's the worst of women'--apparently she did not consider herself as
one of the sex--'they are all right at the time (nothing could have
been better than Mary's behaviour at the meeting), but they collapse
afterwards in such idiotic ways. But I want to talk to you about
yourself. I owe you a good turn for what you did last night. Only for
you, I think Shea would have dared to touch me, and then very likely I
should have killed him, and there might have been trouble afterwards.'
She spoke quite calmly, but Hyacinth had very little doubt that she
meant exactly what she said. 'Grealy of course, was useless. One might
have expected him to give utterance to an ancient tribal war-cry, but he
didn't even do that. Tim Halloran got frightened when the row began. I
noticed him dodging about behind Mary and me, and I mean to let him know
what I think about him. It's you I have to thank, and I won't forget it.
If you get into trouble over this business in college, come to me, and
I will see you straight. In fact, if you like to give up the divinity
student business at once, I dare say I can put you in the way of earning
an honester livelihood.'
Hyacinth was gratified at the way Augusta Goold spoke to him. Since
the evening on which he had given his opinion about the morality of
desertion and murder he had been conscious of a coolness in her manner.
Now he had apparently reinstated himself in her good graces. Praise,
even for an act he was secretly ashamed of, and gratitude, though he
by no means recognised that he deserved it, were pleasant to him. He
promised to remember the offer of help, but declined for the present to
commit his future to the keeping of so bloodthirsty a patroness.
Curiously enough, Hyacinth's reception in college was a great deal more
cordial after the Rotunda meeting than it had ever been before. For a
while the battle which had been fought at their doors superseded the
remoter South African warfare as a topic of conversation among the
students. Their sympathies were with Augusta Goold. Even members of the
divinity classes suffered themselves to be lured from their habitual
worship of respectability so far as to express admiration for the
dramatic picturesqueness of the part she played. It is true that the
lady herself was called by names universally resented by women, and that
the broadest slanders were circulated about her character. Still, a halo
of glory hung round her. It was felt that she had done a surprisingly
courageous thing when she faced Mr. O'Rourke on his own platform. Also,
she had behaved with a certain dignity, neither throwing chairs nor
stones at her opponents. Then, she was an undeniably beautiful woman,
a fact which made its inevitable appeal to the young men. The mere
expression of sympathy with this flamboyant and scandal-smeared heroine
brought with it a delightful flavour of gay and worldly vice. It was
pretty well known that Hyacinth was a friend of Miss Goold's, and it
was rumoured that he had earned his piece of sticking-plaster in
her defence. No one knew exactly what he had done or how much he had
suffered, but a great many men were anxious to know. Very much to his
own surprise, he received a number of visitors in his rooms. Men who had
been the foremost of his tormentors came, ostensibly to inquire for his
health, in reality to glean details of the fight at the Rotunda. Certain
medical students of the kind which glory in any kind of row openly
congratulated him on his luck in being present on such an occasion. Men
who claimed to be fast, and tried to impress their acquaintances with
the belief that they indulged habitually in wild scenes of revelry,
courted Hyacinth, and boasted afterwards of their second-hand
acquaintance with Miss Goold. It became the fashion to be seen
arm-in-arm with him in the quadrangle, and to inquire from him in public
for 'Finola.'
This new popularity by no means pleased Hyacinth. He was not at all
proud of his share in the Rotunda meeting, and lived in daily dread of
being recognised as the assailant of Mr. Shea. He knew, too, that he was
making no way with the better class of students. The men whose faces
he liked were more than ever shy of making his acquaintance. The
sub-lecturers and minor professors in the divinity school were coldly
contemptuous in their manner, and it seemed to him that even Dr.
Henry was less friendly. He became desperately anxious to get out of a
position which he found more intolerable than the original isolation. He
applied himself with extreme diligence to his studies, even affecting
an interest, unnatural for the most pious, in the expositions given
by learned doctors of the Thirty-nine Articles. At lectures on Church
history he made notes about the vagaries of heretics so assiduously that
the professor began to hope that there existed one student at least
who took an interest in the Christological controversies of the sixth
century. He never ventured back again to the Wednesday prayer-meeting,
but he performed many attendances beyond the required minimum at the
college chapel. Morning after morning he dragged himself from his
bed and hurried across the dusky quadrangle to take his part in the
mutilated matins with which the college authorities see fit to usher
in the day. He even went to hear the sermons delivered on Friday
afternoons, homilies so painful that the preachers themselves recognise
an extraordinary merit in enduring them, and allow that submission of
the ears to one of them is to be reckoned as equal to two ordinary acts
of devotion.
It is to be hoped that Hyacinth derived some remote benefit from the
discipline to which he subjected himself, for the immediate results were
not satisfactory. He seemed no nearer winning the respect of the more
serious students, and Dr. Henry's manner showed no signs of softening
into friendliness. His surfeit of theology bred in him a dislike of the
subject. The solemn platitudes which were posed as expositions of the
creeds affected his mind much as the expurgated life histories of maiden
aunts do the newly-emancipated school-girl. The relentless closing in of
argument upon a single previously settled doctrine woke in him a desire
to break through at some point and breathe again in the open. He
began to fear that he was becoming hopelessly irreligious. His morning
devotions in the foggy atmosphere of the chapel did not touch the
capacity for enthusiasm within him. The vague splendour of his father's
meditations had left him outside, indeed, but sure that within there
lay a great reality. But now religion had come to seem an altogether
narrower thing, a fenced off, well-ordered garden in which useful
vegetables might be cultivated, but very little inspiring to the soul.
The unwelcome attention of the students whose friendship he did not
desire, and his increasing dislike for the work he was expected to do,
led him to spend more and more of his time with Augusta Goold and her
friends. He found in their society that note of enthusiasm which he
missed in the religion of the college. He responded warmly to their
passionate devotion to the dream of an independent Irish Republic. He
felt less conscious of his want of religion in their company. With the
exception of Augusta Goold herself, the members of the coterie were
professedly Roman Catholics; but this made little or no difference
in their intercourse with him. What he found in their ideals was a
substitute for religion, a space where his enthusiasm might extend
itself. He became, as he realized his own position clearly, very
doubtful whether he ought to continue his college course. It did not
seem likely that he would in the end be able to take Holy Orders, and
to remain in the divinity school without that intention was clearly
foolish. On the other hand, he shrank from inflicting what he knew would
be a painful disappointment on his father. It happened that before the
term ended his connection with the divinity school was cut in a way that
saved him from the responsibility of forming a decision.
He was a regular attendant at the lectures of Dr. Spenser, who had never
from the first disguised his dislike and contempt for Hyacinth. This
gentleman was one day explaining to his class the difference between
evidence which leads to a high degree of probability and a demonstration
which produces absolute certainty. The subject was a dry one, and quite
unsuited to Dr. Spenser, whose heart was set on maintaining a reputation
for caustic wit. He cast about for an illustration which would at once
make clear the distinction and enliven his lecture. His eye lit upon
Hyacinth, upon whose cheek there still burned a long red scar. Dr.
Spenser's face brightened.
'For instance, gentlemen,' he said, 'if I should reason from the fact
that our friend Mr. Conneally affects the society of certain charming
ladies of doubtful reputation, like Miss Goold, to the conclusion that
Mr. Conneally is himself a Nationalist, I should only have arrived at
a probable conclusion. The degree of probability might be very high;
still, I should have no right to regard my conclusion as absolutely
certain.'
The class tittered delightedly. Dr. Spenser proceeded without heeding a
deep flush on Hyacinth's face, which might have warned a wiser man that
an explosion was coming.
'If I should then proceed to reason thus: All Nationalists are rebels
and potential murderers--Mr. Conneally is a Nationalist; therefore Mr.
Conneally is a rebel and potential murderer--I should, assuming the
truth of my minor premise, have arrived at a certainty.'
The syllogism was greeted with loud applause. Hyacinth started to his
feet. For a time he could only gasp for breath to utter a reply, and
Dr. Spenser, secure in the conviction of his own intellectual and social
superiority to the son of a parson from Connemara, determined to pursue
his prey.
'Does Mr. Conneally,' he asked with a simper, 'propose to impugn the
accuracy of my induction or the logic of my deduction?'
The simper and the number of beautiful long words which Dr. Spenser had
succeeded in collecting together into one sentence provoked a sustained
clapping of hands and stamping of feet from the class. Hyacinth rapidly
regained his self-possession, and was surprised at his own coolness when
he replied:
'I should say, sir, that a man who makes an induction holding up a lady
to ridicule is probably a cad, and that the cad who makes a deduction
confusing patriotism with murder is certainly a fool.'
A report of Hyacinth's speech was handed to Dr. Henry, with a
suggestion that expulsion from the divinity school was the only suitable
punishment. Hyacinth did not look forward with any pleasure to the
interview to which he was summoned. He was agreeably surprised when he
entered the professor's room. Dr. Henry offered him a chair.
'I hear,' he said--his tone was severe, but a barely perceptible gleam
of humorous appreciation flashed across his eyes as he spoke--'that you
have been exceedingly insolent to Dr. Spenser.'
'I don't know, sir, whether you heard the whole story, but if you did
you will surely recognise that Dr. Spenser was gratuitously insulting to
me.'
'Quite so,' said Dr. Henry. 'I recognise that, but the question is, What
am I to do with you now? What would you do if you were in my place? I
should like to know your views of the best way out of the situation.'
Hyacinth was silent.
'You see,' Dr. Henry went on, 'we can't have our divinity lecturers
called fools and cads before their classes. I should be afraid myself
to deliver a lecture in your presence if I thought I was liable to that
kind of interruption.'
'I think, sir,' said Hyacinth, 'that the best thing will be for me to
leave the divinity school.'
'I think so, too. But leaving our divinity school need not mean that you
give up the idea of taking Holy Orders. I have a very high opinion of
your abilities, Conneally--so high that I should not like the Church to
lose your services. At the same time, you are not at present the kind
of man whom I could possibly recommend to any Irish Bishop. Your
Nationalist principles are an absolute bar to your working in the Church
of Ireland.'
'I wonder, sir, how you can call our Church the Church of Ireland, and
in the same breath say that there is no room for a Nationalist in her.
Don't the two things contradict each other.'
Dr. Henry's eyes twinkled again. There spread over his mouth a smile of
tolerant amusement.
'My dear boy, I'm not going to let you trap me into a discussion of that
question. Theoretically, I have no doubt you would make out an excellent
case. National Church, National spirit, National politics--Irish Church,
Irish nation, Irish ideas. They all go excellently together, don't they?
And yet the facts are as I state them. A Nationalist clergyman in
the Church of Ireland would be just as impossible as an English
Nonconformist in the Court of Louis Quatorze. After all, in this life
one has got to steer one's course among facts, and they're sharp things
which knock holes in the man who disregards them. Now, what I propose
to you is this: Put off your ordination for three years or so. Take
up schoolmastaring. I will undertake to get you a post in an English
school. Your politics won't matter over there, because no one will in
the least understand what you mean. Work hard, think hard, read hard.
Mix with the bigger world across the Channel. See England and realize
what England is and what her Empire means. Don't be angry with me for
saying that, long before the three years are over, you'll have come to
see that what you call patriotism is nothing else than parochialism of
a particularly narrow and uninstructed kind. Then come back here to me,
and I'll arrange for your ordination. You'll do the best of good work
when you've grown up a bit, and I'll see you a Bishop before I die.'
'I shall always be grateful to you,' said Hyacinth. 'I shall never
forget your kindness, and the way you've treated me; but I can't do what
you ask.'
'Oh, I'm not going to take no for an answer,' said Dr. Henry. 'Go home
to the West and think it over. Talk to your father about your future.
Write to me if you like about your plans, and remember my offer is open
six months or a year hence. You'll be the same man then that you are
now--I mean, in character. I'm not afraid of your turning out badly. You
may think wrong-headedly, but I'm sure you'll not act disgracefully.'
CHAPTER VII
The December afternoon was growing dark when the weary car-horse
surmounted the last hill on the road from Clifden and broke into a
shambling trot down the long straight stretch into Carrowkeel. Soon, as
the distance dwindled, the lights which twinkled here and there in the
village became distinguishable. This--Hyacinth recognised it--was the
great hanging lamp in the window of Rafferty's shop. That, a softer
glow, came from the forge of Killeen, the smith. That, and that, fainter
and more uncertain lights, were from fires seen through the open upper
section of cottage doors. He could almost tell whose the cabins were
where they shone. The scene inside rose to the imagination. A man with
ragged clothes and a half-empty pipe is squeezed into the stone nook
beside the blazing turf. The kettle, hanging from its hook, swings
steaming beside him. The woman of the house, barefooted, sluttish, in
torn crimson petticoat and gray bodice pinned across her breast, moves
the red cinders from the lid of the pot-oven and peers at the browning
cake within. Babies toddle or crawl over the greasy floor. The car
rattled into the village street. Men whom he knew stopped it to speak to
him. Children playing the last of their games in the fading light paused
to stare at him. Father Moran, returning to his presbytery, waved his
hand and shouted a greeting. He passed the last house of the village,
and could see the fishing-boats, dim and naked-looking, riding at their
anchors in the bay. Out beyond them, grim and terrible in the twilight,
lay the hulk where the ice for fish-packing was stored. The thick stump
of her one remaining mast made a blacker bar against the black sky. The
pier was deserted, but he could see the bulky stacks of fish-boxes piled
on it, and hear the water lapping against it. Along its utmost edge lay
a belt of gray white, where the waves broke as they surged round<|fim_middle|> is under my head; His
left hand doth embrace me." I sat quite still, and did not move or speak
or even breathe, lest He should go away from me. Then, after a long
time--I knew afterwards that the time was long, though then it seemed
only a minute for the joy that I had in it--He told me--I do not mean
that I heard a voice or any words; I did not hear, I _felt_ Him tell
me--the things that are to be. The last great fight, the Armageddon,
draweth very near. All that is good is on one side in the fight, and the
Captain over all. What is bad is on the other side--all kinds of tyranny
and greed and lust. I did not hear these words, but I felt the things,
only without any fear, for round me were the everlasting arms. And
the battlefield is Ireland, our dear Ireland which we love. All these
centuries since the great saints died He has kept Ireland to be His
battlefield. I understood then how our people have been saved from
riches and from power and from the opportunities of lust, that our soil
out of all the world might be fit for the feet of the great Captain, for
the marching of His horsemen and His chariots. Not even when I knew all
this did I desire to share in the conflict. I am old and feeble, but
that is not the reason why there was no desire on me, for strength is in
His power to give to whom He wills. I did not desire it, because I was
quite happy, being safe with Him.'
For a long time after he ceased speaking there was silence, for Hyacinth
had no comment to offer. At last the old man spoke again.
'That is all. I have no other word of revelation. But I have wondered
since how men are to be disentangled from their parties and their
churches and their nations, and gathered simply into good and bad. Will
all men who are good just know the Captain when they see Him and range
themselves with Him? But why should we think about such things as these?
Doubtless He can order them. But you, Hyacinth--will you be sure to know
the good side from the bad, the Captain from the enemy?'
For a long time after he had gone to bed Hyacinth lay awake haunted by
his father's prophecy of an Armageddon. There was that in his nature
which responded eagerly to such a call to battle. In the presence of
enthusiasm like his father's or like Augusta Goold's, Hyacinth
caught fire. His mind flamed with the idea of an Independent Ireland
resplendent with her ancient glories. He embraced no less eagerly the
thought of his father's battle and his own part in it. Groping for
points of contact between the two enthusiasms, he caught at the
conception of the Roman Church as the Antichrist and her power in
Ireland as the point round which the fight must rage. Then with a sudden
flash he saw, not Rome, but the British Empire, as the embodiment of
the power of darkness. He had learned to think of it as a force, greedy,
materialistic, tyrannous, grossly hypocritical. What more was required
to satisfy the conception of evil that he sought for? He remembered
all that he had ever heard from Augusta Goold and her friends about the
shameless trickery of English statesmen, about the insatiable greed of
the merchants, about the degraded sensuality of the workers. He recalled
the blatant boastfulness with which English demagogues claimed to be
the sole possessors of enlightened consciences, and the tales of
native races exploited, gin-poisoned, and annihilated by pioneers of
civilization advancing with Bibles in their hands.
But with all his capacity for enthusiasm there was a strain of weakness
in Hyacinth. More than once after the glories of an Independent Ireland
had been preached to him he had found himself growing suddenly cold and
dejected, smitten by an east wind of common-sense. At the time when he
first recognised the loftiness of his father's religion he had revolted
against being called upon to adopt so fantastic a creed. So now, when
his mind grew weary with the endeavour to set an Armageddon in array, he
began to wish for a life of peaceful monotony, a place to be quiet in,
where no high calls or imperious demands would come to threaten him.
He ceased to toss to and fro, and gradually sank into a half-conscious
sleep. It seemed to him at the time that he was still awake, held back
from slumber by the great stillness of the country, that silence which
disturbs ears long accustomed to the continuous roar of towns. Suddenly
he started into perfect wakefulness, and felt that he was in possession
of all his faculties. The room where he lay was quite dark, but he
strained his eyes to see something in it. He listened intently, although
no sound whatever met his ears. A great overmastering fear laid hold on
him. He tried to reason with himself, insisting that there was nothing,
and could be nothing, to be afraid of. Still the fear remained. His
lips grew stiff and painfully hot, and when he tried to moisten them his
tongue was dry and moved across them raspingly. He struggled with the
terror that paralyzed him, and by a great effort raised his hand to his
forehead. It was damp and cold, and the hair above it was damp. He had
no way of knowing how much of the night had passed, or even how long he
lay rigid, unable to breathe without a kind of pain; but suddenly as it
had come the terror left him, left him without any effort on his part or
any reason that he recognised. Then the window of his room shook, and he
heard outside the low moan of the rising wind. Some heavy drops of rain
struck audibly on the roof, and the first gust of the storm carried to
his ears the sound of waves beating on the rocks. His senses strained no
more. His eyes closed, and he sank quietly into a long dreamless sleep.
It was late when he woke, so late that the winter sky was fully lit. The
wind, whose first gusts had lulled him to sleep, had risen to a gale,
and the rain, mixed with salt spray, beat fiercely against his window
and on the roof. He listened, expecting to hear his father moving in the
room below, but within the house there was no sound. He rose, vaguely
anxious, and without waiting to dress went into the kitchen. Everything
lay untouched, just as he had left it the night before. The lamp and
the remnants of the meal were on the table. The two chairs stood side
by side before the hearth, where the fire which he had covered up
smouldered feebly. He turned and went to his father's room. He could
not have explained how it was, but when he opened the door he was not
surprised to see the old man lying quite still, dead, upon the bed. His
face was turned upwards, and on it was that strange look of emotionless
peace which rests very often on the faces of the dead. It seemed
to Hyacinth quite natural that the soul as it departed into unknown
beatitude should have printed this for the last expression on the
earthly habitation which it left behind. He neither wondered nor, at
first, sorrowed very much to see his father dead. His sight was undimmed
and his hands steady when he closed the eyes and composed the limbs of
the body on the bed. Afterwards it seemed strange to him that he should
have dressed quietly, arranged the furniture in the kitchen, and blown
the fire into a blaze before he went down into the village to tell his
news and seek for help.
They buried AEneas Conneally beside his wife in the wind-swept
churchyard. The fishermen carried his coffin into the church and out
again to the grave. Father Moran himself stood by bareheaded while the
clergyman from Clifden read the prayers and sprinkled the coffin-lid
with the clay which symbolized the return of earth to earth and dust to
dust. In the presence of death, and, with the recollection of the simple
goodness of the man who was gone, priest and people alike forgot for an
hour the endless strife between his creed and theirs.
CHAPTER VIII
In Connaught the upper middle classes, clergy, doctors, lawyers, police
officers, bank officials, and so forth, are all strangers in the land.
Each of them looks forward to a promotion which will enable him to move
to some more congenial part of Ireland. A Dublin suburb is the ideal
residence; failing that, the next best thing is a country town within
easy reach of the metropolis. Most of them sooner or later achieve a
promotion, but some of them are so unfortunate as to die in their exile.
In either case their furniture and effects are auctioned. No one ever
removes his goods from Con-naught, because the cost of getting things
to any other part of Ireland is exorbitant, and also because tables
and chairs fetch very high prices at auctions. Thus it happens that a
certain historic interest attaches to the furniture of most middle-class
houses west of the Shannon. The dispensary doctor dines off a table
which once graced the parlour of a parish priest. The inspector
of police boasts of the price he paid for his easy-chair, recently
upholstered, at the auction of a departing bank manager, the same
mahogany frame having once supported the portly person of an old-time
Protestant Archdeacon. It is to be supposed that the furniture
originally imported--no one knows how--into Connaught must have been of
superlative quality. Articles whose pedigree, so to speak, can be traced
for nearly a hundred years are still in daily use, unimpaired by changes
of scene and ownership.
An auction of any importance is a public holiday. Clergy, doctors,
lawyers, and police officers gather to the scene, not unlike those
beasts of prey of whom we read that they readily devour the remains of
a fallen member of their own pack. The natives also collect
together--publicans and shopkeepers in search of bargains in china,
glass, and house-linen; farmers bent on purchasing such outdoor property
as wheelbarrows, scythes, or harness.
When Hyacinth, to use the local expression, 'called an auction' shortly
after his father's death, he was favoured with quite the usual crowd of
would-be buyers. Almost everyone with either money or credit within
a radius of twenty miles came into Carrowkeel for the occasion. The
presiding auctioneer had done his duty beforehand by advertising old Mr.
Conneally's mouldy furniture as 'magnificently upholstered suites,'
and his battered editions of the classics as 'a valuable library
of handsomely bound books.' It is not likely that anyone was really
deceived by these announcements, or expected to find in the little
rectory anything sumptuous or splendid. The people assembled mainly
because they were exceedingly curious to see the inside of a house whose
doors had never been open to them during the lifetime of the owner. It
was always possible, besides, that though the 'magnificently upholstered
suites 'existed only in the auctioneer's imagination, treasures of
silver spoons or candlesticks plated upon copper might be discovered
among the effects of a man who lived as queer a life as Mr. Conneally.
When men and women put themselves to a great deal of inconvenience to
attend an auction, they do not like to return empty-handed. A day is
more obviously wasted if one goes home with nothing to show than if one
brings a table or a bedstead purchased at twice its proper value. Thus
the bidding at Hyacinth's auction was brisk, and the prices such as gave
sincere satisfaction to the auctioneer. Everything was sold except 'the
valuable library.' It was in vain that the auctioneer made personal
appeals to Father Moran and the Rector of Clifden, as presumably the
two most learned gentlemen present. Neither of them wanted the venerable
classics. In fact, neither of them could have read a line of the crooked
Greek type or construed a page of the Latin authors. Even the Irish
books, in spite of the Gaelic revival, found no purchasers. When all was
over, Hyacinth wheeled them away in barrowfuls, wondering greatly what
he was to do with them.
Indeed, the disposal of his library was not the chief of his
perplexities. He wondered also what he was to do with himself. When the
auctioneer sent in his cheque, and the London Committee of the Mission
had paid over certain arrears of salary, Hyacinth found himself the
possessor of nearly two hundred pounds. It seemed to him quite a large
fortune, amply sufficient to start life with, if only some suitable way
of employing brains, energy, and money would suggest itself. In order to
consider the important topic at his leisure, he hired the only lodging
in Carrowkeel--the apartment (it was both bed and sitting room) over Mr.
Rafferty's public-house. The furniture had suffered during the tenancy
of a series of Congested Districts Board officials. An engineer, who
went to sleep in the evenings over the fire, had burnt a round hole in
the hearthrug. An instructor in fish-curing, a hilarious young man,
had cracked the mirror over the mantelpiece, and broken many ornaments,
including the fellow of the large china dog which now mourned its mate
on the sideboard. Other gentlemen had been responsible for dislocating
the legs of two chairs and a disorganization of the handle, which made
it impossible to shut the door from the inside. The chief glory of the
apartment, however, still remained--a handsomely-framed document,
signed by Earl Spencer, then Lord Lieutenant, ordering the arrest of the
present Mr. Rafferty's father as a person dangerous to the Commonwealth.
The first thing which brought Hyacinth's meditations to a definite point
was a letter he received from Dr. Henry.
'I do not know,' the professor wrote, 'and of course I do not wish
to inquire, how you are situated financially; but if, as I suppose is
likely, you are obliged in the near future to earn your living, I may
perhaps be of some help to you..You have taken your B.A. degree, and are
so far qualified either to accept a post as a schoolmaster in an English
preparatory school or to seek ordination from some Bishop. As you are
probably aware, none of our Irish Bishops will accept a man who has
not completed his divinity course. Several English Bishops, however,
especially in the northern province, are willing to ordain men who have
nothing more than a University degree, always supposing that they pass
the required examination. I shall be quite willing to give you a letter
of recommendation to one of these Bishops, and I have no doubt that
a curacy could be found for you in one of the northern manufacturing
towns, where you would have an ample sphere for useful work.'
The letter went on to urge the advisability of Hyacinth's suppressing,
disguising, or modifying his political opinions, which, stated nakedly,
were likely to beget a certain prejudice in the well-balanced episcopal
mind, and in any case would be quite out of place among the operatives
of Yorkshire or Lancashire.
Hyacinth recognised and appreciated Dr. Henry's kindness. He even tried
to bring himself to consider the offer seriously and carefully, but it
was no use. He could not conceive himself as likely to be either useful
or happy amid the hustling commercialism of the Manchester streets or
the staid proprieties of an Anglican vicarage.
After he had spent about a week in his new lodging, Father Moran called
on him. The priest sat beside the fire for more than an hour chatting
in a desultory manner. He drank tea and smoked, and it was not until he
rose to go that the real object of his visit appeared.
'I don't know what you're thinking of doing, Mr. Conneally, and maybe
I've no right to ask.'
'I wouldn't have the least objection to telling you,' said Hyacinth, 'if
I knew myself; but I haven't my mind made up.'
The priest put down his hat again, and settled himself with his back to
the fire and his hands in his pockets. Hyacinth sat down, and during the
pause which followed contemplated the wonderful number and variety of
the stains on the black waistcoat in front of him.
'Then you've given up the idea of finishing your divinity course?' said
the priest. 'I'm not blaming you in the least. There's men that studying
suits, and there's men that it doesn't. I never was much of a one for
books myself.'
He sighed heavily, perhaps at the recollection of his own struggles with
the mysteries of theology in his Maynooth student days. Then he walked
over and closed the door, returned, drew a chair close to Hyacinth, and
spoke in the tone of a man who imparts an important secret.
'Did you hear that Thady Durkan's giving up the fishing? Since he broke
his arm he declares he'll never step aboard the boat again. You know the
St. Bridget. She's not one of the biggest boats, but she's a very lucky
one. She made over five hundred pounds last year, besides the share the
Board took. She was built at Baltimore, and the Board spent over two
hundred pounds on her, nets and gear and all. There's only one year more
of instalments to pay off the price of her, and Thady has the rest of
the men bought out. There's nobody owns a stick or a net or a sail of
her except himself, barring, of course, what's due to the Board.'
Hyacinth was sufficiently acquainted with the system on which the
Congested Districts Board provides the Connaught fishermen with boats
and nets to understand Father Moran's rather involved statement
of Durkan's financial position. He did not yet grasp why all this
information should have been conveyed to him in such a solemn and
mysterious tone.
'You might have the _St. Bridget_,' said the priest, 'for one hundred
and fifty pounds down.'
He paused to let the full glory of the situation lay hold upon Hyacinth.
Perhaps he expected an outburst of delight and surprise, but none came.
'Mind you,' he said, 'there's others looking for her. The men that
worked with Thady are thinking of making him an offer, and I dare say
the Board would be glad enough to have the boat owned among them; but I
can put in a word myself both with Thady and the inspector. Faith, the
times is changed since I was a young man. I can remember when a priest
was no more thought of than a barefooted gossure out of a bog, and now
there isn't a spalpeen of a Government inspector but lifts his hat to me
in the street. Oh, a note from me will go a good way with the Board,
and you'll not miss the chance for want of my good word--I promise you
that.'
'Thank you,' said Hyacinth.
'Mind you, there's a good thing to be made out of her. But sure you know
that as well as I do myself, and maybe better. What do you say now?'
'I'll think it over,' said Hyacinth, 'and whatever comes of it I'll be
greatly obliged to you.'
'Well, don't be delaying too long. And look you here'--his voice sank
almost to a whisper--'don't be talking about what I've said to you.
People are queer, and if Father Joyce down in Clifden came to hear
that I was working for a Protestant he'd be sure to go talking to the
Archbishop, and I'd never get to the end of the fuss that would be
made.'
'Indeed, it's very good of you, especially considering who I am--I mean,
my father being a convert, and----'
'Say no more,' said the priest--'say no more. Your father was a good
man, Catholic or Protestant. I'm not one of these bitter kind of
priests, Mr. Con-neally. I can be a good Catholic without hating my
neighbours. I don't hold with all this bullyragging in newspapers about
"sourfaces" and "saved." Maybe that's the reason that I'm stuck down
here at the other end of nowhere all my life, and never got promotion
or praise. But what do I care as long as they let me alone to do my work
for the people? I'm not afraid to say it to you, Mr. Conneally, for you
won't want to get me into trouble, but it's my belief that there's many
of our priests would rather have grand churches than contented people.
They're fonder of Rome than they are of Ireland.'
'Really, Father Moran,' said Hyacinth, smiling, 'if you go on like this,
I shall expect to hear of your turning Protestant.'
'God forbid, Mr. Conneally! I wish you well. I wish you to be here among
us, and to be prosperous; but the dearest wish of my heart for you is
that I might see you back in the Catholic Church, believing the creed of
your forefathers.'
The priest's suggestion attracted Hyacinth a great deal more than Dr.
Henry's. He liked the sea and the fishing, and he loved the simple
people among whom he had been brought up. His experiences in Dublin had
not encouraged him to be ambitious. Life in the great world--it was thus
that he thought of the bickerings of the Dublin Nationalists and the
schoolboy enthusiasms of college students--was not a very simple
thing. There was a complexity and a confusion in affairs which made
it difficult to hold to any cause devotedly. It seemed to him, looking
back, that Miss Goold's ideals--and she had ideals, as he knew--were
somehow vulgarized in their contact with the actual. He had seen
something of the joy she found in her conflict with O'Rourke, and it did
not seem to him to be pure or ennobling. At one time he was on the verge
of deciding to do what the priest wished. Walking day by day along the
shore or through the fields, he came to think that life might very
well be spent without ambitious or extended hopes in quiet toil and
unexciting pleasures. What held him back was the recollection, which
never ceased to haunt him, of his father's prophecy. The thought of
the great fight, declared to be imminent, stirred in him an emotion so
strong that the peace and monotony he half desired became impossible.
He never made it clear to himself that he either believed or disbelieved
the prediction. He certainly did not expect to see an actual gathering
of armed men, or that Ireland was to be the scene of a battle like those
in South Africa. But there was in him a conviction that Ireland was
awakening out of a long sleep, was stretching her limbs in preparation
for activity. He felt the quiver of a national strenuousness which was
already shaking loose the knots of the old binding-ropes of prejudice
and cowardice. It seemed to him that bone was coming to dry bone, and
that sooner or later--very soon, it was likely--one would breathe on
these, and they would live. That contest should come out of such a
renaissance was inevitable. But what contest? Against whom was the new
Ireland to fight, and who was truly on her side? Here was the puzzle,
insoluble but insistent. It would not let him rest, recurring to his
mind with each fresh recollection of his father's prophecy.
It was while he was wearying himself with this perplexity that he got
a letter from Augusta Goold. It was characteristic of her that she had
written no word of sympathy when she heard of his father's death, and
now, when a letter did come, it contained no allusion to Hyacinth's
affairs. She told him with evident delight that she had enlisted no less
than ten recruits for the Boer army. She had collected sufficient money
to equip them and pay their travelling expenses. It was arranged that
they were to proceed to Paris, and there join a body of volunteers
organized by a French officer, a certain Pierre de Villeneuve, about
whom Miss Goold was enthusiastic. She was in communication with an
Irishman who seemed likely to be a suitable captain for her little band,
and she wanted Hyacinth back in Dublin to help her.
'You know,' she wrote, 'the people I have round me here. Poor old Grealy
is quite impracticable, though he means well. He talks about nothing
but the Fianna and Finn McCool, and can't see that my fellows must have
riding lessons, and must be got somehow to understand the mechanism of
a rifle. Tim Halloran has been in a sulk ever since I told him what I
thought of his conduct at the Rotunda. He never comes near me, and Mary
O'Dwyer told me the other day that he called my volunteers a "pack of
blackguards." I dare say it's perfectly true, but they're a finer kind
of blackguard than the sodden loafers the English recruit for their
miserable army.'
She went on to describe the series of Boer victories which had come one
after another just at Christmas-time. She was confident that the cause
of freedom and nationality would ultimately triumph, and she foresaw the
intervention of some Continental Power. A great blow would be struck at
the already tottering British Empire, and then--the freedom of Ireland.
Hyacinth felt strangely excited as he read her news. The letter seemed
the first clear note of the trumpet summoning him to his father's
Armageddon. Politics and squabbling at home might be inglorious and
degrading, but the actual war which was being waged in South Africa,
the struggle of a people for existence and liberty, could be nothing but
noble. He saw quite clearly what his own next step was to be, and there
was no temptation to hesitate about it. He would place his money at Miss
Goold's disposal, and go himself with her ten volunteers to join the
brigade of the heroic de Villeneuve.
CHAPTER IX
The prospect of joining Augusta Goold's band of volunteers and going to
South Africa to fight afforded Hyacinth great satisfaction. For two days
he lived in an atmosphere of day-dreams and delightful anticipations. He
had no knowledge whatever of the actual conditions of modern warfare.
He understood vaguely that he would be called upon to endure great
hardships. He liked to think of these, picturing himself bravely
cheerful through long periods of hunger, heat, or cold. He had visions
of night watches, of sudden alarms, of heart-stirring skirmishes, of
scouting work, and stealthy approaches to the enemy's lines. He thought
out the details of critical interviews with commanding officers in
which he with some chosen comrade volunteered for incredibly dangerous
enterprises. He conceived of himself as wounded, though not fatally, and
carried to the rear out of some bullet-swept firing-line. He was just
twenty-three years of age. Adventure had its fascination, and the world
was still a place full of splendid possibilities.
At the end of his two days of dreaming he returned, flushed with his
great purposes, to the realities of life. He went to Father Moran to
tell him that he would not buy Durkan's boat. He laughed to himself
at the thought of doing such a thing. Was he to spend his life fishing
mackerel round the rocky islands of Connemara, when he might be fighting
like one of the ancient heroes, giving his strength, perhaps his life,
for a great cause? The priest met him at the presbytery door.
'Come in, Mr. Conneally--come in and sit down. I was expecting you these
two days. What were you doing at all, walking away there along the rocks
by yourself? The people were beginning to say that you were getting to
be like your poor father, and that nobody'd ever get any good out of
you. But I knew you'd come back to me here. I hope now it's to tell me
that you'll buy the boat you've come.'
They entered the house, and the priest opened the door of the little
sitting-room. Hyacinth knew it well. There was the dark mahogany table
with the marks burnt into it where hot dishes were set down, the shabby
arm-chair, the worn cocoanut-matting on the floor, the dozen or so books
in the hanging shelf, the tawdry sacred pictures round the wall. He had
known it all, and it all seemed unchanged since he was a child.
'Sit you down--sit you down,' said the priest. 'And now about the boat.'
'I'm not going in for her,' said Hyacinth. 'I'm as thankful to you for
suggesting it as if I did buy her. I hope you'll understand that, but
I'm not going to buy her.'
He found it difficult to speak of his new plan to Father Moran.
'Do you tell me that, now? I'm sorry for it. And why wouldn't you buy
her? What's there to hinder you?'
Hyacinth hesitated.
'Well, now,' said the priest, 'I can guess. I thought the auction turned
out well for you, but I never heard for certain, and maybe you haven't
got the money for the boat. Whisht now, my son, and let me speak. I'm
thinking the thing might be managed.'
'But, Father Moran------'
'Ah now, will you be quiet when I bid you? I haven't the money myself.
Never a penny have I been able to save all my life, with the calls there
are on me in a parish like this. Sure, you know yourself how it is.
There's one will have a cow that has died on him, and another will be
wanting a lock of potatoes for seed in the springtime; and if it isn't
that, it'll be something else. And who would the creatures go to in
their trouble but the old priest that christened and married the most
of them? But, indeed, thanks be to God, things is improving. The fishing
brings in a lot of money to the men, and there's a better breed of
cattle in the country now, and the pigs fetch a good price since we had
the railway to Clifden, and maybe the last few years I might have saved
a little, but I didn't. Indeed, I don't know where it is the money goes
at all, but someway it's never at rest in my breeches pockets till it's
up and off somewhere. God forgive us! it's more careful we ought to be.'
'But, Father Moran, I don't----'
'Arrah then, will you cease your talking for one minute, and let me get
a word in edgeways for your own good? What was I saying? Oh, I was just
after telling you I hadn't got the money to help you. But maybe I might
manage to get it. The man in the bank in Clifden knows me. I borrowed a
few pounds off him two years ago when the Cassidys' house and three more
beside it got blown away in the big wind. Father Joyce put his name on
the back of the bill along with my own, and trouble enough I had to get
him to do it, for he said I ought to put an appeal in the newspapers,
and I'd get the money given to me. But I never was one to go begging
round the country. I said I'd rather borrow the money and pay it back
like a decent man. And so I did, every penny of it. And I think the bank
will trust me now, with just your name and mine, more especially as
it's to buy a boat we want the money. What do you say to that, now?' He
looked at Hyacinth triumphantly.
'Father Moran, you're too good to me--you're too good altogether. What
did ever I do to deserve such kindness from you? But you're all wrong.
I've got plenty of money.'
'And why in the name of all that's holy didn't you tell me so at once,
and not keep me standing here twisting my brains into hard knots with
thinking out ways of getting what you don't want? If you've got the
money you'll buy the boat. What better could you do with it?'
'But I don't want to buy the boat. I don't want to live here always. I'm
going away out into the world. I want to see things and do things.'
'Out into the world! Will you listen to the boy? Is it America you're
thinking of? Ah, now, there's enough gone out and left us lonely here.
Isn't the best of all the boys and girls going to work for the strangers
in the strange land? and why would you be going after them?'
'I'm not going to America. I'm going to South Africa. I'm going to join
some young Irishmen to fight for the Boers and for freedom.'
'You're going out to fight--to fight for the Boers! What is it that's in
your head at all, Hyacinth Con-neally? Tell me now.'
Again Hyacinth hesitated. Was it possible to give utterance to the
thoughts and hopes which filled his mind? Could he tell anyone about
the furious fancies of the last few days, or of that weird vision of
his father's which lay at the back of what he felt and dreamed? Could
he even speak of the enthusiasm which moved him to devote himself to the
cause of freedom and a threatened nationality? In the presence of a man
of the world the very effort to express himself would have acted as some
corrosive acid, and stained with patches of absurdity the whole fabric
of his dreams. He looked at Father Moran, and saw the priest's eyes lit
with sympathy. He knew that he had a listener who would not scoff, who
might, perhaps, even understand. He began to speak, slowly and haltingly
at first, then more rapidly. At last he poured out with breathless,
incoherent speed the strange story of the Armageddon vision, the hopes
that were in him, the fierce enthusiasm, the passionate love for
Ireland which burnt in his soul. He was not conscious of the gaping
inconsequences of his train of emotion. He did not recognise how
ridiculous it was to connect the Boer War with the Apocalyptic battle
of the saints, or the utter impossibility of getting either one or the
other into any sort of relation with the existing condition of Ireland.
A casual observer might have supposed that Hyacinth had made a mistake
in telling his story to Father Moran. A smile, threatening actual
laughter, hovered visibly round the priest's mouth. His eyes had a
shrewd, searching expression, difficult to interpret. Still, he listened
to the rhapsody without interrupting it, till Hyacinth stopped abruptly,
smitten with sudden self-consciousness, terrified of imminent ridicule.
Nor were the priest's first words reassuring.
'I wouldn't say now, Hyacinth Conneally, but there might be the makings
of a fine man in you yet.'
'I might have known,' said Hyacinth angrily, 'that you'd laugh at me. I
was a fool to tell you at all. But I'm in earnest about what I'm going
to do. Whatever you may think about the rest, there's no laughing at
that.'
'Well, you're just wrong then, for I wasn't laughing nor meaning to
laugh at all. God forbid that I should laugh at you, and I meant it when
I said that there was the makings of a fine man in you. Laugh at you!
It's little you know me. Listen now, till I tell you something; but
don't you be repeating it. This must be between you and me, and go no
further. I was very much of your way of thinking myself once.'
Hyacinth gazed at him in astonishment. The thought of Father Moran,
elderly, rotund, kindly; of Father Moran with sugar-stick in his pocket
for the school-children and a quaint jest on his lips for their mothers;
of Father Moran in his ruffled silk hat and shabby black coat and baggy
trousers--of this Father Moran mounted and armed, facing the British
infantry in South Africa, was wholly grotesque. He laughed aloud.
'It's yourself that has the bad manners to be laughing now,' said
the priest. 'But small blame to you if it was out to the Boers I was
thinking of going. The gray goose out there on the road might laugh--and
she's the solemnest mortal I know--at the notion of me charging along
with maybe a pike in my hand, and the few gray hairs that's left on the
sides of my head blowing about in the breeze I'd make as I went prancing
to and fro. But that's not what I meant when I said that once upon a
time I was something of your way of thinking. And sure enough I was, but
it's a long time ago now.'
He sighed, and for a minute or two he said no more. Hyacinth began
to wonder what he meant, and whether the promised confidence would be
forthcoming at all. Then the priest went on:
'When I was a young man--and it's hard for you to think it, but I was a
fine young man; never a better lad at the hurling than I was, me that's
a doddering old soggarth now--when I was a boy, as I'm telling you,
there was a deal of going to and fro in the country and meetings at
night, and drillings too, and plenty of talk of a rising--no less.
Little good came of it that ever I saw, but I'm not blaming the men that
was in it. They were good men, Hyacinth Conneally--men that would have
given the souls out of their bodies for the sake of Ireland. They would,
sure, for they loved Ireland well. But I had my own share in the doings.
Of course, it was before ever there was a word of my being a priest.
That came after. Thanks be to God for His mercies'--the old man crossed
himself reverently--'He kept me from harm and the sin that might have
been laid on me. But in those days there were great thoughts in me, just
as there are in you to-day. Faith! I'm of opinion that my thoughts were
greater than yours, for I was all for fighting here in Ireland, for the
Poor Old Woman herself, and it's out to some foreign war you'd be
going to fight for people that's not friends of yours by so much as one
heart's drop. Still, the feeling in you is the same as the feeling that
was in me, not a doubt of it. But, indeed, so far as I'm concerned, it's
over and gone. I haven't spoken to a mortal soul about such things these
thirty years, and I wouldn't be doing it now only just to show you that
I'm the last man in Ireland that would laugh at you for what you've told
me.'
'I'm glad I told you what's in my heart,' said Hyacinth; 'I'd like to
think I had your blessing with me when I go.'
'Well, you won't get it,' said Father Moran, 'so I tell you straight.
I'll give you no blessing when you're going away out of the country,
just when there's need of every man in it. I tell you this--and you'll
remember that I know what I'm talking about--it's not men that 'll fight
who will help Ireland to-day, but men that will work.'
'Work!' said Hyacinth--'work! What work is there for a man like me to do
in Ireland?'
'Don't I offer you the chance of buying Thady Durkan's boat? Isn't there
work enough for any man in her?'
'But that's not the sort of work I ought to be doing. What good would
it be to anyone but myself? What good would it be to Ireland if I caught
boatloads of mackerel?'
'Don't be making light of the mackerel, now. He's a good fish if you get
him fresh, and split him down and fry him with a lump of butter in the
pan. There's worse fish than the mackerel, as you'll discover if you go
to South Africa, and find yourself living on a bit of some ancient tough
beast of an ostrich, or whatever it may happen to be that they eat out
there.'
In his exalted mood Hyacinth felt insulted at the praise of the mackerel
and the laughter in the priest's eyes when he suggested a dinner off
ostrich. He held out his hand, and said good-bye.
'Wait, now--wait,' said the priest; 'don't be in such a tearing hurry.
I'll talk as serious as you like, and not hurt your feelings, if you'll
stay for a minute or two. Listen, now. Isn't the language dying on the
people's lips? They're talking the English, more and more of them every
day; and don't you know as well as I do that when they lose their Irish
they'll lose half the good that's in them? What sort will the next
generation of our people be, with their own language gone from them, and
their Irish ways forgotten, and all the old tales and songs and tunes
perished away like the froth of the waves that the storm blew up across
the fields the night your father died? I'll tell you what they'll
be--just sham Englishmen. And the Lord knows the real thing is not the
best kind of man in the world, but the copy of an Englishman! sure,
that's the poorest creature to be found anywhere on the face of God's
good earth. And that's what we'll be, when the Irish is gone from us.
Wouldn't there be work enough for you to do, now, if you were to buy
Thady Durkan's boat, and stay here and help to keep the people to the
old tongue and the old ways?'
Hyacinth shook his head. His mood was altogether too heroic to allow
him to think highly of what the priest said to him. He loved the Irish
language as his native speech--loved it, too, as a symbol, and something
more, perhaps--as an expression of the nationality of Ireland. But it
did not seem to him to be a very essential thing, and to spend his life
talking it and persuading other people to talk it was an obscure kind of
patriotism which made no strong appeal to him--which, indeed, could not
stand compared to the glory of drawing the sword.
'You've listened to what I've told you, Father Moran, and you say that
you understand what I feel, but I don't think you really do, or else you
wouldn't fancy that I could be satisfied to stay here. What is it you
ask of me? To spend my time fishing and talking Irish and dancing jigs.
Ah! it's well enough I'd like to do it. Don't think that such a life
wouldn't be pleasant to me. It would be too pleasant. That's what's the
matter with it. It's a temptation, and not a duty, that you're setting
before me.'
'Maybe it is now--maybe it is. And if it's that way you think of it,
you're right enough to say no to me. But for all that I understand you
well enough. Who's this now coming up to the house to see me?' He went
over to the window and looked out. 'Isn't it a queer life a priest lives
in a place like this, with never a minute of quiet peace from morning to
night but somebody will be coming interrupting and destroying it? First
it's you, Hyacinth Conneally--not that I grudge the time to you when
you're going off so soon--and now it's Michael Kavanagh. Indeed, he's
a decent man too, like yourself. Come in, Michael--come in. Don't be
standing there pulling at the old door-bell. You know as well as myself
it's broken these two years. It's heartbroken the thing is ever since
that congested engineer put up the electric bell for me, and little
use that was, seeing that Biddy O'Halloran--that's my housekeeper, Mr.
Conneally; you remember her--poured a jug of hot water into its inside
the way it wouldn't annoy her with ringing so loud. And why the noise
of it vexed her I couldn't say, for she's as deaf as a post every time
I speak to her. Ah, you're there, Michael, are you? Now, what do you
want?'
A young farmer, black-haired, tall and straight, stood in the doorway
with his hat in his hand. He had brought a paper for Father Moran's
signature. It related to a bull which the Congested Districts Board
proposed to lend to the parish, and of which Kavanagh had been chosen
to be custodian. A long conversation followed, conducted in Irish. The
newly-erected habitation for the animal was discussed; then the best
method of bringing him home from Clifden Station; then the kind of
beast he was likely to turn out to be, and the suitability of particular
breeds of cattle to the coarse, brine-soaked land of Carrowkeel.
Kavanagh related a fearful tale of a lot of 'foreign 'fowls which had
been planted in the neighbourhood by the Board. They were particularly
nice to look at, and settings of their eggs were eagerly booked long
beforehand. Then one by one they sickened and died. Some people thought
they died out of spite, being angered at the way they had been treated
in the train. Kavanagh himself did not think so badly of them. He was of
opinion that their spirits were desolated in them with the way the rain
came through the roof of their house, and that their feet got sore with
walking on the unaccustomed sea-sand. However their death was to be
explained, he hoped that the bull would turn out to be hardier. Father
Moran, on his part, hoped that the roof of the bull's house would
turn out to be sounder. In the end the paper was signed, and Kavanagh
departed.
'Now, there,' said the priest, 'is a fine young man. Only for him, I
don't know how I'd get on in the parish at all. He's got a head on his
shoulders, and a notion of improving himself and his neighbours, and it
would do you good to see him dance a jig. But why need I tell you that
when you've seen him yourself? He is to be the secretary of the Gaelic
League when we get a branch of it started in Carrowkeel. And a good
secretary he'll make, for his heart will be in the work. I dare say,
now, you've heard of the League when you were up in Dublin. Well, you'll
hear more of it. By the time you're back here again---- Now, don't be
saying that you'll not come back. I'll give you a year to get sick of
fighting for the Boers, and then there'll be a hunger on you for the old
place that will bring you back to it in spite of yourself.'
'Good-bye, Father Moran. Whatever happens to me, I'll not forget
Carrowkeel nor you either. You've been good to me, and if I don't take
your advice and stay where I am, it's not through want of gratitude.'
The priest wrung his hand.
'You'll come back. It may be after I'm dead and gone, but back you'll
come. Here or somewhere else in the old country you'll spend your days
working for Ireland, because you'll have learnt that working is better
than fighting.'
CHAPTER X
When Hyacinth got back to Dublin about the middle of February, the
streets were gay with amateur warriors. The fever for volunteering,
which laid hold on the middle classes after the series of regrettable
incidents of the winter, raged violently among the Irish Loyalists.
Nowhere were the recruiting officers more fervently besieged than in
Dublin. Youthful squireens who boasted of being admirable snipe shots,
and possessed a knowledge of all that pertained to horses, struggled
with prim youths out of banks for the privilege of serving as troopers.
The sons of plump graziers in the West made up parties with footmen
out of their landlords' mansions, and arrived in Dublin hopeful of
enlistment. Light-hearted undergraduates of Trinity, drapers' assistants
of dubious character, and the crowd of nondescripts whose time is spent
in preparing for examinations which they fail to pass, leaped at the
opportunity of winning glory and perhaps wealth in South Africa. Those
who were fortunate enough to be selected were sent to the Curragh to
be broken in to their new profession. They were clothed, to their own
intense delight, in that peculiar shade of yellow which is supposed to
be a help to the soldier in his efforts not to be shot. Their legs were
screwed into putties and breeches incredibly tight round the knees,
which expanded rapidly higher up, and hung round their hips in
voluminous folds. Their jackets were covered with a multiplicity of
quaint little pockets, sewed on in unexpected places, and each provided
with a flap which buttoned over it. The name of the artist who designed
this costume has perished, nor does there remain any written record
of the use which these tightly-secured pocket-covers were supposed to
serve. Augusta Goold suggested that perhaps they were meant to prevent
the troopers' money from falling out in the event of any commanding
officer ordering his men to receive the enemy standing on their heads.'
In the light of the intelligence displayed by the English Generals up
to the present,' she said, 'the War Office is quite right to be prepared
for such a thing happening.'
It seemed possible to procure almost any amount of leave from the
Curragh, and the yeomen delighted to spend it in promenading the
fashionable streets of the metropolis. The tea-shops reaped a rich
harvest from the regal way in which they treated their female relatives
and friends. Indeed, their presence must have seriously disorganized the
occupations by which young women earn their living. It was difficult to
imagine that the sick in the hospitals could have been properly looked
after, or the letters of solicitors typewritten, so great was the number
of damsels who attached themselves to these attractive heroes. The
philosophic observer found another curious subject for speculation in
the fact that this parade of military splendour took place in a city
whose population sympathized intensely with the Boer cause, and was
accustomed to receive the news of a British defeat with delight. The
Dublin artisan viewed the yeomen much as the French in Paris must have
looked upon the allied troops who entered their city after Waterloo.
The very name by which they were called had an anti-national sound, and
suggested the performance of other amateur horse-soldiers in Wexford a
century earlier.
The little band whose writings filled the pages of the _Croppy_ were
more than anyone else enraged at the flaunting of Imperialism in their
streets. They had rejoiced quite openly after Christmas, and called
attention every week in prose and poetry to the moribund condition of
the British Empire, even boasting as if they themselves had borne a part
in its humiliation. They were still in a position to assert that the
Boers were victorious, and that the volunteers were likely to do no more
than exhaust the prison accommodation at Pretoria. They could and did
compose biting jests, but their very bitterness witnessed to a deep
disappointment. It was not possible to deny that the despised English
garrison in Ireland was displaying a wholly unlooked-for spirit. No one
could have expected that West Britons and 'Seonini' would have wanted to
fight. Very likely, when the time came, they would run away; but in
the meanwhile here they were, swaggering through the streets of Dublin,
outward and visible signs of a force in the country hostile to the hopes
of the _Croppy_, a force that some day Republican Ireland would have to
reckon with.
Augusta Goold herself was more tolerant and more philosophic than her
friends. She looked at the yeomen with a certain admiration. Their
exuberant youthfulness, their strutting, and their obvious belief in
themselves, made a strong appeal to her imagination.
'Look at that young man,' she said to Hyacinth, pointing out a volunteer
who passed them in the street. 'I happen to know who he is. In fact, I
knew his people very well indeed at one time, and spent a fortnight with
them once when that young man was a toddler, and sometimes sat on my
knee--at least, he may have sat on my knee. There were a good many
children, and at this distance of time I can't be certain which of them
it was that used to worry me most during the hour before dinner. The
father is a landlord in the North, and comes of a fine old family. He's
a strong Protestant, and English, of course, in all his sympathies.
Well, a hundred years or so ago that boy's great-grandfather was
swaggering about these same streets in a uniform, just as his descendant
is doing now. He helped to drag a cannon into the Phoenix Park one day
with a large placard tied over its muzzle--"Our rights or----" Who do
you think he was threatening? Just the same England that this boy is so
keen to fight for to-day!'
'Ah,' said Hyacinth, 'you are thinking of the volunteer movement of
1780.'
'Afterwards,' she went on, 'he was one of the incorruptibles. You'll
see his name on Jonah Barrington's red list. He stood out to the
last against the Union, wouldn't be bribed, and fought two duels with
Castlereagh's bravoes. The curious thing is that the present man is
quite proud of that ancestor in a queer, inconsistent sort of way. Says
the only mark of distinction his family can boast of is that they didn't
get a Union peerage. Strange, isn't it?'
'It is strange,' said Hyacinth. 'The Irish gentry of 1782 were men to be
proud of; yet look at their descendants to-day.'
'It is very sad. Do you know, I sometimes think that Ireland will never
get her freedom till those men take it for her. Almost every struggle
that Ireland ever made was captained by her aristocracy. Think of the
Geraldines and the O'Neills. Think of Sarsfield and the Wild Geese.
Think of the men who wrenched a measure of independence from England in
1782. Think of Lord Edward and Smith O'Brien. No, we may talk and write
and agitate, but we'll _do_ nothing till we get the old families with
us.'
Hyacinth laughed. It seemed to him that Miss Goold was deliberately
talking nonsense, rejoicing in a paradox.
'We are likely to wait, if we wait for them. Look at those.' He waved
his hand towards a group of yeomen who were chatting at the street
corner. 'They are going to stamp out a nation in South Africa. Is it
likely that they will create one here?'
'It is not likely'--she sighed as she spoke--'yet stranger things than
that have happened. Have you ever considered what the present English
policy in Ireland really is? Do you understand that they are trying to
keep us quiet by bribing the priests? They think that the Protestants
are powerless, or that they will be loyal no matter what happens. But
think: These Protestants have been accustomed for generations to regard
themselves as a superior race. They conceive themselves to have a
natural right to govern. Now they are being snubbed and insulted. There
isn't an English official from their Lord Lieutenant down but thinks he
is quite safe in ignoring the Protestants, and is only anxious to
make himself agreeable to the priests. That's the beginning. Very soon
they'll be bullied as well as snubbed. They will stand a good deal of
it, because, like most strong people, they are very stupid and slow at
understanding; but do you suppose they will always stand it?'
'They're English, and not Irish,' said Hyacinth. 'I suppose they like
what their own people do.'
'It's a lie. They are not English, though they say it themselves. In the
end they will find out that they are Irish. Some day a last insult, a
particularly barefaced robbery, or an intolerable oppression, will awake
them. Then they'll turn on the people that betrayed them. They will
discover that Ireland--their Ireland--isn't meant to be a cabbage-garden
for Manchester, nor yet a _creche_ for sucking priests. Ah! it will be
good to be alive when they find themselves. We shall be within reach of
the freedom of Ireland then.'
Hyacinth was amazed at her vehement admiration for the class she was
accustomed to anathematize. He turned her words over and over in his
mind. They recalled, as so many different things seemed to do, his
father's vision of an Armageddon. Amid the confusion of Irish politics
this thought of a Protestant and aristocratic revolt was strangely
attractive; only it seemed to be wholly impossible. He bewildered
himself in the effort to arrange the pieces of the game into some
reasonable order. What was to be thought of a priesthood who, contrary
to all the traditions of their Church, had nursed a revolution against
the rights of property? or of a people, amazingly quick of apprehension,
idealistic of temperament, who time after time submitted themselves
blindfold to the tyranny of a single leader, worshipped a man, and asked
no questions about his policy? How was he to place an aristocracy who
refused to lead, and persisted in whining about their wrongs to the
inattentive shopkeepers of English towns, gentlemen not wanting in
honour and spirit courting a contemptuous bourgeoisie with ridiculous
flatteries? In what reasonable scheme of things was it possible to
place Protestants, blatant in their boasts about liberty, who hugged
subjection to a power which deliberately fostered the growth of
an ecclesiastical tyranny? Where amid this crazy dance of
self-contradictory fanatics and fools was a sane man to find a place on
which to stand? How, above all, was Ireland, a nation, to evolve itself?
He turned with relief from these perplexities to the work that lay
before him. However a man might worry and befog himself over the
confused issues of politics, it was at all events a straightforward
and simple matter to fight, and Hyacinth was going to the front as the
eleventh Irish volunteer.
To do Miss Goold justice, she had been extremely unwilling to enrol him,
and had refused to take a penny of his money. Her conscience, such as
it was after years of patriotic endeavour, rebelled against committing a
young man whom she really liked to the companionship of the men she had
enlisted and the care of their commander, Captain Albert Quinn.
This gentleman, whom she daily expected in Dublin, belonged to County
Mayo. He represented himself as a member of an ancient but impoverished
family, boasted of his military experience, and professed to be
profoundly skilled in all matters relating to horses. Miss Goold's
inquiries elicited the fact that he held an undefined position under
his brother, a respectable manufacturer of woollen goods. His military
experience had been gathered during the few months he held a commission
in the militia battalion of the Connaught Rangers, an honourable
position which he had resigned because his brother officers persistently
misunderstood his methods of winning money at cards. No one, however,
was found to deny that he really did possess a wonderful knowledge of
horses. The worst that Miss Goold's correspondents could suggest with
regard to this third qualification was that he knew too much. None
of these drawbacks to the Captain--he had assumed the title when he
accepted the command of the volunteers--weighed with Miss Goold. Indeed,
she admitted to Mary O'Dwyer, in a moment of frankness, that if her men
weren't more or less blackguards she couldn't expect them to go out
to South Africa. She did not speak equally plainly to Hyacinth. She
recollected that he had displayed a very inconvenient kind of morality
when she first knew him, and she believed him quite capable of breaking
away from her influence altogether if he discovered the kind of men she
was willing to work with.
She did her best to persuade him to give up the idea of joining the
force, by pointing out to him that he was quite unfitted for the work
that would have to be done.
'You know nothing about horses,' she said. 'I don't suppose you've ever
been on the back of one.'
Hyacinth admitted that this was true. The inhabitants of Carrowkeel
rarely ride their shaggy ponies, and when they do it is sitting sideways
just above the creatures' tails, with two creels for turf or seaweed in
the place where the saddle ought to be.
'And I don't suppose you know much about shooting?'
Hyacinth was depressed, for he had never pulled a trigger in his life.
In the West of Ireland a man is not allowed to possess a gun unless
a resident magistrate will certify to his loyalty and harmless-ness.
Therefore, the inhabitants of villages like Carrowkeel are debarred from
shooting either snipe or seals, and the British Empire stands secure.
The difficulty about his horsemanship Hyacinth endeavoured to get over.
He arranged with a car-driver of his acquaintance to teach him to groom
and harness his horses. The man possessed two quadrupeds, which he
described as 'the yellow pony' and 'the little mare.' Hyacinth began
with the yellow pony, the oldest and staidest of the two. The little
mare, who had a temper of her own, gave him more trouble. She disliked
his way of putting the crupper under her tail, and one day, to her
owner's great delight, 'rose the divil on them' when her new groom got
the shaft of the car stuck through her collar.
The want of experience in shooting was more difficult to get over.
Grealy owned an antiquated army rifle, which he lent to Hyacinth.
It was, of course, entirely different from the Mauser, and it was
impossible to get an opportunity for firing it off. However, there was
some comfort to be found in handling the thing, and taking long and
careful aim at a distant church spire through a window.
In the face of such enthusiasm, Miss Goold could not refuse her recruit.
She talked to him freely about her plans, and was eloquent about the
spirit and abilities of M. de Villeneuve, who was to take charge of her
soldiers after they joined him in Paris. On the subject of Captain Quinn
she was much more reticent, and she refused altogether to introduce
Hyacinth to his ten fellow troopers.
'There's not the least necessity,' she said, 'for you to meet them until
the time for starting comes. In fact, I may say it is safer for none of
you to know each other.'
Hyacinth experienced a thrill of agreeable excitement. He felt that he
was engaged in a real conspiracy.
'For fear of informers?' he asked.
'Yes. One never can be quite sure of anyone. Of course, they can every
one of them give information against me. You can yourself, if you like.
But no one can betray anyone else, and as long as the men are safe, it
doesn't matter what happens to me.'
It was one of Miss Goold's weaknesses that she imagined herself to be an
object of hatred and dread to the Government, and nothing irritated her
more than a suspicion that she was not being taken seriously.
The first glimpse that Hyacinth got of the character of the men among
whom he was to serve came to him through Tim Halloran. Tim was still
sore from the scolding he had been given for his conduct at the
Rotunda meeting, and missed no opportunity of scoffing--not, of course,
publicly, but among his friends--at Miss Goold and her volunteers.
Hyacinth avoided him as much as possible, but one evening he walked up
against him on the narrow footway at the corner of George's Street.
Halloran was delighted, and seized him by the arm.
'You're the very man I wanted to see,' he said. 'Have you heard about
Doherty?'
Hyacinth knew no one called Doherty. He said so, and tried to escape,
but Halloran held him fast.
'Not know Doherty! How's that? I thought you were in all dear Finola's
secrets. Faith! I heard you were going out to fight for the Boers
yourself. I didn't believe it, of course. You wouldn't be such a
fool. But I thought you'd know that Doherty is one of the ten precious
recruits, or, rather, _was_ one of them.' He laughed loudly. 'He'll
fight on the other side now, if he fights at all.'
'What do you mean>' asked Hyacinth uneasily.
He was not at all sure what view the authorities in Dublin Castle might
take of recruiting for the Boer service, and Miss Goold's hints about
informers recurred to his mind alarmingly. Perhaps this Doherty was an
informer.
'Well,' said Halloran, 'I was in one of the police-courts this morning
doing my work for the _Evening Star_. You know I report the police news
for that rag, don't you? Well, I do. My column is called "The Doom of
the Disorderly." Rather a good title that for a column of the kind!
There didn't appear to be anything particular on, just a few ordinary
drunks, until this fellow Doherty was brought in. I thought I recognised
him, and when I heard his name I was certain of my man. He hadn't done
anything very bad--assaulted a tram-conductor, or some such trifle--and
would have got off with a fine. However, a military man turned up and
claimed him as a deserter. His real name, it appears, is Johnston. He
deserted six weeks ago from the Dublin Fusiliers.'
'How on earth did he impose on Miss Goold?' asked Hyacinth.
Halloran looked at him curiously.
'Oh, I shouldn't say he exactly imposed upon Finola. She's not precisely
a fool, you know, and she has pretty accurate information about most of
the people she deals with.'
'But surely------'
Halloran shrugged his shoulders.
'My dear fellow, I don't want to shatter your ideal, but the beautiful
Finola wants to work a revolution, and you can't do that sort of thing
without soiling your hands. However, whether he imposed on her or not,
there's no doubt about it that he was a deserter. Why, it appeared that
the fool was tattooed all over the arms and chest, and the military
people had a list of the designs. They had a perfectly plain case, and,
indeed, Doherty made no defence.'
'What will they do with him?' said Hyacinth, still uneasy about the
possibility of Doherty's volunteering information.
'I don't know,' said Halloran. 'I should think the best punishment would
be to send him out to Ladysmith. I dare say the Boers would pass him
in if the circumstances were explained to them. By the way, it would be
rather funny if he met the other nine out there on a kopje, wouldn't it?
He might take them prisoners, or they might capture him. Either way the
situation would have its comic possibilities.'
CHAPTER XI
Miss Goold lived that part of her life which was not spent at political
meetings or in the office of the _Croppy_ in a villa at Killiney. A
house agent would have described it as a most desirable residence,
standing in its own grounds, overlooking the sea. Its windows opened
upon one of the best of the many beautiful views of Dublin Bay. Its
half-acre of pleasure ground--attended to by a jobbing gardener once a
week--was trim and flowery. Its brown gate shone with frequently renewed
paint, and the drive up to the door was neatly raked. Inside
Miss Goold's wants were ministered to by an eminently respectable
man-servant, his wife who cooked, and a maid. The married couple were
fixtures, and had been with Miss Goold since she started housekeeping.
The maids varied. They never quarrelled with their mistress, but they
found it impossible to live with their fellow-servants. Mr. and Mrs.
Ginty were North of Ireland Protestants of the severest type. Ginty
himself was a strong Orangeman, and his wife professed and enforced a
strict code of morals. It did not in the least vex Miss Goold to
know that her servants' quarters were decorated with portraits of the
reigning family in gilt frames, or that King William III. pranced on a
white charger above the kitchen range. Nor had she any objection to her
butler invoking a nightly malediction on the Pope over his tumbler of
whisky-and-water. Unfortunately, her maids--the first three were Roman
Catholics--found that their religious convictions were outraged, and
left, after stormy scenes. The red-haired Protestant from the North who
followed them was indifferent to the eternal destiny of Leo XIII., but
declined to be dictated to by Mrs. Ginty about the conduct of her love
affairs. Miss Goold, to whom the quarrel was referred, pleaded the
damsel's cause, and suggested privately that not even a policeman--she
had a low opinion of the force--could be swept away from the path of
respectability by a passion for so ugly a girl. Mrs. Ginty pointed out
in reply that red hair and freckles were no safeguard when a flirtation
is carried on after dark. There seemed no answer to this, and the maid
returned indignantly to Ballymena. She was succeeded by an anaemic and
wholly incompetent niece of Mrs. Ginty's, who lived in such terror of
her aunt that peace settled upon the household. Miss Goold suspected
that this girl did little or no work--was, in fact, wholly unfit for her
position; but so long as she herself was made comfortable, it did not
seem to matter who tidied away her clothes or dusted her bedroom.
Miss Goold, in fact, had so far mastered the philosophy of life as to
understand that the only real use of money is to purchase comfort and
freedom from minor worries. She had deliberately cut herself adrift from
the social set to which she belonged by birth and education, and so had
little temptation to spend her substance either in giving parties
or enjoying them. The ladies who flutter round the Lord Lieutenant's
hospitable court would as soon have thought of calling on a music-hall
danseuse as on Miss Goold. Their husbands, brothers, and sons took
liberties with her reputation in the smoking-rooms of the Kildare Street
Club, and professed to be in possession of private information about
her life which placed her outside the charity of even their tolerant
morality. The little circle of revolutionary politicians who gathered
round the _Croppy_ were not the sort of people who gave dinner-parties;
and there is, in spite of the Gospel precept, a certain awkwardness
nowadays in continually asking people to dinner who cannot afford a
retributive invitation. Occasionally, however, Miss Goold did entertain
a few of her friends, and it was generally admitted among them that she
not only provided food and drink of great excellence, but arranged the
appointments of her feasts luxuriously.
On the very day after his interview with Tim Halloran Hyacinth received
an invitation to dinner at the Killiney villa. Captain Quinn, the
note informed him, had arrived in Dublin, and was anxious to make the
acquaintance of his future comrade-in-arms. It seemed to Hyacinth,
thinking over the story of Doherty, unlikely that the whole corps would
be asked to meet their Captain round a dinner-table, but he hoped that
some of them would be there. Their presence would reconcile him to the
awkwardness of not possessing a dress-suit. Grealy, who had occasionally
dined at the villa, warned him that a white shirt-front and black
trousers would certainly be expected of him, and Hyacinth made an
unsuccessful effort to hire garments for the night which would fit him.
In the end, since it seemed absurd to purchase even a second-hand suit
for a single evening, he brushed his Sunday clothes and bought a pair of
patent-leather shoes.
He arrived at the platform of Westland Row Station in good time for
the train he meant to catch. He was soon joined by Miss O'Dwyer, who
appeared with her head and neck swathed in a fluffy shawl and the train
of a silk skirt gathered in her hand. The view of several flounces of
nebulous white petticoat confirmed Hyacinth in his conjecture that she
was bound for Miss Goold's party. No one who could be supposed to be a
member of Captain Quinn's corps appeared on the platform, and Hyacinth
became painfully conscious of the shortcomings of his costume. He
thought that even Miss O'Dwyer glanced at it with some contempt. He
wished that, failing a dress-suit, he could have imitated the Imperial
Yeomen who paraded the streets, and donned some kind of uniform. His
discomfort reached a climax when Ginty received them at the door, passed
Miss O'Dwyer on to the incompetent niece, and solemnly extracted the new
shoes from their brown-paper parcel.
Miss Goold stood chatting to Captain Quinn when Hyacinth entered the
drawing-room. She moved forward to meet him, radiant and splendid, he
thought, beyond imagination. The rustle of her draperies, the faint
scent that hung around her, and the glitter of the stones on her throat,
bewildered him.
It was not till after he had been presented to his commander that he was
able to take his eyes off her. Then, in spite of his embarrassment, he
experienced surprise and disappointment. He had formed no clear idea
of what he expected Captain Quinn to be like, but he had a vague mental
picture of a furiously-moustachioed swashbuckler, a man of immense power
and hirsute hands. Instead, there stood before him a slim, small man,
clean shaved, with shiny black hair smoothly brushed. His clothes were
so well cut and his linen so glossy that he seemed fittingly placed even
beside the magnificent Finola. His hand, when Hyacinth shook it, seemed
absurdly small, and his feet, in their neat pumps, were more like a
woman's than a man's. Then, when he turned to resume his conversation
with his hostess, Hyacinth was able to watch his face. He noticed
the man's eyes. They were small and quick, like a bird's, and shifted
rapidly, never resting long on any object. His mouth was seldom closed,
and the lips, like the eyes, moved incessantly, though very slightly.
There were strange lines about the cheeks and jaws, which somehow
suggested that the man had seen a good deal of the evil of the world,
and not altogether unwillingly. His voice was wonderfully soft and
clear, and he spoke without a trace of any provincial accent.
During dinner Captain Quinn took the largest share in the conversation.
It appeared that he was a man of considerable knowledge of the world. He
had been a sailor in his time, and had made two voyages to Melbourne
as apprentice in a large sailing-ship. His stories were interesting and
humorously told; though they all dealt with experiences of his own, he
never allowed himself to figure as anything of a hero. He recounted,
for instance, how one night in Melbourne Docks he had run from a
half-drunken Swede, armed with a knife, and had spent hours dodging
round the deck of a ship and calling for help before he could get his
assailant arrested. His career as an officer in the mercantile navy was
cut short by a period of imprisonment in a small town in Madagascar.
He did not specify his offence, but gave a vivid account of life in the
gaol.
'There were twenty of us altogether,' he said--'nineteen <DW65>s and
myself. There was no nonsense about discipline or work. We just sat
about all day in an open courtyard, with nothing but a big iron gate
between us and liberty. All the same, there was very little chance
of escape. There were always four black soldiers on guard, truculent
scoundrels with curly swords. A sort of missionary man got wind of my
being there, and used to come and visit me. One day he gave me a tract
called "Gideon." I read the thing because I had absolutely nothing else
to read. In the end it turned out an extremely useful tract, for it
occurred to me that the old plan for defeating the Midianites might
work with the four black soldiers. I organized the other prisoners, and
divided them into three bands. We raked up a pretty fair substitute
for pitchers and lamps. Then one night we played off the stratagem, and
flurried the sentries to such an extent that I got clear away. I rather
fancy one or two others got off, too, but I don't know. I got into a
rather disagreeable tramp steamer, and volunteered as stoker. It's so
difficult to get stokers in the tropics that the captain took his risks
and kept me. I must say I was sorry afterwards that I hadn't stayed in
the gaol.'
The story was properly appreciated by the audience, and Hyacinth began
to feel a liking for the Captain.
'Do you know,' said Miss Goold, when their laughter had subsided, 'I
believe I know that identical tract. I once had an evangelical aunt, a
dear old lady who went about her house with a bunch of keys in a small
basket. She used to give me religious literature. I never was reduced to
reading it, but I distinctly remember a picture of Gideon with his mouth
open waving a torch on the front page. Could it have been the same?'
'It must have been,' said the Captain. 'Mine had that picture, too.
Gideon had nothing on but a sort of nightshirt with a belt to it, and
only one sleeve. By the way, if you are up in tracts, perhaps you know
one called "The Rock of Horeb "?'
Miss Goold shook her head.
'Ah, well,' said the Captain, after appealing to Mary O'Dwyer and
Hyacinth, 'it can't be helped, but I must say I should like to meet
someone who had read "The Rock of Horeb." I once sailed from Peru in
an exceedingly ill-found little barque loaded with guano. We had a very
dull time going through the tropics, and absolutely the only thing to
read on board was the first half of "The Rook of Horeb." There were at
least two pages missing. I read it until I nearly knew it off by heart,
and ever since I've been trying to get a complete copy to see how it
ended.'
Some of his stories dealt with more civilized life. He delighted Miss
Goold with an account, not at all unfriendly, of the humours of
the third battalion of the Connaught Rangers. He quoted one of Mary
O'Dwyer's poems to her, and pleased Hyacinth by his enthusiastic
admiration of the Connemara scenery. Good food, good wine, and a
companion like Captain Quinn, gladden the heart, and the little party
was very merry when Ginty deposited coffee and cigarettes and finally
departed.
In Miss Goold's house it was not the custom for the ladies to desert
the dinner-table by themselves. Very often the hostess was the only lady
present, and she had the greatest dislike to leaving a conversation just
when it was likely to become really interesting. Moreover, Miss Goold
smoked, not because it was a smart or emancipated thing to do, but
because she liked it, and--a curious note of femininity about her--she
objected to her drawing-room smelling of tobacco.
When Ginty had disappeared, and the serious business of enjoying the
food was completed, the talk of the party turned on the South African
campaign and the prospects of the Irish volunteers. Captain Quinn
displayed a considerable knowledge of the operations both of the Boers
and the British Generals. For the latter he expressed what appeared to
Hyacinth to be an exaggerated contempt, but the two ladies listened
to it with evident enjoyment. He delighted Miss Goold by his extreme
eagerness to be off.
'I don't see,' he said, 'why we shouldn't start to-morrow.'
'I'm afraid that's out of the question,' said Augusta Goold. 'M. de
Villeneuve arranged to send me a wire when he was ready for our men, and
I can't well send them sooner.'
'Ah,' said the Captain, 'but it seems to me the Frenchman is inclined
to dawdle. Don't you think that if we went over it might hurry him up a
bit?'
She agreed that this was possible, but represented the difficulty of
keeping the men suitably employed in Paris for perhaps three weeks or a
month.
'You see,' she said, 'they are all right here in Dublin, where I can
keep an eye on them. Besides, they have all got some sort of employment
here, and I don't have to pay them. I haven't got money enough to keep
them in Paris, and they won't get anything from Dr. Leyds until you have
them on board the steamer.'
Captain Quinn seemed satisfied, but later on in the evening he returned
to the subject.
'I can't help feeling that it would be better for me, at all events, to
go over to Paris at once. I shouldn't ask to draw any pay at present. I
have enough by me to keep me going for a few weeks.'
'But what about the men? Will you come back for them?'
'No, I think that would be foolish and unnecessary. There is no use in
attracting attention to our movements. We can't have a public send-off,
with cheers and that sort of thing, in any case, or march through the
streets like those ridiculous yeomen. Our fellows have got to slip
away quietly in twos and threes. We can't tell whether we're not being
watched this minute.'
There was a note of sincerity in the Captain's voice which convinced
Hyacinth that he was genuinely frightened at the thought of having a
policeman on his track. Miss Goold, too, looked appropriately solemn at
the suggestion. As a matter of fact, the authorities in Dublin Castle
did occasionally send a detective in plain clothes to walk after her.
It is not conceivable that they suspected her of wanting to blow up
Nelson's pillar or assassinate a judge. Probably they merely wished to
exercise the members of the force, and, in the absence of any actual
crime in the country, felt that no harm could come to anyone through the
'shadowing' of Miss Goold. The plan, though the authorities probably did
not consider this, had the incidental advantage of gratifying the lady
herself. She was perfectly acquainted with most of the officers who were
put on her track, and was always in good spirits when she recognised one
of them waiting for her in Westland Row Station. Captain Quinn kept a
watch on her face with his sharp shifting eyes while he spoke, and he
was quick to realize that he had hit on a way of flattering her.
'You are a person, Miss Goold, of whose actions the Government is bound
to take cognisance. I dare say they have their suspicions of me, and if
you and I are seen together in Dublin during the next week or two there
will certainly be inquiries; whereas, if I go over to Paris at once,
there will be no reason to watch you or anybody else.'
Augusta Goold hesitated.
'What do you say, Mr. Conneally?' she asked.
Hyacinth was puzzled at this extreme eagerness to be off. A suspicion
crossed his mind that the Captain meditated some kind of treachery. He
made what appeared to him to be a brilliant suggestion.
'Let me go with Captain Quinn. I can start to-morrow if necessary. I
should like to see something of Paris; and you know, Miss Goold, I've
plenty of money.'
He thought it likely that the Captain would object to this plan. If
he meditated any kind of crooked dealing when he got to Paris, though
Hyacinth failed to see any motive for treachery, he would not want to be
saddled with a companion. The answer he received surprised him.
'Delightful! I shall be glad to have a friend with me. In the intervals
of military preparation we can have a gay time--not too gay, of course,
Miss Goold. I shall keep Mr. Conneally out of serious mischief. When we
have a little spare cash we may as well enjoy ourselves. We shan't want
to carry money about with us in the Transvaal. We mean to live at the
expense of the English out there.'
Augusta Goold smiled almost maternally at Hyacinth.
'My dear boy,' she said, 'what seems plenty of money to you won't go
very far in Paris. What is it? Let me see, you said two hundred pounds,
and you want to buy your outfit out of that. Keep a little by you in
case of accident.'
'Well,' said the Captain, 'that's settled. And if we are really to start
to-morrow, we ought to get home to-night. Mr. Conneally may be ready
to start at a moment's notice, but he must at least pack up his
tooth-brush. May we see you safe back to town, Miss O'Dwyer? Remember,
we shall expect a valedictory ode in the next number of the _Croppy_.
Write us something that will go to a tune, something with a swing in it,
and we'll sing it beside the camp fires on the veldt. Miss Goold'--he
held out his hand as he spoke--'I'm a plain fellow'--he did not look in
the least as if he thought so--'I've led too rough a life to be any good
at making pretty speeches, but I'm glad I've seen you and talked to you.
If I'm knocked on the head out there I shall go under satisfied, for
I've met a woman fit to be a queen--a woman who is a queen, the queen of
the heart of Ireland.'
It is likely that Augusta Goold, though she was certainly not a fool,
was a little excited by the homage, for she refused to say good-bye,
declaring that she would see the boat off next morning. It was a promise
which would cost her something to keep, for the mail steamer leaves at 8
a.m., and Miss Goold was a lady who appreciated the warmth of her bed in
the mornings, especially during the early days of March, when the wind
is likely to be in the east.
CHAPTER XII
Captain Quinn made himself very agreeable to Mary O'Dwyer during the
short journey back to Dublin. At Westland Row he saw her into a cab,
which he paid for. His last words were a reminder that he would expect
to have her war-song, music and all, sent after him to Paris. Then he
turned to Hyacinth.
'That's all right. We've done with her. It was better to pay the cab for
her, else she might have scrupled about taking one, and we should have
been obliged to go home with her in a beastly tram. Come along. I'm
staying at the Gresham. It's always as well to go to a decent place
if you have any money. You come with me, and we'll have a drink and a
talk.'
There were two priests and a Bishop in earnest conference round the
fire in the hall of the hotel when they entered. When he discovered that
their talk was of the iniquities of the National Board of Education, and
therefore likely to last beyond midnight, Captain Quinn led the way into
the smoking-room, which was unoccupied. A sufficient supply of whisky
and a syphon of soda-water were set before them. The Captain stretched
himself in a comfortable chair, and lit his pipe.
'A fine woman, Miss Goold,' he said meditatively. Hyacinth murmured an
assent.
'A very fine woman, and apparently pretty comfortably off. I wonder why
on earth she does it.'
He looked at Hyacinth as if he expected some sort of explanation to be
forthcoming.
'Does what?' asked Hyacinth at length.
'Oh, all this revolutionary business: the _Croppy_, seditious speeches,
and now this rot about helping the Boers. What does she stand to gain by
it? I don't suppose there's any money in the business, and a woman
like that might get all the notoriety she wants in her own proper set,
without stumping the country and talking rot.'
This way of looking at Augusta Goold's patriotism was new to Hyacinth,
and he resented it.
'I suppose she believes in the principles she professes,' he said.
The Captain looked at him curiously, and then took a drink of his
whisky-and-soda.
'Well,' he said, 'let's suppose she does. After all, her motives are
nothing to us, and she's a damned fine woman, whatever she does it for.'
He drank again.
'It would have been very pleasant, now, if she would have spent the next
few weeks with me in Paris. You won't mind my saying that I'd rather
have had her than you, Conneally, as a companion in a little burst.
However, I saw at once that it wouldn't do. Anyone with an eye in his
head could tell at a glance that she wasn't that sort.'
He sighed. Hyacinth was not quite sure that he understood. The
suggestion was so calmly made and reasoned on that it seemed impossible
that it could be as iniquitous as it appeared.
'There's no one such an utter fool about women,' went on the Captain,
'as your respectable married man, who never does anything wrong himself.
I'd heard of Miss Goold, as everybody has, and listened to discussions
about her character. You know just as well as I do the sort of things
they say about her.'
Hyacinth did know very well, and flared up in defence of his patroness.
'They are vile lies.'
'That's just what I'm saying. Those respectable people who tell the lies
are such fools. They think that every woman who doesn't mew about
at afternoon parties must be a bad one. Now, anyone with a little
experience would know at once that Miss Goold--what's this the other
one called her? Oh yes, Finola--that Finola may be a fool, but she's not
_that_.'
He pulled himself together as he spoke. Evidently he plumed himself, on
his experience and the faculty for judging it had brought him.
'Now, I'd just as soon have asked my sister-in-law to come to Paris with
me for a fortnight as Finola. You don't know Mrs. James Quinn, I think.
That's a pity. She's the most domesticated and virtuous _haus-frau_ in
the world.'
He paused, and then asked Hyacinth, 'Why are you doing it?'
Again Hyacinth was reduced by sheer surprise to a futility.
'Doing what?'
'Oh, going out to fight for the Boers. Now, don't, like a good fellow,
say you're acting on principle. It's all well enough to give Finola
credit for that kind of thing. She is, as we agreed, a splendid woman.
But you mustn't ask me to believe in the whole corps in the same way.'
Hyacinth meditated a reply. It was clearly impossible to assert that
he wanted to fight for liberty, to give his life to the cause of an
oppressed nationality. It would be utterly absurd to tell the story of
his father's vision, and say that he looked on the South African War
as a skirmish preliminary to the Armageddon. Sitting opposite to this
cynical man of the world and listening to his talk, Hyacinth came
himself to disbelieve in principle. He felt that there must be some
baser motive at the bottom of his desire to fight, only, for the life of
him, he could not remember what it was. He could not even imagine a good
reason--good in the estimation of his companion--why anyone should do so
foolish a thing as go out to the Transvaal. The Captain was not at all
impatient. He sat smoking quietly, until there seemed no prospect of
Hyacinth answering; then he said:
'Well, if you don't want to tell me, I don't mind. Only I think you're
foolish. You see, little accidents happen in these affairs. There are
such things as bullets, and one of them might hit you somewhere that
would matter. Then it would be my duty to send home your last words to
your sorrowing relatives, and it would be easier to do that if I knew
exactly what you had done. The death-bed repentance of the prodigal
is always most consoling to the elder brother--much more consoling, in
fact, than the prodigal's return. Now, how the deuce am I to make up a
plausible repentance for you, if I don't know what you've done?'
'But I've not done anything,' said Hyacinth ineffectively.
The Captain ignored him.
'Come, now, it can't be anything very bad at your age. Have you got
into a mess with a girl? Or'--he brightened up at the guess--'are
you hopelessly enamoured of the beautiful Finola? That would be most
suitable. The bold, bad woman sends the minstrel boy to his death,
with his wild harp slung behind him. I could draw tears from the
stoniest-hearted elder brother over that.'
If he could have thought of a crime at the moment, Hyacinth would
probably have confessed it; but he was bewildered, and could hit on
nothing better than:
'I have no elder brother--in fact, no relation of any sort.'
'Lucky man! Now, I have a perfect specimen of a brother--James Quinn,
Esquire, of Ballymoy. He's a churchwarden. Think of that! If it should
be your melancholy duty to send the message home to him--in case that
bullet hits me, I mean--tell him------ Oh, there's no false pride about
me. Fill your glass again. I don't in the least mind your knowing that I
wouldn't go a step to fight for Boer or Briton either if it wasn't for a
little affair connected with some horses and a cheque. You see, the War
Office people sent down a perfect idiot to buy remounts for the cavalry
in Galway and Mayo. He was the sort of idiot that would tempt an
Archbishop to swindle him. I rather overdid it, I'm afraid, and now the
matter is likely to come out.'
For all his boasted powers of observation, Captain Quinn failed to
notice the disgust and alarm on Hyacinth's face.
'I stuck the fool,' he went on, 'with every old screw in the country. I
got broken-winded mares from the ploughs. I collected a regular hospital
of spavined, knock-kneed beasts, and he took them from me without a word
at thirty pounds apiece. It would have been all right if I had gone no
further. But, hang it all! I got to the end of my tether. I declare to
you I don't believe there was another screw left in the whole county of
Mayo, and unless I took to selling him the asses I couldn't go on. Then
I heard of this plan of your friend Finola's, and I determined to make
a little coup and clear. I altered a cheque. The idiot was on his way to
an out-of-the-way corner of Connemara looking for mounted infantry cobs.
I knew he wouldn't see his bank-book for at least a week, so I chanced
it. That's the reason why I am so uncommonly anxious to get clear at
once. If I once get off, it will be next door to impossible to get me
back again. General Joubert will hardly give me up. I'm not the least
afraid of those ridiculous policemen who walk about after Finola. But
I am very much afraid of being tapped on the shoulder for reasons
quite non-political. I can tell you I've been on the jump ever since
yesterday, when I cashed the cheque, and I shan't feel easy till I've
left France behind me. I fancy I'm safe for the present. The idiot is
sure to try fifty ways of getting his accounts straight before he lights
on my little cheque; and when he does, I've covered my tracks pretty
well. My dear brother hasn't the slightest notion what's become of me.
I dare say he'll stop making inquiries as soon as the police begin. Poor
old chap! He'll feel it about the family name, and so on.'
He smiled at his own reflection in the mirror over the chimneypiece. He
was evidently well satisfied with the performance he had narrated. Then
at last Hyacinth found himself able to speak. Again, as when he had
defeated Dr. Spenser in the college lecture-room, his own coolness
surprised him.
'You're an infernal blackguard!' he said.
Captain Quinn looked at him with a surprise that was perfectly genuine.
He doubted if he could have heard correctly.
'What did you say?'
'I said,' repeated Hyacinth, 'you are an infernal blackguard!'
'Did you really suppose that I would be going on this fool of an
expedition if I wasn't?'
'I shall tell Miss Goold the story you have just told me. I shall tell
her to-morrow morning before the boat sails.'
'Very well,' said the Captain; 'but don't suppose for a moment that
you'll shock Finola. She doesn't know this particular story about me,
but I expect she knows another every bit as bad, and I dare say she will
regard the whole thing as a justifiable spoiling of the Egyptians. By
the way '--there was a note of anxiety in his voice--'I hope you won't
find it necessary to repeat anything I've said about the lady herself.
_That_ might irritate her.'
'Is it likely,' said Hyacinth, 'that I would repeat that kind of talk to
any woman?'
'Quite so. I admire your attitude. Such things are entirely unfit for
repetition. But seriously, now, what on earth do you expect to happen
when you tell her? I'm perfectly certain that every single volunteer
she's got is just as great a blackguard--your word, my dear fellow--as I
am, and Finola knows it perfectly well.'
Hyacinth hesitated. The phrase in Miss Goold's letter in which she had
originally described her men as blackguards recurred to his mind. He
remembered the story of Doherty. His anger began to give way to a sick
feeling of disgust.
'Think, now,' said the Captain: 'is it likely that you could enlist a
corps of Sunday-school teachers for this kind of work? I'll give you
credit for the highest motives, though I'm blest if I understand them;
but how can you suppose that there is anyone else in the whole world
that feels the way you feel or wants to act as you are doing?'
'I dare say you are right,' said Hyacinth feebly.
'Of course I'm right--perfectly right.'
Hyacinth tried to lift his glass of whisky-and-water to his lips, but
his hand trembled, and he was obliged to put it down. Captain Quinn
watched him wipe the spilt liquid off his hand, and then settle down in
his chair with his head bowed and his eyes half shut.
'Sit up, man,' he said. 'It's all right. You've done nothing to be
ashamed of, at all events. But look here, you ought not to come with us
at all.
It's no job for a man like you. You back out of it. Don't turn up
to-morrow morning. I'll explain to Finola if she's there, and if not
I'll write her a letter that will set you straight with her. I'm really
sorry for you, Conneally.'
Hyacinth looked up at him.
'I'm sorry I called you a blackguard,' he said. 'You're not any worse
than everyone else in the world.'
'Nonsense,' said Captain Quinn. 'Don't take it like that. From your
point of view you were quite right to call me a blackguard. And, mind
you, there are plenty of people in the world who aren't blackguards.
There's my brother, for instance. He's a bit of a prig--in fact, he's
as priggish as he well can be--but he's never done anything but run
straight. I don't suppose he could go crooked if he tried.'
Hyacinth got up.
'Good-night,' he said, 'and good-bye. I shan't go with you.'
'Wait a minute,' said Captain Quinn. 'I think I've done you one good
turn to-night in stopping you going to South Africa. Now I'll do you
another, and one at the same time to that brother of mine. I left him
in a hurry. I told you that, but I don't think I mentioned that I was in
his employment. He runs a woollen factory down in Mayo. I owned a
share in the business once, but that went long ago, and the whole thing
belongs to James now. I was a sort of clerk and general agent. I wasn't
really the least use, for I never did any work. James was for ever
complaining, but I'm bound to say he stuck to me. I'll give you a letter
to him, and I dare say you may get the job that I've chucked. It's not
much of a thing, but it may suit you for a while. Sit down till I write
my letter.'
Hyacinth obeyed. Since his anger evaporated a sort of numbness had crept
over his mind. He scarcely understood what was said to him. He had a
vague feeling of gratitude towards Captain Quinn, and at the same time
a great desire to get away and be alone. He felt that he required to
adjust his mind to the new thoughts which had been crowded into it. When
he received the letter he put it into his pocket, and rose again to go.
The Captain saw him to the door.
'Good-bye.' Hyacinth heard him, but his voice seemed far off, and his
words meaningless. 'Take my advice and run down to Ballymoy at once.
Don't hang about Finola any more. She's a splendid woman, but she's not
for you. If you married her you'd be perfectly miserable. Not that I
think she'd ever marry you. Still, she might. Women do such odd things.
If by any chance she does, you'll have to be very careful. Give her her
head, and take her easy up to the jumps. Don't try to hustle her, and
for God's sake don't begin sawing at her mouth. I'd very much like to be
here to see you in the character of Mr. Augusta Goold.' He sighed.
'But, of course, I can't. The British Isles will be too hot for me for
a while. However, who can tell what might happen if I win a good medal
from old Kruger, and capture a few British Generals? I might act best
man for you yet, if you'll wait a year or two.'
When Hyacinth got home to his lodgings the first object that met his eye
was Grealy's ancient rifle. He tied a label round its barrel addressed
to the owner. Then he packed his few belongings carefully and strapped
his bag. So far he was sure of himself. He had no doubt whatever that he
must leave Dublin at once. He felt that he could not endure an interview
with Augusta Goold. She might blame him or might pity him. Either would
be intolerable. She might even justify herself to him, might beat him
into submission by sheer force of her beauty and her passion, as she had
done once before. He would run no such risk. He felt that he could not
sacrifice his sense of right and wrong, could not allow himself to be
dragged into the moral chaos in which, it seemed to him now, Miss Goold
lived. He was unconscious of any Divine leading, or even of any direct
reliance on the obligations of honour. He could not himself have told
why he clung with such desperate terror to his plan of escaping from his
surroundings. Simply he could not do certain things or associate as a
friend with people who did them. To get away from Dublin was the first
necessity. For a moment it occurred to him that he might go to Dr.
Henry, tell him the whole story, and ask for advice and help. But that
was impossible. How could he confess the degradation of his ideal?
How could he resist the inevitable reminder that he had been warned
beforehand? Besides, not even now, after all that he had seen, could he
accept Dr. Henry's point of view. He still believed in Ireland, still
hoped to serve her, still looked for the coming of his father's captain
to lead the saints to the final victory. Miss Goold had failed him, but
he was not yet ready to enrol himself a citizen of England.
No, he must leave Dublin. But where to go? His lamp burnt dim and
expired as he sat thinking. His fire had long ago gone out. He shivered
with cold and misery, while the faint light of the dawn stole into his
room. He heard the first twitter of the birds in the convent garden
behind his lodging. Then came the noise of the earliest traffic, the
unnaturally loud rattle of the dust-carts on their rounds. A steamer
hooted far away down the river, and an early bell rang the neighbouring
nuns to prayer. Hyacinth grew desperate. Could he go home, back to the
fishing-boats and simple people of Carrowkeel? A great desire for the
old scenes seized upon him. He fought against it with all his might. He
had rejected the offer of the home life once. Now, no doubt, it would be
closed against him. The boat that might have been his was sold long ago.
He would not go back to confess himself a fool and a failure.
Gradually his mind worked back over the conversation in the hotel with
Captain Quinn. The recollection of the latter part of it, which had
meant nothing at the time, grew clear. He felt for the letter in his
pocket, and drew it out. After all, why should he not offer himself to
James Quinn? Ballymoy was remote enough to be a hiding-place. It was in
County Mayo, the Captain had said. He had never heard of the place, and
it seemed likely that no one else, except its inhabitants, knew of it
either. At least, there was no reason that he could see why he should
not go there. His brain refused to work any longer, either at planning
or remembering. His lips formed the word Ballymoy. He repeated it again
and again. He seemed to go on repeating it in the troubled sleep which
came to him.
CHAPTER XIII
The Irish get credit, even from their enemies, for being a quick-witted,
imaginative, and artistic people, yet they display astonishingly little
taste or originality in their domestic architecture. In Connaught, where
the Celtic genius may be supposed to have the freest opportunity
for expressing itself, the towns are all exactly alike, and their
resemblance consists in the absence of any beauty which can please
the eye. An English country town, although the English bucolic is
notoriously as stupid as an ox, has certain features of its own. So has
a Swiss cottage or a French village. It is possible to represent these
upon Christmas cards or the lids of chocolate-boxes without labelling
them English, Swiss, or French. Any moderately well educated young lady
will recognise them at once, and exclaim without hesitation, 'How truly
English!' or 'How sweetly Swiss!' But no one can depict an Irish town
with any hope of having it recognised unless he idealizes boldly,
introducing a highly-intelligent pig, or a man in knee-breeches kissing
a fancifully-attired colleen. And then, after all, he might as well have
labelled it Irish at once in good plain print, and saved himself the
trouble of drawing the symbolic figures.
To describe Ballymoy, therefore, mountains, rivers, and such like
natural eccentricities being left out of the count, is to describe fifty
other West of Ireland towns. There is a railway-station, bleak, gray,
and windswept, situated, for the benefit of local car-owners, a mile and
a half from the town, and the road which connects the two is execrable.
There is a workhouse, in Ballymoy as everywhere else in this lost land
the most prominent building. There is a convent, immense and wonderfully
white, with rows and rows of staring windows and a far-seen figure of
the Blessed Virgin, poised in a niche above the main door. There is
a Roman Catholic church, gray-walled, gray-roofed, and unspeakably
hideous, but large and, like the workhouse and the convent, obtruding
itself upon the eye. It seems as if the inhabitants of the town must all
of them be forced, and that at no distant date, either into religion
or pauperism, just as small bodies floating in a pond are sucked into
connection with one or other of the logs which lie among them. The shops
in the one tortuous street block the footpaths in front of their doors
with piles of empty packing-cases. The passenger is saluted, here by a
buffet in the face from a waterproof coat suspended outside a draper's,
there by a hot breath of whisky-laden air. Two shops out of every
three are public-houses. These occupy a very beautiful position in the
economic life of the town. Their profits go to build the church, to
pay the priests, and to fill the coffers of the nuns. The making of
the profits fills the workhouse. A little aloof stands the Protestant
church, austere to look upon, expressing in all its lines a grim
reproach of the people's life. Beyond it, among scanty, stooped trees,
is the rectory, gray, as everything else is, wearing, like a decayed
lady, the air of having lived through better days.
Such, save for one feature, is Ballymoy, as the traveller sees it, as
Hyacinth Conneally saw it when he arrived there one gusty afternoon.
The one unusual feature is Mr. James Quinn's woollen mill. It stands,
a gaunt and indeed somewhat dilapidated building, at the bottom of the
street, in the angle where the river turns sharply to flow under the
bridge. The water just above the bridge is swept into a channel and
forced to turn the wheel which works some primitive machinery within.
In the centre of the mill's front is an archway through which carts pass
into the paved square behind. Here is the weighbridge, and here great
bundles of heavy-smelling fleeces are unloaded. Off the square is the
office where Mr. Quinn sits, pays for the wool, and enters the weight
of it in damp ledgers. Here on Saturdays two or three men and a score of
girls receive their wages. The business is a peculiar one. You may bring
your wool to Mr. Quinn in fleeces, just as you sheer it off the sheep's
back. He will pay you for it, more or less, according to the amount
of trouble you have taken with your sheep. This is the way the younger
generation likes to treat its wool. If you are older, and are blessed
with a wife able to card and spin, you deal differently with Mr. Quinn.
For many evenings after the shearing your wife sits by the fireside
with two carding-combs in her hands, and wipes off them wonderfully soft
rolls of wool. Afterwards she fetches the great wheel from its nook, and
you watch her pulling out an endless gray thread while she steps back
and forwards across the floor. The girls watch her, too, but not, as
you do, with sleepy admiration. Their emotion is amused contempt.
Nevertheless, your kitchen wall is gradually decorated with bunches of
great gray balls. When these have accumulated sufficiently, you take
them to Mr. Quinn. A certain number of them become his property. Out of
the rest he will weave what you like--coarse yellow flannel, good for
bawneens, and, when it is dyed crimson, for petticoats; or blankets--not
fluffy like the blankets that are bought in shops, but warm to sleep
under when the winter comes; or perhaps frieze, very thick and rough,
the one fabric that will resist the winter rain.
This portion of his business Mr. Quinn finds to be decreasing year by
year. Fewer and fewer women care to card and spin the wool. The younger
men find it more profitable to sell it at once, and to wear, instead
of the old bawneens, shirts called flannel which are brought over from
cotton-spinning Lancashire, and sold in the shops. The younger women
think that they look prettier in gowns made artfully by the local
dressmaker out of feeble materials got up to catch the eye. If now and
then, for the sake of real warmth, one of them makes a petticoat of the
old crimson flannel, it is kept so short that, save in very heavy rain,
it can be concealed. Unfortunately, while these old-fashioned profits
are vanishing, Mr. Quinn finds it very hard to increase the other branch
of his business. The fabrics which he makes are good, so good that he
finds it difficult to sell them in the teeth of competition. The
country shops are flooded with what he calls 'shoddy.' An army of eager
commercial travellers pushes showy goods on the shopkeepers and the
public at half his price. Even the farmers in remote districts are
beginning to acquire a taste for smartness. Some things in which he used
to do a useful trade are now scarcely worth making. There is hardly
any demand for the checked head-kerchiefs. The women prefer hats and
bonnets, decked with cheap ribbons or artificial flowers; and these
bring no trade to Mr. Quinn's mill. Still, he manages to hold on. The
Lancashire people, though they have invented flannelette, cannot as yet
make a passable imitation of frieze, and there is a Dublin house which
buys annually all the blankets he can turn out. It is true that even
there, and for the best class of customers, prices have to be cut so as
to leave a bare margin of profit. Yet since there is a margin, Mr. Quinn
holds on, though not very hopefully.
Hyacinth left the bulk of his luggage--a packing-case containing the
books which the auctioneer had failed to dispose of in Carrowkeel--at
the station, and walked into Ballymoy carrying his bag. He had little
difficulty in making his way to the mill, and found the owner of it in
his office. It was difficult at first to believe that James Quinn could
be any relation to Captain Albert, the traveller, horse-dealer, soldier,
and thief. This man was tall, though he stooped when he stood to receive
his visitor. His movements were slow. His fair hair lay thin across his
forehead, and was touched above the ears with gray. His blue eyes were
very gentle, and had a way of looking long and steadily at what they
saw. A glance at his face left the impression that life, perhaps by no
very gentle means, had taught him patience.
'This letter will introduce me,' said Hyacinth; 'it is from your
brother, Captain, or Mr. Albert, Quinn.'
James Quinn took the letter, and turned it over slowly. Then, without
opening it, he laid it on the table in front of him. His eyes travelled
from it to Hyacinth's face, and rested there. It was some time before he
spoke, and then it was to correct Hyacinth upon a trivial point.
'My half-brother,' he said. 'My father married twice, and Albert is the
son of his second wife. You may have noticed that he is a great deal
younger than I am.'
'He looks younger, certainly,' said Hyacinth, for the other was waiting
for a reply.
'Nearly twenty years younger. Albert is only just thirty.'
The exact age of the Captain was uninteresting and seemed to be beside
the purpose of the visit. Hyacinth shifted his chair and fidgeted,
uncertain what to do or say next.
'Albert gave you this letter to me. Is he a friend of yours?'
'No.'
James Quinn looked at him again steadily. It seemed--but this may have
been fancy--that there was a kindlier expression in his eyes after the
emphatio repudiation of friendship with Albert. At length he took up the
letter, and read it through slowly.
'Why did my brother give you this letter?'
The question was a puzzling one. Hyacinth had never thought of trying
to understand the Captain's motives. Then the conversation in the hotel
recurred to him.
'He said that he wanted to do a good turn to me and to you also.'
'What had you done for him?'
'Nothing whatever.'
Apparently James Quinn was not in the least vexed at the brevity of
the answers he received, or disturbed because his cross-examination was
obviously disagreeable to Hyacinth.
'In this letter,' he went on, referring to the document as he spoke,
'he describes you as a young man who is "certainly honest, probably
religious, and possibly intelligent." I presume you know my brother, and
if you do, you may be surprised to hear that I am quite prepared to take
his word for all this. I have very seldom known Albert to tell me lies,
and I don't know why he should want to deceive me in this case. Still,
I am a little puzzled to account for his giving you the letter. Can you
add nothing in the way of explanation to what you have said?'
'I don't know that I can,' said Hyacinth.
'Will you tell me how you met my brother, and what he is doing now, or
where he is?'
'I do not think I should be justified in doing so.'
'Ah, well! I can understand that in certain circumstances Albert would
be very grateful to a man who would hold his tongue. He might be quite
willing to do you a good turn if you undertook to answer no questions
about him.'
He smiled as he spoke, a little grimly, but there was laughter lurking
in the corners of his eyes. A Puritan will sometimes smile in such a
way at the thought of a sinful situation, too solemn to be laughed
at openly, but appealing to a not entirely atrophied sense of humour.
Hyacinth felt reassured.
'Indeed,' he said, 'I made no promise of silence. It is only that--well,
I don't think----'
James Quinn waited patiently for the conclusion of the sentence, but
Hyacinth never arrived at it.
'In this letter,' he said at last, 'my brother asks me to give you the
place he lately held in my business. Now, I don't want to press you to
say anything you don't want to, but before we go further I must ask you
this, Were you implicated in the affair yourself?'
'I beg your pardon. I don't quite understand what you mean.'
'Well, I suppose that since my brother is anxious that you should hold
your tongue, he has done something that won't bear talking about. Were
you implicated in--in whatever the trouble was?'
'Certainly not,' said Hyacinth. 'In fact, it was on account of what you
speak of as "trouble" that I declined to have anything more to do with
your brother.'
'That is probably very much to your credit, and, in the light of my
brother's estimate of your character, I may say that I entirely believe
what you say. Am I to understand that you are an applicant for the post
in my business which Albert held, and which this letter tells me I may
consider vacant?'
'That is what brought me down here,' said Hyacinth.
'Have you any other recommendations or testimonials as to character to
show me?'
'No. But there are several people who would answer questions about me if
you wrote to them: Dr. Henry, of Trinity College, would, or Miss Augusta
Goold, or Father Moran, of Carrowkeel, in County Galway.'
'You have given me the most remarkable list of references I ever came
across in my life. I don't suppose anyone ever before was recommended
for a post by a Protestant divinity professor, a notoriously violent
political agitator, a Roman Catholic priest, and a--well, we won't
describe my brother. How do you come to be mixed up with all these
people? Who are you?'
'I am the son of AEneas Conneally, Rector of Carrowkeel, who died last
Christmas.'
'Well,' said James Quinn, 'I suppose if all these people are prepared
to recommend you, your character must be all right. Now, tell me, do you
know what the post is you are applying for?'
'No,' said Hyacinth. 'And I may as well say that I have had no
experience or business training whatever.'
'So I should suppose from the way you have come to me. Well, my brother
was clerk and traveller for my business. He was supposed to help me to
keep accounts and to push the sale of my goods among the shopkeepers
in Connaught. As a matter of fact, he never did either the one or the
other. When he was at home he did nothing. When he was on the road
he bought and sold horses. I paid him eighty pounds a year and his
travelling expenses. I also promised him a percentage on the profits of
the sales he effected. Now, do you think this work would suit you?'
'I might not be able to do it,' said Hyacinth, 'but I should very much
like to be allowed to try. I can understand that I shall be very little
use at first, and I am willing to work without any salary for a time,
perhaps six months, until I have learned something about your business.'
'Come, now, that's a business-like offer. I'll give you a trial, if it
was only for the sake of your list of references. I won't keep you six
months without paying you if you turn out to be any good at all. And I
think there must be something in you, for you've gone about getting this
job in the queerest way I ever heard of. Would you like any time to make
up your mind finally before accepting the post?'
'No,' said Hyacinth; 'I accept at once.'
They walked together through the mill, and looked at the machines and
the workers. The girls smiled when Mr. Quinn stopped to speak to them,
and looked with frank curiosity at Hyacinth. The three or four men who
did the heavier work stopped and chatted for a few minutes when they
came to them. Evidently there was no soreness or distrust here between
the employer and the employed. When they had gone through the rooms
where the work was going on, they climbed a staircase like a ladder, and
came to the loft where the wool was stored. Hyacinth handled it as he
was directed, and endeavoured to appreciate the difference between the
good and the inferior qualities. They passed by an unglazed window at
the back of the mill, and Mr. Quinn pointed out his own house. It stood
among trees and shrubs, now for the most part bare, but giving promise
of shady privacy in summertime. Long windows opened out on to a lawn
stretching down to the watercourse which fed the millwheel. A gravel
path skirted one side of the house leading to a bridge, and thence to
a doorway in a high wall, beyond which lay the road. As they looked
the door opened, and a woman with two little girls came through. They
crossed the bridge, and walked up to the house.
'That is my wife,' said Mr. Quinn, 'and my two little girls.'
He stretched out between the bars of the window, and shouted to them.
All three looked back. Mrs. Quinn waved her hand, and the two children
shouted in reply. Then a light appeared in one of the windows, and
Hyacinth caught a glimpse of a trim maid-servant pulling the curtains
across it.
'We shall be having tea at half-past six,' said Mr. Quinn. 'Will you
come and join us? By the way, where are you staying?'
Hyacinth accepted the invitation, and confessed that he had not as yet
looked for any place to lay his head.
'Ah! Better go to the hotel for to-night. It's not much of a place,
but you will have to learn to put up with that sort of accommodation.
Tomorrow we'll try and find you some decent lodgings.'
The hotel struck even Hyacinth as of inferior quality, though it
boasted great things in the timetable advertisements, and called itself
'Imperial' in large gold letters above its door. A smell of whisky and
tobacco greeted him as he entered, and a waiter with a greasy coat, in
answer to inquiries about a bed, sent him down a dark passage to seek
a lady called Miss Sweeney at the bar. Large leather cases with broad
straps and waterproof-covered baskets blocked the passage, and Hyacinth
stumbled among them for some time before he discovered Miss Sweeney
reading a periodical called _Spicy Bits_ among her whisky-bottles.
She was a young woman of would-be fashionable appearance, and acted
apparently in the double capacity of barmaid and clerk. On hearing that
Hyacinth required, not whisky, but a bedroom, she requested him to go
forward to the office, indicating a glass case at the far end of the bar
counter. Here he repeated his request to her through a small opening in
the glass, and received her assurance, given with great condescension,
that No. 42 was vacant, and, further, that there was a fire in the
commercial room. A boy whom she summoned carried Hyacinth's bag to an
extremely dirty and ill-furnished bedroom, and afterwards conducted
him to the promised fire. Two other guests were seated at it when he
entered, who, after a long stare, made room for him. Apparently there
was no one else stopping in the hotel, and the whole mass of cumbrous
baggage which blocked the passage to the bar must belong to them.
Hyacinth realized, with a feeling of disgust which he could
not account for, that these were two members of his new
profession--fellow-travellers in the voyages of commerce. He
gathered--for they talked loudly, without regarding his presence--that
they represented two Manchester firms which were rivals in the wholesale
drapery business. Very much of what they said was unintelligible to him,
though the words were familiar. He knew that 'lines' could be 'quoted,'
but not apparently in the same sense in which they discussed these
operations, and it puzzled him to hear of muslins being 'done at one and
seven-eighths.' He sat for a time wondering at the waste of money and
energy involved in sending these men to remote corners of Ireland to
search for customers. Then he left them, and made his way down the muddy
street to Mr. Quinn's house.
The room into which he was shown was different from any he had ever
seen. It was lit by a single lamp with a dull glass globe and a turf
fire which burnt brightly. Two straight-backed, leather-covered chairs
stood one on either side of the tiled hearth. Near one stood a little
table covered with neatly-arranged books, and, rising from among them,
a reading-lamp, as yet unlit. Beyond the other was a work-table
strewed with reels and scissors, on which lay a child's frock and some
stockings. The table was laid for tea. On it were plates piled up with
floury scones, delicate beleek saucers full of butter patted thin into
the shapes of shells, and jam in glass dishes cased in silver
filigree. A large home-baked loaf of soda bread on a wooden platter
stood at one end of the table, and near it a sponge-cake. At the other
end was an array of cups and saucers with silver spoons that glittered,
a jug of cream, and one of milk. Two of the cups were larger than the
others, and had those curious bars across them which are designed to
save men from wetting their moustaches when they drink. No room and no
preparation for a meal could have offered a more striking contrast to
Augusta Goold's dining-room, her groups of wineglasses, multiplicity of
heavy-handled knives and forks, and her candles shrouded in silk. Nor
was the dainty neatness less remote from the cracked delf and huddled
sordidness of his old home.
Long before Hyacinth had realized an impression of the scene before him
Mrs. Quinn greeted him, and led him to the fire. Her two little girls,
who lay on the hearthrug with a picture-book between them, were bidden
to make room for him. When her husband appeared she bustled off, and in
a minute or two she and the maid came in bringing toast and tea and hot
water hissing in a silver urn.
As the evening passed Hyacinth began to realize that he had entered into
a home of peace. He felt that these people were neither greatly anxious
to be rich nor much afraid of being poor. They seemed in no way fretted
that there were others higher in the social scale, cleverer or more
brilliant than they were. He understood that they were both of them
religious in a way quite different from any he had known. They neither
spoke of mysteries, like his father, nor were eager about disputings,
like the men who had been his fellow-students. They were living a very
simple life, of which faith and a wide charity formed a part as natural
as eating or sleeping. When the children's bedtime came it seemed to
him a very wonderful thing that they should kneel in turns beside their
father's knee and say their prayers aloud, when he, a stranger, was in
the room. It seemed to him less strange, because then he had been two
hours longer in the company of the Quinns, that before leaving he,
too, should kneel beside his hostess and listen while his new employer
repeated the familiar words of some of the old collects he had heard his
father read in church.
CHAPTER XIV
On Sunday, the third day after his arrival in Ballymoy, Hyacinth went to
church. He could hardly have avoided doing so, even if he had wanted to,
for Mrs. Quinn invited him to share her pew. There was no real necessity
for such hospitality, for the church was never, even under the most
favourable circumstances, more than half full. The four front seats were
reserved for a Mr. Stack, on whose property the town of Ballymoy stood.
But this gentleman preferred to live in Surrey, and even when he came
over to Ireland for the shooting rarely honoured the church with his
presence. A stone tablet, bearing the name of this magnate's father, a
Cork pawnbroker, who had purchased the property for a small sum under
the Encumbered Estates Court Act, adorned the wall beside the pulpit.
The management of the property was in the hands of a Dublin firm, so
the parish was deprived of the privilege of a resident land agent. The
doctor, recently appointed to the district, was a Roman Catholic of
plebeian antecedents, which reduced the resident gentry of Ballymoy
to the Quinns, a bank manager, and the Rector, Canon Beecher. A few
farmers, Mr. Stack's gamekeeper, and the landlady of the Imperial Hotel,
made up the rest of the congregation.
The service was not of a very attractive or inspiriting kind. Canon
Beecher--his title was a purely honorary one, not even involving the
duty of preaching in the unpretending building which, in virtue of
some forgotten history, was dignified with the name of Killinacoff
Cathedral--read slowly with somewhat ponderous emphasis. His thirty
years in Holy Orders had slightly hardened an originally luscious Dublin
brogue, but there remained a certain gentle aspiration of the _d's_ and
_t's_, and a tendency to omit the labial consonants altogether. He read
an immense number of prayers, gathering, as it seemed to Hyacinth, the
longest ones from the four corners of the Prayer-Book. At intervals he
allowed himself to be interrupted with a hymn, but resumed afterwards
the steady flow of supplication. The eldest Miss Beecher--the Canon had
altogether two daughters and three sons--played a harmonium. The other
girl and the three boys, with the assistance of an uncertain bass from
Mr. Quinn, gave utterance to the congregation's praise. Hyacinth tried
to join in the first hymn, which happened to be familiar to him, but
quavered into silence towards the end of the second verse, discovering
that the eyes of Mrs. Beecher from her pew, of the Canon from the
reading-desk, of the vocal Miss Beecher and her brothers, were fixed
upon him. The sermon proved to be long and uninteresting. It was about
Melchizedek, and was so far appropriate to the Priest and King that it
had no recognisable beginning and need not apparently have ever had an
end. Perhaps no one, unless he were specially trained for the purpose,
could have followed right through the quiet meander-ings of the Canon's
thought. This kind of sermon, however, has the one advantage that
the listener can take it up and drop it again at any point without
inconvenience, and Hyacinth was able to give his attention to some
sections of it. There was no attempt at eloquence or any kind of
learning displayed, but he understood, as he listened, where the Quinns
got their religion, or at least how their religion was kept alive.
Certain very simple things were reiterated with a quiet earnestness
which left no doubt that the preacher believed exactly what he said, and
lived by the light of his faith.
One evening shortly afterwards Canon Beecher called upon Hyacinth. The
conversation during the visit resolved itself into a kind of catechism,
which, curiously enough, was quite inoffensive. The Canon learnt by
degrees something of Hyacinth's past life, and his career in Trinity
College. He shook his head gravely over the friendship with Augusta
Goold, whom he evidently regarded as almost beyond the reach of the
grace of God. Hyacinth was forced to admit, with an increasing sense of
shame, that he had never signed a temperance pledge, did not read the
organ of the Church Missionary Society, was not a member of a Young
Men's Christian Association, or even of a Gleaners' Union. He felt, as
he made each confession sorrowfully, that he was losing all hope of the
Canon's friendship, and was most agreeably surprised when the interview
closed with a warm invitation to a mid-day dinner at the Rectory on the
following Sunday. Mrs. Quinn, who took a sort of elder sister's interest
in his goings out and comings in, was delighted when she heard that he
was going to the Rectory, and assured him that he would like both Mrs.
Beecher and the girls. She confided afterwards to her husband that the
influence of a Christian home was likely to be most beneficial to the
'poor boy.'
The Rectory displayed none of the signs of easy comfort which had
charmed Hyacinth in the Quinns' house. The floor of the square hall was
covered with a cheap, well-worn oilcloth. Its walls were damp-stained,
and the only furniture consisted of a wooden chair and a somewhat
rickety table. In the middle of the wall hung a large olive-green card
with silver lettering. 'Christ is the unseen Guest in this house,'
Hyacinth read, 'the Sharer in every pleasure, the Listener to every
conversation.' A fortnight before, he would have turned with disgust
from such an advertisement, but now, since he had known the Quinns
and listened to the Canon's wandering sermons, he looked at it with
different eyes. He felt that the words might actually express a fact,
and that a family might live together as if they believed them to be
true.
'Yes,' said the Canon, who had come in with him, and saw him gaze at it,
'these motto-cards are very nice. I bought several of them last time I
was in Dublin, and I think I have a spare one left which I can give
you if you like. It has silver letters like that one, but printed on a
crimson ground.'
Evidently the design and the colouring were what struck him as
noticeable. The motto itself was a commonplace of Christian living, the
expression of a basal fact, quite naturally hung where it would catch
the eye of chance visitors.
In the drawing-room Mrs. Beecher and her two daughters, still in their
hats and gloves, stood round a turf fire. They made a place at once for
Hyacinth, and one of the girls drew forward a rickety basket-work chair,
covered with faded cretonne. He was formally introduced to them. Miss
Beecher and Miss Elsie Beecher had both, the latter very recently,
reached the dignity of young womanhood, and wore long dresses. The three
boys, who were younger, were made known afterwards.
When they went into the dining-room the Canon selected the soundest of
a miscellaneous collection of chairs for Hyacinth, and seated him beside
Mrs. Beecher. Then the elder girl--Miss Beecher's name, he learnt, was
Marion--entered in a long apron carrying a boiled leg of mutton followed
by her sister with dishes of potatoes and mashed parsnips.
'You see,' said Mrs. Beecher, and there was no note of apology in her
voice as she made the explanation, 'my girls are accustomed to do a good
deal of the house-work. We have only one servant, and she is not very
presentable when she has just cooked the dinner.'
Hyacinth glanced at Marion Beecher, who smiled at him with frank
friendliness, as she took her seat beside her father. He saw suddenly
that the girl was beautiful. He had not noticed this in church. There he
had no opportunity of observing the subtle grace with which she
moved, and the half-light left unrevealed the lustrous purity of her
complexion, the radiant red and white which only the warm damp of the
western seaboard can give or preserve. Her eyes he had seen even in the
church, but now first he realized what unfathomable gentleness and what
a wonder of frank innocence were in them. The Canon looked round the
table at his children, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eye when
he turned to Hyacinth and quoted:
'"Your sons shall grow up as young plants, and your daughters shall be
as the polished corners of the temple."'
Perhaps nine-tenths of civilized mankind would regard five children as
five misfortunes under any circumstances, as quite overwhelming when
they have been showered on a man with a very small income, who is
obliged to live in a remote corner of Ireland. Apparently the Canon
did not look upon himself as an afflicted man at all. There was
an unmistakable sincerity about the way in which he completed his
quotation:
'"Lo! thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord."'
It dawned on Hyacinth that quite possibly the Canon's view of the
situation might be the right one. It was certainly wonderfully pleasant
to see the girls move through the room, and it seemed to him that they
actually realized the almost forgotten ideal of serviceable womanhood.
The talk at dinner turned first on the ailments of an old woman who was
accustomed to clean the church, but was now suspected of being past
her work; then, by an abrupt transition, on the new hat which the
bank-manager's wife had brought home from Dublin; and, finally, the
connection of thought being again far from obvious, on the hymns which
had been sung that morning. It was at this point that Hyacinth was
included in the conversation. Marion Beecher announced that one of the
hymns was a special favourite of hers, because she remembered her mother
singing the younger children to sleep with it when they were babies. She
caught Hyacinth looking at her while she spoke, and said to him:
'Do you sing, Mr. Conneally?'
'I do a little.'
'Oh, then you must come and help us in the choir.' 'Choir' seemed a
grandiose name for the four Beechers and Mr. Quinn, but Marion, who had
little experience of anything better, had no misgivings. 'I hope you
sing tenor. I always long to have a tenor in my choir. Why, we might
have one of Barnby's anthems at Easter, and we haven't been able to sing
one since Mr. Nash left the bank.'
Hyacinth had never sung a part in his life, and could not read music,
but he grew bold, and, professing to have an excellent ear, said he
was willing to learn. The prospect of a long series of choir practices
conducted by Marion Beecher seemed to him just then an extremely
pleasant one.
After dinner, while the two girls cleared away the plates and dishes,
Canon Beecher invited Hyacinth to smoke.
'I never learnt the habit myself,' he said. 'It wasn't so much the
fashion in my young days as it is now, but I have no objection whatever
to the smell.'
Hyacinth lit a cigarette apologetically. It seemed to him almost a
wicked thing to do, but his host evidently wished him to be comfortable.
Their talk after the girls had left the room turned on politics.
Hyacinth's confession of his friendship with Augusta Goold had impressed
the Canon, and he delivered himself of a very kindly little lecture on
the duty of loyalty and the sinfulness of contention with the powers
that be. His way of putting the matter neither irritated Hyacinth, like
the flamboyant Imperialism of the Trinity students, nor drove him into
self-assertion, like Dr. Henry's contemptuous reasonableness. Still, he
felt bound to make some sort of defence of the opinions which were still
his own.
'Surely,' he said, 'there must be some limit to the duty of loyalty. If
a Government has no constitutional right to rule, is a man bound to be
loyal toit?'
'I think,' said the Canon, 'that the question is decided for us. Is it
not, Mr. Conneally? "Render unto Caesar"--you remember the verse. Even if
the Government were as unconstitutional as you appear to think, it would
not be more so than the Roman Government of Judaea when these words were
spoken.'
Hyacinth pondered this answer. It opened up to him an entirely new way
of looking at the subject, and he could see that it might be necessary
for a Christian to acquiesce without an attempt at resistance in any
Government which happened to exist.
He remembered other verses in the New Testament which could be quoted
even more conclusively in favour of this passive obedience. Yet he felt
that there must be a fallacy lurking somewhere. It was, on the face of
it, an obvious absurdity to think that a man, because he happened to
be a Christian, was therefore bound to submit to any form of tyranny or
oppression.
'Suppose,' he said--'I only say suppose--that a Government did immoral
things, that it robbed or allowed evil-disposed people to rob, would it
still be right to be loyal?'
'I think so,' said the Canon quietly.
Hyacinth looked at him in astonishment.
'Do you mean to say that you yourself would be loyal under such
circumstances?'
'I prefer not to discuss the question in that personal way, but the
Church to which you and I belong is loyal still, although the Government
has robbed us of our property and our position, and although it is now
allowing our people to be robbed still further.'
'You mean by the Disestablishment and the Land Acts?'
'Yes. I think it is our great glory that our loyalty is imperishable,
that it survives even such treatment as we have received and are
receiving.'
'That is very beautiful,' said Hyacinth slowly. 'I see that there is a
great nobility in such loyalty, although I do not even wish to share it
myself. You see, I am an Irishman, and I want to see my country great
and free.'
'I suppose,' said the Canon, 'that it is very natural that we should
love the spot on earth in which we live. I think that I love Ireland
too. But we must remember that our citizenship is in heaven, and it
seems to me that any departure from the laws of the King of that country
dishonours us, and even dishonours the earthly country which we call our
own.'
Hyacinth said nothing. There flashed across him a recollection of
Augusta Goold's hope that some final insult would one day goad the
Irish Protestants into disloyalty. Clearly, if Canon Beecher was to be
regarded as a type, she had no conception of the religious spirit of the
Church of Ireland. But was there anyone else like this clergyman? He did
not know, but he guessed that his friends the Quinns would think of the
matter in somewhat the same way. It seemed to him quite possible that in
scattered and remote parishes this strangely unreasonable conception of
Christianity might survive. After a pause the Canon went on:
'You must not think that I do not love Ireland too. I look forward to
seeing her free some day, but with the freedom of the Gospel. It will
not be in my time, I know, but surely it will come to pass. Our people
have still the simple faith of the early ages, and they have many very
beautiful virtues. They only want the dawn of the Dayspring from on
high to shine on them, and then Ireland will be once more the Island of
Saints--_insula sanctorum_.' He dwelt tenderly on the two words. 'I do
not think it will matter much then what earthly Government bears rule
over us. But come, I see that you have finished your smoke, and I must
go to my study to think over my sermon.'
When Hyacinth entered the drawing-room the girls surrounded him, asking
him for answers to a printed list of questions. It appeared that the
committee of a bazaar for some charity in which it was right to be
interested had issued a sort of examination-paper, and promised a prize
to the best answerer. The questions were all of one kind: 'What is the
Modern Athens--the Eternal City--the City of the Tribes? Who was the
Wizard of the North--the Bulwark of the Protestant Faith? The earlier
names on the list presented little difficulty to Hyacinth. Marion
took down his answers, whilst Elsie murmured a pleasant chorus of
astonishment at his cleverness. Suddenly he came to a dead stop. 'Who
was the Martyr of Melanesia?'
'I have never heard of him,' said Hyacinth.
'Never heard of the Martyr of Melanesia!' said Elsie. 'Why, we knew that
at once.'
'Yes,' said Marion, 'there was an article on him in last month's
_Gleaner_. Surely you read the _Gleaner_, Mr. Conneally?'
Hyacinth felt Marion's eyes fixed on him with something of a reproach
in them. He wrestled with a vague recollection of having somewhere
heard the name of the periodical. For a moment he thought of risking
cross-questioning, and saying that he had only missed the last number.
Then he suddenly remembered the card with silver lettering which
hung above his coat in the hall, and told the truth with even a quite
unnecessary aggravation.
'No, I never remember seeing a copy of it in my life. I don't even know
what it is about.'
'Oh!' said the girls, round-eyed with horror. 'Just think! And we all
have collecting-boxes.'
'It is a missionary periodical,' said Marion. 'It has news in it
from every corner of the mission-field, and every month a list of the
stations that specially need our prayers.'
Hyacinth left the Rectory that night with three well-read numbers of the
_Gleaner_ in his pocket.
Afterwards he had many talks with Canon Beecher and the Quinns about
the work of the missionary societies. He learnt, to his surprise, that
really immense sums of money were subscribed every year by members of
the Church of Ireland for the conversion of the heathen in very remote
parts of the world. It could not be denied that these contributions
represented genuine self-denial. Young men went without a sufficiency
of tobacco, and refrained from buying sorely-needed new tennis-racquets.
Ladies, with the smallest means at their command, reared marketable
chickens, and sold their own marmalade and cakes. In such ways, and not
from the superfluity of the rich, many thousands of pounds were gathered
annually. It was still more wonderful to him to discover that large
numbers of young men and women, and these the most able and energetic,
devoted themselves to this foreign service, and that their brothers and
sisters at home were banded together in unions to watch their doings
and to pray for them. He found himself entirely untouched by this
enthusiasm, in spite of the beautiful expression it found in the lives
of his new friends.
But it astonished him greatly that there should be this potent energy
in the Irish Church. The utter helplessness of its Bishops and clergy in
Irish affairs, the total indifference of its people to every effort at
national regeneration, had led him to believe that the Church itself was
moribund. Now he discovered that there was in it an amazing vitality,
a capacity of giving birth to enthusiastic souls. The knowledge brought
with it first of all a feeling of intense irritation. It seemed to him
that all religions were in league against Ireland. The Roman Church
seized the scanty savings of one section of the people, and squandered
them in buying German glass and Italian marble. Were the Protestants
any better, when they spent L20,000 a year on Chinamen and <DW64>s? The
Roman Catholics took the best of their boys and girls to make priests
and nuns of them. The Protestants were doing the same thing when they
shipped off their young men and young women to spend their strength
among savages. Both were robbing Ireland of what Ireland needed
most--money and vitality. He would not say, even to himself, that all
this religious enthusiasm was so much ardour wasted. No doubt the Roman
priest did good work in Chicago, as the Protestant missionary did in
Uganda; only it seemed to him that of all lands Ireland needed most the
service and the prayers of those of her children who had the capacity of
self-forgetfulness. Afterwards, when he thought more deeply, he found a
great hope in the very existence of all this altruistic enthusiasm. He
had a vision of all that might be done for Ireland if only the splendid
energy of her own children could be used in her service. He tried more
than once to explain his point of view. Mr. Quinn met him with blank
disbelief in any possible future for Ireland.
'The country is doomed,' he said. 'The people are lazy, thriftless, and
priest-ridden. The best of them are flying to America, and those that
remain are dying away, drifting into lunatic asylums, hospitals, and
workhouses. There is a curse upon us. In another twenty years there
will be no Irish people--at least, none in Ireland. Then the English and
Scotch will come and make something of the country.'
From Canon Beecher he met with scarcely more sympathy or understanding.
'Yes,' he admitted, 'no doubt we ought to make more efforts than we do
to convert our fellow-countrymen. But it is very difficult to see how we
are to go to work. There is one society which exists for this purpose.
Its friends are full of the very kind of enthusiasm which you describe.
I could point you out plenty of its agents whose whole souls are
in their work, but you know as well as I do how completely they are
failing.'
'But,' said Hyacinth, 'I do not in the least mean that we should start
more missions to Roman Catholics. It does not seem to me to matter much
what kind of religion a man professes, and I should be most unwilling to
uproot anyone's belief. What we ought to do is throw our whole force and
energy into the work of regenerating Ireland. It is possible for us to
do this, and we ought to try.'
'Well, well,' said the Canon, 'I must not let you make me argue with
you, Conneally; but I hope you won't preach these doctrines of yours to
my daughters. I think it is better for them to drop their pennies into
missionary collecting-boxes, and leave the tangled problems of Irish
politics to those better able to understand them than we are.'
CHAPTER XV
There are certain professions, in themselves honest, useful, and even
estimable, for which society has agreed to entertain a feeling of
contempt. It is, for instance, very difficult to think of a curate
as anything except a butt for satirists, or to be respectful to the
profession of tailoring, although many a man for private pecuniary
reasons is meek before the particular individual who makes his clothes.
Yet the novelist and the playwright, who hold the mirror up to modern
humanity, are occasionally kind even to curates and tailors. There is a
youthful athlete in Holy Orders who thrashes, to our immense admiration,
the village bully, bewildering his victim and his admirers with his
mastery of what is described a little vaguely as the 'old Oxford
science.' Once, at least, a glamour of romance has been shed over the
son of a tailor, and it becomes imaginable that even the chalker of
unfinished coats may in the future be posed as heroic. There is still,
however, a profession which no eccentric novelist has ever ventured to
represent as other than entirely contemptible. The commercial traveller
is beneath satire, and outside the region of sympathy. If he appears at
all in fiction or on the stage, he is irredeemably vulgar. He is
never heroic, never even a villain, rarely comic, always, poor man,
objectionable. This is a peculiar thing in the literature of a people
like the English, who are not ashamed to glory in their commercial
success, and are always ready to cheer a politician who professes to
have the interests of trade at heart. Amid the current eulogies of
the working man and the apotheosis of the beings called 'Captains
of Industry,' the bagman surely ought to find at least an apologist.
Without him it seems likely that many articles would fail to find a
place in the windows of the provincial shopkeepers. Without him large
sections of the public would probably remain ignorant for years of new
brands of cigarettes, and dyspeptic people might never come across the
foods which Americans prepare for their use.
Also the individual bagman is often not without his charm. He knows, if
not courts and princes, at least hotels and railway companies. He is on
terms of easy familiarity with every 'boots' in several counties. He can
calculate to a nicety how long a train is likely to be delayed by a fair
'somewhere along the line.' He is also full of information about local
politics. In Connaught, for instance, an experienced member of the
profession will gauge for you the exact strength of the existing League
in any district. He knows what publicans may be regarded as 'priest's
men,' and who have leanings towards independence. His knowledge is
frequently minute, and he can prophesy the result of a District Council
election by reckoning up the number of leading men who read the _United
Irishman_, and weighing them against those who delight in the pages of
the _Leader_. The men who can do these things are themselves local. They
reside in their district, and, as a rule, push the sales and collect the
debts of local brewers and flour-merchants. The representatives of the
larger English firms only make their rounds twice or three times a year,
and are less interesting. They pay the penalty of being cosmopolitan,
and tend to become superficial in their judgment of men and things.
Hyacinth, like most members of the public, was ignorant of the greatness
and interest of his new profession. He entered upon it with some
misgiving, and viewed his trunk of sample blankets and shawls with
disgust. Even a new overcoat, though warm and weatherproof, afforded
him little joy, being itself a sample of Mr. Quinn's frieze. One thought
alone cheered him, and even generated a little enthusiasm for his work.
It occurred to him that in selling the produce of the Ballymoy Mill
he was advancing the industrial revival of Ireland. He knew that
other people, quite heroic figures, were working for the same end. A
Government Board found joyous scope for the energies of its officials in
giving advice to people who wanted to cure fish or make lace. It earned
the blessing which is to rest upon those who are reviled and evil spoken
of, for no one, except literary people, who write for English magazines,
ever had a good word for it. There were also those--their activity
took the form of letters to the newspapers--who desired to utilize the
artistic capacity of the Celt, and to enrich the world with beautiful
fabrics and carpentry. They, too, were workers in the cause of the
revival. Then there were great ladies, the very cream of the Anglo-Irish
aristocracy, who petted tweeds and stockings, and offered magnificent
prizes to industrious cottagers. They earned quite large sums of
money for their proteges by holding sales in places like Belfast and
Manchester, where titles can be judiciously cheapened to a wealthy
bourgeoisie, and the wives of ship-builders and cotton-spinners will
spend cheerfully in return for the privilege of shaking hands with
a Countess. A crowd of minor enthusiasts fostered such industries as
sprigging, and there was one man who believed that the future prosperity
of Ireland might be secured by teaching people to make dolls. It was
altogether a noble army, and even a commercial traveller might hold
his head high in the world if he counted himself one of its soldiers.
Hitherto results have not been at all commensurate with the amount of
printer's ink expended in magazine articles and advertisements. Yet
something has been accomplished. Nunneries here and there have been
induced to accept presents of knitting-machines, and people have
begun to regard as somehow sacred the words 'technical education.'
The National Board of Education has also spent a large sum of money in
reviving among its teachers the almost forgotten art of making paper
boats.
Hyacinth very soon discovered that his patriotic view of this work did
not commend itself to his brother travellers. He found that they had no
feeling but one of contempt for people whom they regarded as meddling
amateurs. Occasionally, when some convent, under a bustling Mother
Superior, advanced from the region of half-charitable sales at
exhibitions into the competition of the open market, contempt became
dislike, and wishes were expressed in quite unsuitable language that the
good ladies would mind their own proper business. Until Hyacinth learnt
to conceal his hopes of Ireland's future as a manufacturing country he
was regarded with suspicion. No one, of course, objected to his making
what use he could of patriotism as an advertisement, but he was given to
understand that, like other advertisements, it could not be quoted
among the initiated without a serious breach of good manners. Even as an
advertisement it was not rated highly.
There was an elderly gentleman, stout and somewhat bibulous, who
superintended the consumption of certain brands of American cigarettes
in the province of Connaught. Hyacinth met him in the exceedingly
dirty Railway Hotel at Knock. Since there were no other guests, and the
evening was wet, the two were thrown upon each other's society in the
commercial-room.
'I don't think,' said Mr. Hollywell, in reply to a remark of Hyacinth's,
'that there's the least use trying to drag patriotic sentiment into
business. Of course, since you represent an Irish house--woollen goods,
I think you said--you're quite right to run the fact for all it's worth.
I don't in the least blame you. Only I don't think you'll find it pays.'
He sipped his whisky-and-water--it was still early, and he had only
arrived at his third glass--and then proceeded to give his personal
experience.
'Now, I work for an American firm. If there was any force in the
patriotic idea I shouldn't sell a single cigarette. My people are in
the big tobacco combine. You must have read the sort of things the
newspapers wrote about us when we started. From any point of view,
British Imperial or Irish National, we should have been boycotted long
ago if patriotism had anything to do with trade. But look at the facts.
Our chief rivals in this district are two Irish firms. They advertise
in Gaelic, which is a mistake to start with, because nobody can read it.
They get the newspaper people to write articles recommending a "great
home industry" to public support. They get local branches of all the
different leagues to pass resolutions pledging their members to smoke
only Irish tobacco. But until quite lately they simply didn't have a
look in.'
'Why?' asked Hyacinth. 'Were your things cheaper or better?'
'No,' said the other, 'I don't think they were either. You see, prices
are bound to come out pretty even in the long run, and I should say
that, if anything, they sold a slightly better article. It's hard to
say exactly why we beat them. When competition is really keen a lot of
little things that you would hardly notice make all the difference.
For one thing, I get a free hand in the matter of subscribing to local
bazaars and race-meetings. I've often taken as much as a pound's worth
of tickets for a five-pound note that some priest was raffling in aid of
a new chapel. It's wonderful the orders you can get from shopkeepers in
that kind of way. Then, we get our things up better. Look at that.'
He handed Hyacinth a highly-glazed packet with a picture of a handsome
brown dog on it.
'Keep it,' said Mr. Hollywell. 'I give away twenty or thirty of
those packets every week. Now look inside. What have you? Oh, H.M.S.
_Majestic_. That's one of a series of photos of "Britain's first line
of defence." Lots of people go on buying those cigarettes just to get
a complete collection of the photos. We supply an album to keep them in
for one and sixpence. There's another of our makes which has pictures
of actresses and pretty women. They are extraordinarily popular. They're
perfectly all right, of course, from the moral point of view, but one in
every ten is in tights or sitting with her legs very much crossed, just
to keep up the expectation. It's very queer the people who go for those
photos. You'd expect it to be young men, but it isn't.'
The subject was not particularly interesting to Hyacinth, but since his
companion was evidently anxious to go on talking, he asked the expected
question.
'Young women,' said Mr. Hollywell. 'I found it out quite by accident. I
got a lot of complaints from one particular town that our cigarettes had
no photos with them. I discovered after a while that a girl in one
of the principal shops had hit on a dodge for getting out the photos
without apparently injuring the packets. The funny thing was that
she never touched the ironclads or the "Types of the soldiers of all
nations," which you might have thought would interest her, but she
collared every single actress, and had duplicates of most of them. And
she wasn't an exception. Most girls goad their young men to buy these
cigarettes and make collections of the photos. Queer, isn't it? I can't
imagine why they do it.'
'You said just now,' said Hyacinth, 'that latterly you hadn't done quite
so well. Did you run out of actresses and battleships?'
'No; but one of the Irish firms took to offering prizes and enclosing
coupons. You collected twenty coupons, and you got a silver-backed
looking-glass--girls again, you see--or two thousand coupons, and you
got a new bicycle. It's an old dodge, of course, but somehow it always
seems to pay. However, all this doesn't matter to you. All I wanted was
to show you that there is no use relying on patriotism. The thing to go
in for in any business is attractive novelties, cheap lines, and, in the
country shops, long credit.'
It was not very long before Hyacinth began to realize the soundness of
Mr. Hollywell's contempt for patriotism. In the town of Clogher he
found the walls placarded with the advertisements of an ultra-patriotic
draper. 'Feach Annseo,' he read, 'The Irish House. Support Home
Manufactures.' Another placard was even more vehement in its appeal.
'Why curse England,' it asked, 'and support her manufactures?' Try
O'Reilly, the one-price man.' The sentiments were so admirable that
Hyacinth followed the advice and tried O'Reilly.
The shop was crowded when he entered, for it was market day in Clogher.
The Irish country-people, whose manners otherwise are the best in
the world, have one really objectionable habit. In the street or in a
crowded building they push their way to the spot they want to reach,
without the smallest regard for the feelings of anyone who happens to
be in the way. Sturdy country-women, carrying baskets which doubled the
passage room they required, hustled Hyacinth into a corner, and for a
time defeated his efforts to emerge. Getting his case of samples safely
between his legs, he amused himself watching the patriot shopkeeper and
his assistants conducting their business. It was perfectly obvious that
in one respect the announcements of the attractive placard departed
from the truth: O'Reilly was not a 'one-price man,' He charged for every
article what he thought his customers were likely to pay. The result was
that every sale involved prolonged bargaining and heated argument. In
most cases no harm was done. The country-women were keenly alive to the
value of their money, and evidently enjoyed the process of beating
down the price by halfpennies until the real value of the article was
reached. Then Mr. O'Reilly and his assistants were accustomed to close
the haggle with a beautiful formula:
'To _you_,' they said, with confidential smiles and flattering emphasis
on the pronoun--'to _you_ the price will be one and a penny; but,
really, there will be no profit on the sale.'
Occasionally with timid and inexperienced customers O'Reilly's method
proved its value. Hyacinth saw him sell a dress-length of serge to a
young woman with a baby in her arms for a penny a yard more than he
had charged a moment before for the same material. Another thing which
struck him as he watched was the small amount of actual cash which was
paid across the counter. Most of the women, even those who seemed quite
poor, had accounts in the shop, and did not shrink from increasing
them. Once or twice a stranger presented some sort of a letter of
introduction, and was at once accommodated with apparently unlimited
credit.
At length there was a lull in the business, and Hyacinth succeeded in
spreading his goods on a vacant counter, and attracting the attention of
Mr. O'Reilly. He began with shawls.
'I hope,' he said, 'that you will give me a good order for these
shawls.'
Mr. O'Reilly fingered them knowingly.
'Price?' he said.
Hyacinth mentioned a sum which left a fair margin of profit for Mr.
Quinn. O'Reilly shook his head and laughed.
'Can't do it.'
Hyacinth reduced his price at once as far as possible.
'No use,' said Mr. O'Reilly.
Compared with the suave oratory to which he treated his customers, this
extreme economy of words was striking.
'See here,' he said, producing a bundle of shawls from a shelf beside
him. 'I get these for twenty-five shillings a dozen less from Thompson
and Taylor of Manchester.'
Hyacinth looked at them curiously. Each bore a prominent label setting
forth a name for the garment in large letters surrounded with wreaths
of shamrocks. 'The Colleen Bawn,' he read, 'Erin's Own,' 'The Kathleen
Mavourneen,' 'The Cruiskeen Lawn.' The appropriateness of this last
title was not obvious to the mere Irishman, but the colour of the
garment was green, so perhaps there was a connection of thought in the
maker's mind between that and 'Lawn.' 'Cruiskeen' he may have taken for
the name of a place.
'Are these,' asked Hyacinth, 'what you advertise as Irish goods?'
Mr. O'Reilly cleared his throat twice before he replied.
'They are got up specially for the Irish market.' In the interests of
his employer Hyacinth kept his temper, but the effort was a severe one.
'These,' he said, 'are half cotton. Mine are pure wool. They are really
far better value even if they were double the price.'
Mr. O'Reilly shrugged his shoulders.
'I don't say they're not, but I should not sell one of yours for every
dozen of the others.'
'Try,' said Hyacinth; 'give them a fair chance. Tell the people that
they will last twice as long. Tell them that they are made in Ireland.'
'That would not be the slightest use. They would simply laugh in my
face. My customers don't care a pin where the goods are made. I have
never in my life been asked for Irish manufacture.'
'Then, why on earth do you stick up those advertisements?' said
Hyacinth, pointing to the 'Feach Annseo' which appeared on a hoarding
across the street.
Mr. O'Reilly was perfectly frank and unashamed.
'The other drapery house in the town is owned by a Scotchman, and of
course it pays more or less to keep on saying that I am Irish. Besides,
I mean to stand for the Urban Council in March, and those sort of ads.
are useful at an election, even if they are no good for business.'
'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Hyacinth, shirking a discussion on
the morality of advertising: 'I'll let you have a dozen shawls at cost
price, and take back what you can't sell, if you give me your word to do
your best for them.'
Similar discussions followed the display of serges and blankets. It
appeared that nice-looking goods could be sent over from England at
lower prices. It was vain for Hyacinth to press the fact that his things
were better. Mr. O'Reilly admitted as much.
'But what am I to do? The people don't want what is good. They want a
cheap article which looks well, and they don't care a pin whether the
thing is made in England, Ireland, or America. Take my advice,' he added
as Hyacinth left the shop: 'get your boss to do inferior lines--cheap,
cheap and showy.'
So far Mr. Hollywell's opinions were entirely justified. The appeal of
the patriotic press to the public and the shopkeepers on behalf of the
industrial revival of Ireland had certainly not affected the town of
Clogher. Hyacinth was bitterly disappointed; but hope, when it is born
of enthusiasm, dies hard, and he was greatly interested in a speech
which he read one day in the 'Mayo Telegraph'. It had been made at a
meeting of the League by an Ardnaree shopkeeper called Dowling. A trade
rival--the fact of the rivalry was not emphasized--had advertised in
a Scotch paper for a milliner. Dowling was exceedingly indignant. He
quoted emigration statistics showing the number of girls who left Mayo
every year for the United States. He pointed out that all of them might
be employed at home, as milliners or otherwise, if only the public would
boycott shops which sold English goods or employed Scotch milliners.
He more than suspected that the obnoxious advertisement was part of an
organized attempt to effect a new plantation of Connaught--'worse than
Cromwell's was.' The fact that Connaught was the only part of Ireland
which Cromwell did not propose to plant escaped the notice of both
Mr. Dowling and his audience. The speech concluded with a passionate
peroration and a verse, no doubt declaimed soundingly, of 'The West's
Awake.'
Hyacinth made an expedition to Ardnaree, and called hopefully on the
orator. His reception was depressing in the extreme. The shop, which was
large and imposing, was stocked with goods which were obviously English,
and Mr. Dowling curtly refused even to look at the samples of Mr.
Quinn's manufactures. Hyacinth quoted his own speech to the man, and was
amazed at the cynical indifference with which he ignored the dilemma.
'Business is one thing,' he said, 'and politics is something entirely
different.'
Hyacinth lost his temper completely.
'I shall write to the papers,' he said, Vand expose you. I shall have
your speech reprinted, and along with it an account of the way you
conduct your business.'
A mean, hard smile crossed Mr. Dowling's mouth before he answered:
'Perhaps you don't know that my wife is the Archbishop's niece?'
Hyacinth stared at him. For a minute or two he entirely failed to
understand what Mrs. Dowling's relationship to a great ecclesiastic had
to do with the question. At last a light broke on him.
'You mean that an editor wouldn't print my letter because he would be
afraid of offending a Roman Catholic Archbishop?'
The expression 'Roman Catholic' caught Mr. Dowling's attention.
'Are you a Protestant?' he asked. 'You are--a dirty Protestant--and you
dare to come here into my own house, and insult me and trample on my
religious convictions. I'm a Catholic and a member of the League. What
do you mean, you Souper, you Sour-face, by talking to me about Irish
manufactures? Get out of this house, and go to the hell that's waiting
for you!'
As Hyacinth turned to go, there flashed across his mind the recollection
of Miss Goold and her friends who wrote for the _Croppy_.
'There's one paper in Ireland, anyhow,' he said, 'which is not afraid
of your wife nor your Archbishop. I'll write to the _Croppy_, and you'll
see if they won't publish the facts.'
Mr. Dowling grinned.
'I don't care if they do,' he said. 'The priests are dead against the
_Croppy_, and there's hardly a man in the town reads it. Go up there
now to Hely's and try if you can buy a copy. I tell you it isn't on sale
here at all, and whatever they publish will do me no harm.'
When Hyacinth returned to the hotel he found Mr. Holywell seated, with
the inevitable whisky-and-water beside him, in the commercial-room.
'Well, Mr. Conneally,' he said, 'and how is patriotism paying you? Find
people ready to buy what's Irish?'
Hyacinth, boiling over with indignation, related his experience with Mr.
Dowling.
'What did I tell you?' said Mr. Hollywell. 'But anyhow you're just as
well out of a deal with that fellow. I wouldn't care to do business with
him myself. I happen to know, and you may take my word for it '--his
voice sunk to a confidential whisper--'that he's very deep in the books
of two English firms, and that he daren't--simply daren't--place
an order with anyone else. They'd have him in the Bankruptcy Court
to-morrow if he did. I shouldn't feel easy with Mr. Dowling's cheque for
an account until I saw how the clerk took it across the bank counter.
You mark my words, there'll be a fire in that establishment before the
year's out.'
The prophecy was fulfilled, as Hyacinth learnt from the _Mayo
Telegraphy_ and Mr. Dowling's whole stock of goods was consumed. There
were rumours that a sceptical insurance company made difficulties about
paying the compensation demanded; but the inhabitants of Ardnaree marked
their confidence in the husband of an Archbishop's niece by presenting
him with an address of sympathy and a purse containing ten sovereigns.
Most of Hyacinth's business was done with small shopkeepers in remote
districts. The country-people who lived out of reach of such centres
of fashion as Ardnaree and Clogher were sufficiently unsophisticated to
prefer things which were really good. Hats and bonnets were not quite
universal among the women in the mountain districts far back where they
spoke Irish, and Mr. Quinn's head-kerchiefs were still in request. Even
the younger women wanted garments which would keep them warm and dry,
and Hyacinth often returned well satisfied from a tour of the country
shops. Sometimes he doubted whether he ought to trust the people with
more than a few pounds' worth of goods, but he gradually learnt that,
unlike the patriotic Mr. Dowling, they were universally honest. He
discovered, too, that these people, with their imperfect English and
little knowledge of the world, were exceedingly shrewd. They had very
little real confidence in oratorical politicians, and their interest
in public affairs went no further than voting consistently for the
man their priest recommended. But they quickly understood Hyacinth's
arguments when he told them that the support of Irish manufactures would
help to save their sons and daughters from the curse of emigration.
'Faith, sir,' said a shopkeeper who kept a few blankets and tweeds among
his flour-sacks and porter-barrels, 'since you were talking to the boys
last month, I couldn't induce one of them to take the foreign stuff if I
was to offer him a shilling along with it.'
CHAPTER XVI
When he returned to Ballymoy after his interview with Mr. Dowling,
Hyacinth set himself to fulfil his threat of writing to the _Croppy_.
He spent Saturday afternoon and evening in his lodgings with the paper
containing the blatant speech spread out before him. He blew his anger
to a white heat by going over the evidence of the man's grotesque
hypocrisy. He wrote and rewrote his article. It was his first attempt
at expressing thought on paper since the days when he sought to satisfy
examiners with disquisitions on Dryden's dramatic talent and other
topics suited to the undergraduate mind. This was a different business.
It was no longer a question of filling a sheet of foolscap with
grammatical sentences, discovering synonyms for words hard to spell. Now
thoughts were hot in him, and the art lay in finding words which would
blister and scorch. Time after time he tore up a page of bombast or
erased ridiculous flamboyancies. Late at night, with a burning head and
ice-cold feet, he made his last copy, folded it up, and, distrusting the
cooler criticism of the morning, went out and posted it to the _Croppy_.
A letter from Miss Goold overtook him the following Thursday in the
hotel at Clogher.
'I was delighted to hear from you again,' she wrote. 'I was afraid
you had cut me altogether, gone over to the respectable people, and
forgotten poor Ireland. Captain Quinn told me that you and he had
quarrelled, and I gathered that you rather disapproved of him. Well, he
was a bit of a blackguard; but, after all, one doesn't expect a man
who takes on a job of that kind to be anything else. I never thought
it would suit you, and you will do me the justice of remembering that I
never wanted you to volunteer. Now about your article. It was admirable.
These "Cheap Patriots"'--it was thus the article was headed--'are just
the creatures we want to scarify. Dowling and his kind are the worst
enemies Ireland has to-day. We'll publish anything of that kind you send
us, and remember we're not the least afraid of anybody. It's a grand
thing for a paper to be as impecunious as the _Croppy_. No man but
a fool would take a libel action against us with any hope of getting
damages. A jury might value Dowling's character at any fantastic sum
they chose, but it would be a poor penny the _Croppy_ would pay. Still,
we're not so hard up that we can't give our contributors something,
and next week you'll get a small cheque from the office. I hope it may
encourage you to send us more. Don't be afraid to speak out. If anything
peculiarly seditious occurs to you, write it in Irish. I know it's all
the same to you which language you write in. Do us half a column every
fortnight or so on Western life and politics.'
Hyacinth was absurdly elated by Miss Goold's praise. He made up his
mind to contribute regularly to the _Croppy_, and had visions of a great
future as a journalist, or perhaps a literary exponent of the ideas of
Independent Ireland.
Meanwhile, he became very intimate both with the Quinns and with Canon
Beecher's family. Mrs. Quinn was an enthusiastic gardener, and early in
the spring Hyacinth helped her with her flowerbeds. He learnt to plait
the foliage of faded crocuses, and pin them tidily to the ground with
little wooden forks. He gathered suitable earth for the boxes in which
begonias made their earliest sprout-ings, and learned to know the
daffodils and tulips by their names. Later on he helped Mr. Quinn to mow
the grass and mix a potent weed-killer for the gravel walks. There came
to be an understanding that, whenever he was not absent on a journey, he
spent the latter part of the afternoon and the evening with the Quinns.
As the days lengthened the family tea was pushed back to later and later
hours to give more time out of doors.
There is something about the very occupation of gardening which is
deadening to enthusiasm. Perhaps a man learns patience by familiarity
with growing plants. Nature is never in a hurry in a garden, and there
is no use in trying to hustle a flower, whereas a great impatience is
the very life-spirit of enthusiastic patriotism. There has probably
never been a revolutionary gardener, or even a strong Radical who worked
with open-air flowers. Of course, in greenhouses things can be forced,
and the spirit of the ardent reformer may find expression in the nurture
of premature blooms. Perhaps also the constant stooping which gardening
necessitates, especially in the early spring, when the weeds grow
plentifully, tends to destroy the stiff mental independence which must
be the attitude of the militant patriot. It is very difficult for a man
who has stooped long enough to have conquered his early cramps and aches
to face the problems of politics with uncompromising rigidity. Hyacinth
recognised with a curious qualm of disgust that his thoughts turned less
and less to Ireland's wrongs and Ireland's future as he learnt to care
for the flowers and the grass.
No doubt, too, the atmosphere of the Quinns' family life was not
congenial to the spirit of the Irish politician. Mrs. Quinn was totally
uninterested in politics, and except a prejudice in favour of what she
called loyalty, had absolutely no views on any question which did
not directly affect her home and her children. Mr. Quinn had a
coldly-reasonable political and economic creed, which acted on the
luxuriant fancies of Hyacinth's enthusiasm as his weed-killer did on
the tender green of the paths. He declined altogether to see any good in
supporting Irish manufactures simply because they were Irish. The story
of O'Reilly's attitude towards his shawls moved him to no indignation.
'I think he's perfectly right,' he said. 'If a man can buy cheap shawls
in England he would be a fool to pay more for Irish ones. Business can't
be run on those lines. I'm not an object of charity, and if I can't
meet fair competition I must go under, and it's right that I should go
under.'
Hyacinth had no answer to give. He shirked the point at issue, and
attacked Mr. Quinn along another line in the hope of arousing his
indignation.
'But it is not fair competition that you are called upon to face. Do
you call it fair competition when the Government subsidizes a woollen
factory in a convent?'
'Ah!' said Mr. Quinn, 'you are thinking of the four thousand pounds
the Congested Districts Board gave to the convent at Bobeen. But it is
hardly fair to hold the Government responsible for the way that body
wastes eighty thousand pounds a year.'
'The Government is ultimately responsible, and you must admit that,
after such a gift, and in view of the others which will certainly
follow, you are called upon to meet most unfair competition.'
'Yes, I admit that. But isn't that exactly what you want to make
general? There doesn't seem to me any difference between giving a bounty
to one industry and imposing a protective tariff in favour of another;
and if your preference for Irish manufactures means anything, it means
a sort of voluntary protection for every business in the country. If you
object to the Robeen business being subsidized you can't logically try
to insist on mine being protected.'
It was puzzling to have the tables turned on him so adroitly. Hyacinth
was reduced to feeble threat.
'Just wait a while till the nuns get another four thousand pounds, and
perhaps four thousand pounds more after that, and see how it will affect
you.'
Mr. Quinn smiled.
'I'm not much afraid of nuns as trade competitors, or, for the matter of
that, of the Congested Districts Board either. If the Yorkshire people
would only import a few Mother Superiors to manage their factories,
and take the advice of members of our Board in their affairs, I would
cheerfully make them a present of any reasonable subsidy, and beat them
out of the market afterwards.'
There was another influence at work on Hyacinth's mind which had as much
to do with the decay of his patriotism as either the gardening or Mr.
Quinn's logic. Marion Beecher and her sister were very frequently at the
Mill House during the spring and summer. There was one long afternoon
which was spent in the marking out of the tennis-ground. Mr. Quinn had
theories involving calculations with a pencil and pieces of paper about
the surest method of securing right angles at the corners and parallel
lines down the sides of the court. Hyacinth and Marion worked obediently
with a tape measure and the garden line. One of the boys messed
cheerfully with a pail of liquid whitening. Afterwards the gardening was
somewhat deserted, and Hyacinth was instructed in the game. It took
him a long time to learn, and for many afternoons he and Marion were
regularly beaten, but she would not give up hope of him. Often the
excuse of her coming to the Quinns was the necessity of practising some
new hymn or chant for Sunday. Hyacinth worked as hard at the music as at
the tennis under her tuition, and there came a time when he could sing
an easy tenor part with fair accuracy. Then in the early summer, when
the evenings were warm, hymns were sung on the lawn in front of the
house. There seemed no incongruity in Marion Beecher's company in
passing without a break from lawn-tennis to hymn-singing, and Mr. Quinn
was always ready to do his best at the bass with a serious simplicity,
as if it were a perfectly natural and usual thing to close an
afternoon's amusement with 'Rock of Ages.' Hyacinth was not conscious of
any definite change in his attitude towards religion. He still believed
himself to be somehow outside the inner shrine of the life which the
Beechers and the Quinns lived, just as he had been outside his father's
prayers. But he found it increasingly difficult after an hour or two of
companionship with Marion Beecher to get back to the emotions which had
swayed him during the weeks of his intimacy with Miss Goold. To write
for the _Croppy_ after sitting beside Marion in church on Sunday
evenings was like passing suddenly from a quiet wood into a heated
saloon where people wrangled. A wave of the old passionate feeling, when
it returned, affected him as raw spirit would the palate of a boy.
One day early in summer--the short summer of Connaught, which is
glorious in June, and dissolves into windy mist and warm rain in the
middle of July--Hyacinth was invited by Canon Beecher to join a boating
party on the lake. The river, whose one useful function was the turning
of Mr. Quinn's millwheel, wound away afterwards through marshy fields
and groves of willow-trees into the great lake. At its mouth the
Beechers kept their boat, a cumbrous craft, very heavy to row, but safe
and suited to carry a family in comfort. The party started early--Canon
Beecher, Hyacinth, and one of the boys very early, for they had to
walk the two miles which separated Ballymoy from the lake shore. Mrs.
Beecher, the girls, the two other boys, and the baskets of provisions
followed a little later on the Rectory car, packed beyond all
possibility of comfort. The Canon himself pulled an oar untiringly, but
without the faintest semblance of style, and the party rippled with joy
when they discovered that Hyacinth also could row.
'Now,' said Elsie, 'we can go anywhere. We can go on rowing and rowing
all day, and see places we've never seen before.'
'My dear girl,' said her mother, 'remember that Mr. Conneally and your
father aren't machines. You mustn't expect them to go too far.'
'Oh, but,' said Elsie, 'father says he never gets tired if he has only
one oar to pull.'
The Canon was preparing for his toil. The old coat, in colour now almost
olive green, was folded and used as a cushion by Marion in the bow. His
white cuffs, stowed inside his hat, were committed to the care of Mrs.
Beecher. He rolled his gray shirtsleeves up to the elbow, and unbuttoned
his waistcoat.
'Now,' he said, 'I'm ready. If I'm not hurried, I'll pull along all day.
But what about you, Conneally? You're not accustomed to this sort of
thing?'
But Hyacinth for once was self-confident. He might be a poor singer and
a contemptible tennis player, but he knew that nothing which had to do
with boats could come amiss to him. He looked across the sparkling water
of the lake.
'I'll go on as long as you like. You won't tire me when there's no tide
and no waves. This is a very different business from getting out the
sweeps to pull a nobby five miles against the strength of the ebb, with
a heavy ground swell running.'
About eleven o'clock they landed on an island and ate biscuits. The
Canon told Hyacinth the story of the ruin under whose walls they sat.
'It belonged to the Lynotts, the Welshmen of Tyrawley. They were at feud
with the Burkes, and one night in winter----'
The girls wandered away, carrying their biscuits with them. It is
likely that they had heard the story every summer as long as they could
remember. Mrs. Beecher alone still maintained an attitude of admiration
for her husband's antiquarian knowledge, the more creditable because she
must have been familiar with the onset of the MacWilliam Burkes before
even Marion was old enough to listen. To Hyacinth the story was both
new and interesting. It stirred him to think of the Lynotts fighting
hopelessly, or begging mercy in the darkness and the cold just where he
sat now saturate with sunlight and with life. He gazed across the mile
of shining water which separated the castle from the land, and tried to
realize how the Irish servant-girl swam from the island with an infant
Lynott on her back, and saved the name from perishing. How the snow must
have beaten in her face and the lake-waves choked her breath! It was a
great story, but the girls, shouting from the water's edge, reminded him
that he was out to pull an oar, and not to sentimentalize. He and the
Canon rose, half smiling, half sighing, and took their places in the
boat.
They penetrated before luncheon time to a bay hitherto unknown to the
Beechers. A chorus of delight greeted its discovery. The water shone
bright green and very clear above the slabs of white limestone. The
shore far inland was almost verdure-less. Broad flat rocks lay baking
in the sunshine, and only the scantiest grass struggled up between their
edges. Sometimes they overlapped each other, and rose Uke an immense
staircase. Fifty yards or so from the land was a tiny island entirely
overgrown with stunted bushes. The boat was pushed up to it and a
landing-place sought, but the shrubs were too thick, and it was decided
to picnic among the rocks on the land. Then Marion in the bow made a
discovery. A causeway about a foot under water led from the island to
the shore. The whole party leaned over to examine it. Every stone was
visible in the clear water, and it was obvious that it had been planned
and built, and was no merely accidental formation of the rocks. The
Canon had heard of a similar device resorted to by an island hermit
to insure the privacy of his cell. Hyacinth spoke vaguely of the
settlements of primitive communities of lake-dwellers. The three boys
planned an expedition across the causeway after luncheon.
'We'll carry our shoes and stockings with us,' they said, 'and then
explore the island. Perhaps there is a hermit there still, or
a primitive lake-dweller. What is a primitive lake-dweller, Mr.
Conneally?'
Hyacinth was uncertain, but hazarded a suggestion that the lake-dwellers
were the people who buried each other in raths. The Canon, whose
archaeology did not go back beyond St. Patrick, offered no correction.
Tea was made later on in yet another bay, this time on the eastern shore
of the lake. An oak wood grew down almost to the water's edge, and the
branches overhung a sandy beach, more golden than any sea-strand. The
whole party collected dead wood and broken twigs for the fire. Then,
while the girls unpacked the baskets and secured the kettle amidst the
smoke, Hyacinth lay back luxuriously and watched the sun set behind the
round-shouldered mountain opposite. The long, steep <DW72> shone
bright green while the sun still rested in view above the summit; then
suddenly, when the topmost rim of it had dipped out of sight, the whole
mountainside turned purple, and a glory of gold and crimson hung above
it on the motionless streaks of cloud. Slowly the splendour faded, the
purple turned gray, and a faint breeze fluttered across the lake.
The day was the first of many which Hyacinth gave to such expeditions.
The work of Mr. Quinn's office was not so pressing as to necessitate
his spending every day there when he was in Ballymoy, and a holiday
was always obtainable. The lake scenery remained vivid in his memory in
after-years, and had its influence upon him even while he enjoyed it,
unconscious of anything except the present pleasure. There was something
besides the innocent gaiety of the girls and the simple sincerity of the
Canon's platitudes, something about the lake itself, which removed him
to a spiritual region utterly remote from the fiery atmosphere of Miss
Goold's patriotism. Many things which once loomed very large before him
sank to insignificance as he drank to the full of the desolation around
him. The past, in which no doubt men strove and hoped, hated and loved
and feared, had left the just recognisable ruins of some castles and the
causeway built by an unknown hermit or the prehistoric lake-dwellers.
A few thatched cabins, faintly smoking, and here and there a cairn of
stones gathered laboriously off the wretched fields, were the evidences
of present activity. Now and then a man hooted to his dog as it barked
at the sheep on the hillside, or a girl drove a turf-laden donkey inland
from the boggy shore. Otherwise there were no signs of human life. A
deep sense of monotony and inevitableness settled down upon Hyacinth. He
came for the first time under the great enchantment which paralyzes
the spirit and energy of the Celt. He knew himself to be, as his people
were, capable of spasms of enthusiasm, the victim of transitory burnings
of soul. But the curse was upon him--the inevitable curse of feeling too
keenly and seeing too clearly to be strenuous and constant. The flame
would die down, the enthusiasm would vanish--it was vanishing from him,
as he knew well--and leave him, not indeed content with common life, but
patient of it, and to the very end sad with the sense of possibilities
unrealized.
Yet it was not without many struggles and periods of return to the older
emotions that Hyacinth surrendered his enthusiasm. There still recurred
to him memories of his father's vision of an Armageddon and the
conception of his own part in it. Sometimes, waking very early in the
morning, he became vividly conscious of his own feebleness of will and
his falling away from great purposes. The conviction that he was called
to struggle for Ireland's welfare, to sacrifice, if necessary, his life
and happiness for Ireland, was strong in him still. He felt himself
affected profoundly by the influences which surrounded him, but he had
not ceased to believe that the idea of self-sacrificing labour was for
him a high vocation. He writhed, his limbs twisting involuntarily, when
these thoughts beset him, and often he was surprised to discover that he
was actually uttering aloud words of self-reproach.
Then he would write fiercely, brutally, catch at the excuse of some
hypocrisy or corruption, or else denounce selfishness and easy-going
patriotic sentiment, finding subject for his satire in himself. His
articles brought him letters of praise from Miss Goold. 'You have it,'
she wrote once, 'the thing we all seek for, the power of beating red-hot
thought into sword-blades. Write more like the last.' But the praise
always came late. The violent mood, the self-reproach, the bitterness,
were past. His life was wrapt round again with softer influences, and he
read his own words with shame when they reached him in print. Afterwards
for a while, if he wrote at all, it was of the peasant life, of quaint
customs, half-forgotten legends and folklore. These articles appeared
too, but brought no praise from Miss Goold. Once she reproached him when
he lapsed into gentleness for many consecutive weeks.
'You oughtn't to waste yourself. There are fifty men and women can do
the sort of thing you're doing now; we don't want you to take it up.
It's fighting men we need, not maundering sentimentalists.'
CHAPTER XVII
It was during the second year of Hyacinth's residence in Ballymoy that
the station-master at Clogher died. The poor man caught a cold one
February night while waiting for a train which had broken down three
miles outside his station. From the cold came first pneumonia, and then
the end. Now, far to the east of Clogher, on a different branch of the
railway-line, is a town with which the people of Mayo have no connection
whatever. In it is a very flourishing Masonic lodge. Almost every male
Protestant in the town and the neighbourhood belongs to it, and the
Rector of the parish is its chaplain. Among its members at that time was
an intelligent young man who occupied the position of goods clerk on the
railway. The Masonic brethren, as in duty bound, used their influence to
secure his promotion, and brought considerable pressure to bear on the
directors of the company to have him made station-master at Clogher.
It is said with some appearance of truth that no appointment in Ireland
is ever made on account of the fitness of the candidate for the post
to be filled. Whether the Lord Lieutenant has to nominate a Local
Government Board Inspector, or an Urban Council has to select a street
scavenger, the principle acted on is the same. No investigation is made
about the ability or character of a candidate. Questions may be asked
about his political opinions, his religious creed, and sometimes about
the social position of his wife, but no one cares in the least about his
ability. The matter really turns upon the amount of influence which
he can bring to bear. So it happened that John Crawford, Freemason and
Protestant, was appointed station-master at Clogher. Of course, nobody
really cared who got the post except a few seniors of John Crawford's,
who wanted it for themselves. Probably even they would have stopped
grumbling after a month or two if it had not happened that a leading
weekly newspaper, then at the height of its popularity and influence,
was just inaugurating a crusade against Protestants and Freemasons.
The case of John Crawford became the subject of a series of bitter and
vehement articles. It was pointed out that although Roman Catholics were
beyond all question more intelligent, better educated, and more upright
than Protestants, they were condemned by the intolerance of highly-paid
officials to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water. It was shown by
figures which admitted of no controversy that Irish railways, banks, and
trading companies were, without exception, on the verge of bankruptcy,
entirely owing to the apathy of shareholders who allowed their interests
to be sacrificed to the bigotry of directors. It was urged that a
public meeting should be held at Clogher to protest against the new
appointment.
The meeting was convened, and Father Fahey consented to occupy the
chair. He was supported by a dispensary doctor, anxious to propitiate
the Board of Guardians with a view to obtaining a summer holiday; a
leading publican, who had a son at Maynooth; a grazier, who dreaded the
possible partition of his ranch by the Congested Districts Board; and
Mr. O'Reilly, who saw a hope of drawing custom from the counter of his
rival draper, the Scotchman.
Father Fahey opened the proceedings with a speech. He assured his
audience that he was not actuated by any spirit of religious bigotry
or intolerance. He wished well to his Protestant fellow-countrymen,
and hoped that in the bright future which lay before Ireland men of all
creeds would be united in working for the common good of their country.
These sentiments were not received with vociferous applause. The
audience was perfectly well aware that something much more to the point
was coming, and reserved their cheers. Father Fahey did not
disappoint them. He proceeded to show that the appointment of the new
station-master was a deliberate insult to the faith of the inhabitants
of Clogher.
'Are we,' he asked, 'to submit tamely to having the worst evils of the
old ascendancy revived in our midst?'
He was followed by the dispensary doctor, who also began by declaring
his freedom from bigotry. He confused the issue slightly by complaining
that the new station-master was entirely ignorant of the Irish language.
It was perfectly well known that in private life the doctor was in the
habit of expressing the greatest contempt for the Gaelic League, and
that he could not, if his life depended on it, have translated even Mr.
O'Reilly's advertisements; but his speech was greeted with tumultuous
cheers. He proceeded to harrow the feelings of his audience by
describing what he had heard at the railway-station one evening while
waiting for the train. As he paced the platform his attention was
attracted by the sound of a piano in the station-master's house. He
listened, and, to his amazement and disgust, heard the tune of a popular
song, 'a song'--he brought down his fist on the table as he uttered the
awful indictment--'imported from England.'
'I ask,' he went on--'I ask our venerated and beloved parish priest;
I ask you, fathers of innocent families; I ask every right-thinking
patriot in this room, are our ears to be insulted, our morals corrupted,
our intellects depraved, by sounds like these?'
He closed his speech by proposing a resolution requiring the railway
company to withdraw the obnoxious official from their midst.
The oratory of the grazier, who seconded the resolution, was not
inferior. It filled his heart with a sense of shame, so he said, to
think of his cattle, poor, innocent beasts of the field, being
handled by a Protestant. They had been bred, these bullocks of his,
by Catholics, fed by Catholics, were owned by a Catholic, bought with
Catholic money at the fairs, and yet they were told that in all Ireland
no Catholic could be discovered fit to put them into a train.
Neither the resolution itself nor the heart-rending appeal of the
grazier produced the slightest effect on the railway company. John
Crawford continued to sell tickets, even to Father Fahey himself, and
appeared entirely unconcerned by the fuss.
About a fortnight after the meeting Hyacinth spent a night in Clogher.
Mr. Holywell, the cigarette man, happened to be in the hotel, and, as
usual, got through a good deal of desultory conversation while he drank
his whisky-and-water. Quite unexpectedly, and apropos of nothing that
had been said, he plumped out the question:
'What religion are you, Conneally?'
The inquiry was such an unusual one, and came so strangely from Mr.
Holywell, who had always seemed a Gallio in matters spiritual, that
Hyacinth hesitated.
'I'm a Baptist myself,' he went on, apparently with a view to palliating
his inquisitiveness by a show of candour. 'I find it a very convenient
sort of religion in Connaught. There isn't a single place of worship
belonging to my denomination in the whole province, so I'm always able
to get my Sundays to myself. I don't want to convert you to anything or
to argue with you, but I have a fancy that you are a Church of Ireland
Protestant.'
Hyacinth admitted the correctness of the guess, and wondered what was
coming next.
'Ever spend a Sunday here?'
'Never,' said Hyacinth; 'I always get back home for the end of the week
if I can.'
'Ah! Well, do you know, if I were you, I should spend next Sunday here,
and go to Mass.'
'I shall not do anything of the sort.'
'Well, it's your own affair, of course; only I just think I should do it
if I were you. Good-night.'
'Wait a minute,' said Hyacinth. 'I want to know what you mean.'
Mr. Holywell sat down again heavily.
'Been round your customers here lately?'
'No. I only arrived this evening, and have done nothing yet. I mean to
go round them to-morrow.'
'You may just as well go home by the early train for all the good you'll
do.'
Hyacinth restrained himself with an effort. He reflected that he was
more likely to get at the meaning of these mysterious warnings if he
refrained from direct questioning. After a minute of two of silence Mr.
Hollywell went on:
'They had a meeting here a little while ago about the appointment of
a Protestant station-master. They didn't take much by it so far as the
railway company is concerned, but I happen to know that word has gone
round that every shopkeeper in the town is to order his goods as far as
possible from Catholics. Now, everybody knows your boss is a Protestant,
but the people are a little uncertain about you. They've never seen you
at Mass, which is suspicious, but, on the other hand, the way you gas on
about Irish manufactures makes them think you can't be a Protestant.
The proper thing for you to do is to lie low till you've put in an
appearance at Mass, and then go round and try for orders.'
'That's the kind of thing,' said Hyacinth, 'that I couldn't do if I had
no religion at all; but it happens that I have convictions of a sort,
and I don't mean to go against them.'
'Oh, well, as I said before, it's your own affair; only better
Protestants than you have done as much. Why, I do it myself constantly,
and everyone knows that a Baptist is the strongest kind of Protestant
there is.'
This reasoning, curiously enough, proved unconvincing.
'I can't believe,' said Hyacinth, 'that a religious boycott of the kind
is possible. People won't be such fools as to act clean against their
own interests. Considering that nine-tenths of the drapery goods in the
country come from England and are sold by Protestant travellers, I don't
see how the shopkeepers could act as you say.'
'Oh, of course they won't act against their own interests. I've never
come across a religion yet that made men do that. They won't attempt to
boycott the English firms, because, as you say, they couldn't; but they
can boycott you. Everything your boss makes is turned out just as well
and just as cheap, or cheaper, by the nuns at Robeen. Perhaps you didn't
know that these holy ladies have hired a traveller. Well, they have, and
he's a middling smart man, too--quite smart enough to play the trumps
that are put into his hand; and he's got a fine flush of them now. What
with the way that wretched rag of a paper, which started all the fuss,
goes on rampaging, and the amount of feeling that's got up over the
station-master, the peaceablest people in the place would be afraid to
deal with a Protestant at the present moment. The Robeen man has the
game in his own hands, and I'm bound to say he'd be a fool if he didn't
play it for all it's worth. I'd do it myself if I was in his shoes.'
Hyacinth discovered next day that Mr. Holywell had summed up the
situation very accurately. No point-blank questions were asked about his
religion, but he could by no means persuade his customers to give him
even a small order. Every shop-window was filled with goods placarded
ostentatiously as 'made in Robeen.' Every counter had tweeds, blankets,
and flannels from the same factory. No one was in the least uncivil to
him, and no one assigned any plausible reason for refusing to deal with
him. He was simply bowed out as quickly as possible from every shop he
entered.
He returned home disgusted and irritated, and told his tale to his
employer. Mr. Quinn recognised the danger that threatened him. For the
first time, he admitted that his business was being seriously injured
by the competition of Robeen. He took Hyacinth into his confidence more
fully than he had ever done before, and explained what seemed to be a
hopeful plan.
'I may tell you, Conneally, that I have very little capital to fall back
upon in my business. Years ago when things were better than they are
now, I had a few thousands put by, but most of it went on buying my
brother Albert's share of the mill. Lately I have not been able to save,
and at the present moment I can lay hands on very little money. Still, I
have something, and what I mean to do is this: I shall give up all idea
of making a profit for the present. I shall even sell my goods at a
slight loss, and try to beat the nunnery out of the market. I think
this religious animosity will weaken after a while, and if we offer the
cheapest goods we must in the end get back our customers.'
Hyacinth was not so sanguine.
'You forget,' he said, 'that these people have Government money at their
backs, and are likely to get more of it. If you sell at a loss they will
do so, too, and ask for a new grant from the Congested Districts Board
to make good their deficiency.'
Mr. Quinn sighed.
'That is quite possible,' he said. 'But what can I do? I must make a
fight for my business.'
Hyacinth hesitated.
'Perhaps I have no right to make the suggestion, but it seems to me that
you are bound to be beaten. Would it not be better to give in at once?
Don't risk the money you have safe. Keep it, and try to sell the mill
and the business.'
'I shall hold on,' said Mr. Quinn.
'Ought you not to think of your wife? Remember what it will mean to
her if you are beaten in the end, when your savings are gone and your
business unsaleable.'
For a moment there were signs of wavering in Mr. Quinn's face. The
fingers of his hands twisted in and out of each other, and a pitiable
look of great distress came into his eyes. Then he unclasped his hands
and placed them flat on the table before him.
'I shall hold on,' he said. 'I shall not close my mill while I have a
shilling left to pay my workers with.'
'Well,' said Hyacinth, 'it is for you to decide. At least, you can count
on my doing my best, my very best.'
CHAPTER XVIII
Mr. Quinn carried on his struggle for nearly a year, although from the
very first he might have recognised its hopelessness. Time after time
Hyacinth made his tour, and visited the shopkeepers who had once been
his customers. Occasionally he succeeded in obtaining orders, and a
faint gleam of hope encouraged him, but he had no steady success. Mr.
Quinn's original estimate of the situation was so far justified that
after a while the religious animosity died out. Shopkeepers even
explained apologetically that they gave their orders to the Robeen
convent for purely commercial reasons.
'Their goods are cheaper than yours, and that's the truth, Mr.
Conneally.'
Hyacinth recognised that Mr. Quinn was being beaten at his own game. He
had attempted to drive the nuns out of the market by underselling them,
and now it appeared that they, too, were prepared to face a loss. It was
obvious that their losses must be great, much greater than Mr. Quinn's.
Rumours were rife of large loans raised by the Mother Superior, of
mortgages on the factory buildings and the machinery. These stories
brought very little consolation, for, as Hyacinth knew, Mr. Quinn was
very nearly at the end of his resources. He refused to borrow.
'When I am forced to close up,' he said, 'I shall do so with a clear
balance-sheet. I have no wish for bankruptcy.'
'I should like,' said Hyacinth vindictively, 'to see the Reverend Mother
reduced to paying a shilling in the pound.'
'I am afraid,' said Mr. Quinn, 'you won't see that. The convent is a
branch of an immense organization. No doubt, if it comes to a pinch,
funds will be forthcoming.'
'Yes, and they won't draw on their own purse till they have got all
they can out of the Congested Districts Board. I have no doubt they are
counting on another four thousand pounds to start them clear when they
have beaten you.'
One day, quite accidentally, Hyacinth came by a piece of information
about the working of the Robeen factory which startled him. He was
travelling home by rail. It happened to be Friday, and, as usual in
the early summer, the train was crowded with emigrants on their way to
Queenstown. The familiar melancholy crowd waited on every platform.
Old women weeping openly and men with faces ridiculously screwed and
puckered in the effort to restrain the rising tears clung to their sons
and daughters. Pitiful little boxes and carpet bags were piled on
the platform. Friends clung to hands outstretched through the
carriage-windows while the train moved slowly out. Then came the long
mournful wail from those left behind, and the last wavings of farewell.
At the Robeen station the crowd was no less than elsewhere. The
carriages set apart for the emigrants were full, and at the last minute
two girls were hustled into the compartment where Hyacinth sat. A woman,
their mother, mumbled and slobbered over their hands. An old man, too
old to be their father, shouted broken benedictions to them. Two
young men--lovers, perhaps, or brothers--stood red-eyed, desolate and
helpless, without speaking. After the train had started Hyacinth looked
at the girls. One of them, a pretty creature of perhaps eighteen years
old, wept quietly in the corner of the carriage. Beside her lay her
carpet bag and a brown shawl. On her lap was an orange, and she held a
crumpled paper bag of biscuits in her hand. There was nothing unusual
about her. She was just one instance of heartbreak, the heart-break of a
whole nation which loves home as no other people have ever loved it, and
yet are doomed, as it seems inevitably, to leave it. She was just one
more waif thrown into the whirlpool of the great world to toil and
struggle, succeed barrenly or pitifully fail; but through it all,
through even the possible loss of faith and ultimate degradation, fated
to cling to a love for the gray desolate fatherland. The other girl
was different. Hyacinth looked at her with intense interest. She was the
older of the two, and not so pretty as her sister. Her face was thin and
pale, and a broad scar under one ear showed where a surgeon's knife had
cut. She sat with her hands folded on her lap, gazing dry-eyed out of
the window beside her. There was no sign of sorrow on her face, nothing
but a kind of sulky defiance.
After a while she took the paper bag out of her sister's hand, opened
it, and began to eat the gingerbread biscuits it contained. Hyacinth
spoke to her, but she turned her head away, and would not answer him.
His voice seemed to rouse the younger sister, who stopped crying and
looked at him curiously. He tried again, and this time he spoke in
Irish.
At once the younger girl brightened and answered him. Apparently she had
no fear that malice could lurk in the heart of a man who spoke her own
language. In a few minutes she was chatting to him as if he were an old
friend.
He learnt that the two girls were on their way to New York. They had
a sister there who had sent them the price of their tickets. Yes, the
sister was in a situation, was getting good wages, and had clothes 'as
grand as a lady's.' She had sent home a photograph at Christmas-time,
which their mother had shown all round the parish. These two were to get
situations also as soon as they arrived. Oh yes, there was no doubt of
it: Bridgy had promised. There were four of them left at home--three
boys and a girl. No doubt in time they would all follow Bridgy to
America--all but Seumas; he was to have the farm. No, the girls
could not get married, because their father was too poor to give them
fortunes. There was nothing for them but to go to America. But their
mother had not wanted them to go. The clergy and the nuns were against
the girls going. Indeed, they nearly had them persuaded to send Bridgy's
money back.
'But Onny was set on going.'
She glanced at her sister in the corner of the carriage. Hyacinth turned
to her.
'Why do you want to leave Ireland?'
But Onny remained silent, sulky, at it seemed. It was the younger girl
who answered him.
'They say it's a fine life they have out there. There's good money to be
earned, and mightn't we be coming home some day with a fortune?'
'But aren't you sorry to leave Ireland?'
Again he looked at the elder girl, and this time was rewarded with a
flash of defiant bitterness from her eyes.
'Sorry, is it? No, but I'm glad!'
'Onny's always saying that there was nothing to be earned in the
factory. And she got more than the rest of us. Wasn't she the first girl
that Sister Mary Aloysius picked out of the school when the young lady
from England came over to teach us? She was the best worker they had.'
'It's true what she says,' said Onny. 'I was the best worker they had. I
worked for them for three years, and all I was getting at the end of it
was six shillings a week. Why would I be working for that when I might
be getting wages like Bridgy's in America? What sense would there be in
it?'
'But why did you work for such wages?'
'Well, now,' said the younger girl, 'how could we be refusing the
Reverend Mother when she came round the town herself, and gave warning
that we'd all be wanted?'
'There's few,' continued Onny, without noticing her sister, 'that earned
as much as I did. Many a girl works there and has no more than one and
ninepence to take home at the end of the week.'
Hyacinth began to understand how it was that Mr. Quinn was being
hopelessly beaten. This was no struggle between two trade rivals, to be
won by the side with the longer purse. Nor was it simply a fight between
an independent manufacturer and a firm fed with Government bounties. Mr.
Quinn's rival could count on an unlimited supply of labour at starvation
wages, while he had to hire men and women at the market value of their
services. He had been sorry for the two girls when they got into the
train. Now he felt almost glad that they were leaving Ireland. It
appeared that they had certainly chosen the wiser part.
He arrived at home dejected, and sat down beside the fire in his room
to give himself up to complete despair. He found no hope anywhere. Irish
patriotism, so he saw it, was a matter of words and fine phrases. No one
really believed in it or would venture anything for it. Politics was a
game at which sharpers cheated each other and the people. The leaders
were bold only in sordid personal quarrels. The mass of the people were
utterly untouched by the idea of nationality, in earnest about nothing
but huckstering and petty gains. Over all was the grip of a foreign
bureaucracy and a selfish Church tightening slowly, squeezing out the
nation's life, grasping and holding fast its wealth. No man any longer
made any demand except to be allowed to earn what would buy whisky
enough to fuddle him into temporary forgetfulness of the present misery
and the imminent tyranny.
The slatternly maid-servant who brought him his meals and made his bed
tapped at the door.
'Please, sir, Jimmy Loughlin's after coming with a letter from Mr.
Quinn, and he's waiting to know if you'll go.'
Hyacinth read the note, which asked him to call on his employer that
afternoon.
'Tell him I'll be there.'
'Will you have your dinner before you go? The chops is in the pan below.
Or will I keep them till you come back?'
'Oh, I've time enough. Bring them as soon as they're cooked, and for
goodness' sake see that the potatoes are properly boiled.'
He took up a great English weekly paper, with copies of which Canon
Beecher supplied him at irregular intervals, and propped it against
the dish-cover while he ate. The article which caught his attention was
headed 'Angels in Connaught.' It contained an idealized account of the
work of the Robeen nuns, from whose shoulders it seemed to the writer
likely that wings would soon sprout. There was a description of the once
miserable cabins now transformed into homesteads so comfortable that
English labourers would not disdain them. The people shared in the
elevation of their surroundings. Men and women, lately half-naked
savages, starved and ignorant, had risen in the scale of civilization
and intelligence to a level which almost equalled that of a Hampshire
villager. The double stream of emigration to the United States and
migration to the English harvest-fields was stopped. An earthly paradise
had been created in a howling wilderness by the self-denying labours of
the holy ladies, aided by the statesmanlike liberality of the Congested
Districts Board. There was another page of the article, but Hyacinth
could stand no more.
He stood up and glanced at his watch. It was already nearly five
o'clock. He pushed his way down the street, where the country-people,
having completed their week's marketing, were loading donkeys on the
footpath or carts pushed backwards against the kerbstone. Women dragged
their heavily-intoxicated husbands from the public-houses, and girls,
damp and bedraggled, stood in groups waiting for their parents. He
turned into the gloomy archway of the mill, unlocked the iron gate, and
crossed the yard into the Quinns' garden. The lamp burned brightly in
the dining-room, and he could see Mrs Quinn in her chair by the fireside
sewing. Her children sat on the rug at her feet. He saw their faces
turned up to hers, gravely intent. No doubt she was telling them some
story. He stood for a minute and watched them, while the peaceful joy
of the scene entered into his heart. This, no doubt, a home full of such
love and peace, was the best thing life had got to give. It was God's
most precious benediction. 'Lo, thus shall a man be blessed who feareth
the Lord.' He turned and passed on to the door. The servant showed him
in, not, as he expected, to the sitting-room he had just gazed at, but
to Mr. Quinn's study.
It was a desolate chamber. A plain wooden desk like a schoolmaster's
stood in one corner, and upon it a feeble lamp. A bookcase surmounted a
row of cupboards along one wall. Its contents--Hyacinth had often looked
over them--were a many-volumed encyclopaedia, Macaulay's 'History of
England,' Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs,' a series entitled 'Heroes of the
Reformation,' and some bound volumes of a trade journal. Above the
chimneypiece hung two trout-rods, a landing-net, and an old gun. The
grate was tireless. It was a room obviously not loved by its owner.
Neither pleasure nor comfort was looked for in it. It was simply a place
of escape from the attractions of quiet ease when business overflowed
the proper office hours. Mr. Quinn rose from his desk when Hyacinth
entered.
'I am very glad to see you,' he said; 'I want to have a talk with you.'
Hyacinth waited while he arranged and rearranged some papers on the desk
in front of him. Mr. Quinn, although he had specially sent for Hyacinth,
seemed in no hurry to get to the subject of the interview. When he did
speak, it was evident from his tone that the important topic was still
postponed.
'How did you get on this week?'
Hyacinth had nothing good to report. He took from his pocket the
note-book in which he entered his orders, and went over it. It contained
an attenuated list. Moreover, the harvest had been bad, and old debts
very difficult to collect. Mr. Quinn listened, apparently not very
attentively, and when the reading was over said:
'What you report this week is simply a repetition of the story of the last
six months. I did not expect it to be different. It makes the decision
I have to make a little more inevitable, that is all. Mr. Conneally, we
have been very good friends, and since you have been in my employment I
have been satisfied with you in every way. Now I am unable to employ you
any longer. I am giving up my business.'
Hyacinth made an effort to speak, but Mr. Quinn held up his hand and
silenced him.
'This week,' he continued, 'I received news which settled the matter
for me. Jameson and Thorpe, the big drapers in Dublin, were my best
customers for certain goods. Last Monday they wrote that they had an
offer of blankets at a figure a long way below mine. I didn't believe
that articles equal in quality to mine could be produced at the price,
and wrote a hint to that effect. I received--nothing could have been
more courteous--a sample of the blankets offered. Well, I admit that it
was at least equal to what I could supply in every way. I wrote again
asking as a favour to be supplied with the name of the competing firm. I
got the answer to-day. Mr. Thorpe wrote himself. The Robeen convent has
undersold me.'
Hyacinth made another attempt to speak.
'Let me finish,' said Mr. Quinn. 'I had foreseen, of course, that this
was coming. I have no more capital to fall back upon. I do not mean to
run into debt. There is nothing for me but to dismiss my employees and
shut up.'
'Yes,' said Hyacinth. 'And then----'
He knew he had no right to ask a question about the future, but the
thought of Mrs. Quinn and her children as he had seen them in the
dining-room almost forced him to inquire what was to happen to them. A
spasm of extreme pain crossed Mr. Quinn's face.
'You are thinking of my wife. It will be hard--yes, very hard. She loved
this place, her friends here, her garden, and all the quiet, peaceful
life we have lived. Well, there is to be an end of it. But don't look so
desperate.' He forced himself to smile as he spoke. 'We shall not starve
or go to the workhouse. I have a knowledge of woollen goods if I have
nothing else, and I dare say I can get an appointment as foreman or
traveller for some big drapery house. But I may not be reduced to that.
There is a secretary wanted just now in the office of one of the Dublin
charitable societies. I mean to apply for the post. Canon Beecher and
our Bishop are both members of the committee, and I am sure will do
their best for me. The salary is not princely--a hundred and twenty
pounds a year, I think. But there, I ought not to be talking all this
time about myself. I must try and do something for you.'
'Never mind me,' said Hyacinth; 'I shall be all right. But I can't bear
to think of you and Mrs. Quinn. Poverty like that in Dublin! Have you
thought what it means? A shabby little house in a crowded street, off at
the back of somewhere; dirt and stuffiness and vulgarity all around you.
She can't be expected to stand it--or you either.'
'My dear boy,' said Mr. Quinn, 'my wife and I have been trying all our
lives to be Christians. Shall we receive good at the Lord's hand and not
evil also? However it may be with me, I know that she will not fail in
the trial.'
His face lit up as he spoke, and the smile on it was no longer forced,
but clear and brave. Hyacinth knew that he was once again in the
presence of that mysterious power which enables men and women to meet
and conquer loss and pain, against which every kind of misfortune beats
in vain. His eyes filled with tears as he took Mr. Quinn's hand and bade
him good-night.
CHAPTER XIX
Hyacinth had three months' work to do before he actually left Mr.
Quinn's employment. He knew that at the end of that time he would be
left absolutely without income, and that it was necessary for him to
look out for some other situation. He reckoned up the remains of his
original capital, and found himself with little more than a hundred
pounds to fall back upon. Yet he did nothing. From time to time he
bestirred himself, pondered the newspaper advertisements of vacant
situations, and mentally resolved to commence his search at once. Always
some excuse offered itself to justify putting the unpleasant business
off, and he allowed himself to slip back into the quiet routine of life
as if no catastrophe threatened him. He was, indeed, far more troubled
about the Quinns' future than his own, and when, at the end of April,
Canon Beecher returned from Dublin with the news that he had secured the
secretaryship of the Church of Ireland Scriptural Schools Society for
Mr. Quinn, Hyacinth felt that his mind was relieved of a great anxiety.
That no such post had been discovered for him did not cost him a
thought. In spite of his spasmodic efforts to goad himself into a
condition of reasonable anxiety for his future, there remained half
consciously present in his mind a conviction that somehow a way of
getting sufficient food and clothes would offer itself in due time.
The conviction was justified by the event. It was on Saturday evening
that the Canon returned with his good news, and on Sunday morning
Hyacinth received a letter from Miss Goold.
'You have no doubt heard,' she wrote, 'that we have got a new editor
for the Croppy--Patrick O'Dwyer, Mary's brother. Of course, you remember
Mary and her unpoetical hysterics the morning after the Rotunda meeting.
The new editor is a splendid man. He has been on the staff of a New
York paper for the last five years, and thoroughly understands the whole
business. But that's not the best of him. He hates England worse than
I do. I'm only a child beside him, bursting out into fits of temper
now and then, and cooling off again. He hates steadily, quietly, and
intensely. But even that is not all that is to be said. He has got
brains--brains enough, my dear Hyacinth, to make fools of you and me
every day and all day long. He has devised a new policy for Ireland. The
plan is simplicity itself, like all really great plans, and it _must_
succeed. I won't go into it now, because I want you to come up to Dublin
and see O'Dwyer. He tells me that he needs somebody else besides himself
on the staff of the _Croppy_, which, by the way, is to be enlarged and
improved. He wants a man who can write a column a week in Irish, as well
as an article now and then in good strong plain English. I suggested
your name to him, and showed him some of the articles you had written.
He was greatly pleased with the one about O'Dowd's cheap patriotism, and
liked one or two of the others. He just asked one question about you:
"Does Mr. Conneally hate England and the Empire, and everything English,
from the Parliament to the police barrack? It is this hatred which must
animate the work." I said I thought you did. I told him how you had
volunteered to fight for the Boers, and about the day you nearly killed
that blackguard Shea. He seemed to think that was good enough, and asked
me to write to you on the subject. We can't offer you a big salary. The
editor himself is only to get a hundred pounds a year for the present,
and I am guaranteeing another hundred for you. I am confident that I
shan't have to pay it for more than six months. The paper is sure to go
as it never went before, and in a few years we shall be able to treble
O'Dwyer's salary and double yours. Nothing like such a chance has ever
offered itself in Irish history before. Everything goes to show that
this is our opportunity. England is weaker than she has been for
centuries, is clinging desperately to the last tatters of her old
prestige. She hasn't a single statesman capable of thinking or acting
vigorously. Her Parliament is the laughingstock of Europe. Her Irish
policy may be summed up in four words--intrigue with the Vatican. In
Ireland the power of the faithful garrison is gone. The Protestants in
the North are sick of being fooled by one English party after another.
The landlords, or what's left of them, are beginning to discover that
they have been bought and sold. The Bishops, England's last line of
defence, are overreaching themselves, and we are within measurable
distance of the day when the Church will be put into her proper place.
There is not so much as a shoneen publican in a country town left who
believes in the ranting of O'Rourke and his litter of blind whelps.
Ireland is simply crying out for light and leading, and the _Croppy_
is going to give both. You always wanted to serve Ireland. Now I am
offering you the chance. I don't say you ought to thank me, though you
will thank me to the day of your death. I don't say that you have an
opportunity of becoming a great man. I know you, and I know a better way
of making sure of you than that. I say to you, Hyacinth Conneally, that
we want you--just _you_ and nobody else. Ireland wants you.'
The letter, especially the last part of it, was sufficiently ridiculous
to have moved Hyacinth to a smile. But it did no such thing. On the
contrary, its rhetoric excited and touched him. The flattery of the
final sentences elated him. The absurdity of the idea that Ireland
needed him, a fifth-rate office clerk, an out-of-work commercial
traveller who had failed to sell blankets and flannels, did not strike
him at all. The figure of Augusta Goold rose to his mind. She flashed
before him, an Apocalyptic angel, splended and terrible, trumpet-calling
him to the last great fight. He forgot in an instant the Quinns and
their trouble. The years of quietness in Ballymoy, the daily intercourse
with gentle people, the atmosphere of the religion in which he had
lived, fell away from him suddenly.
He sat absorbed in an ecstasy of joyful excitement until the jangling of
Canon Beecher's church bell recalled him to common life again. It speaks
for the strength of the habits he had formed in Ballymoy that he rose
without hesitation and went to take his part in the morning service.
He sat down as usual beside Marion Beecher and her harmonium. He
listened to her playing until her father entered. He found himself
gazing at her when she stood up for the opening words of the service.
He felt himself strangely affected by the gentleness of her face and the
slender beauty of her form. When she knelt down he could not take
his eyes off her. There came over him an inexplicable softening, a
relaxation of the tense excitement of the morning. He thought of her
kneeling there in the faded shabby church Sunday after Sunday for years
and years, when he was working at hot pressure far away. He knew just
how her eyes would look calmly, trustfully up to the God she spoke
to; how her soul would grow in gentleness; how love would be the very
atmosphere around her. And all the while he would struggle and fight,
with no inspiration except a bitter hate. Suddenly there came on him a
feeling that he could not leave her. The very thought of separation
was a fierce pain. A desire of her seized on him like uncontrollable
physical hunger. Wherever he might be, whatever life might have in store
for him, he knew that his heart would go back to her restlessly, and
remain unsatisfied without her. He understood that he loved her. Canon
Beecher's voice came to him as if from an immense distance:
'O God, make speed to save us.'
Then he heard very clearly Marion's sweet voice replying:
'O Lord, make haste to help us.'
There was a faint shuffling, and the congregation rose to their feet.
His eyes were still on Marion, and now his whole body quivered with the
force of his newly-found love. She half turned and looked at him. For
one instant their eyes met, and he saw in hers a flash of recognition,
then a strange look of fear, and she turned away from him, flushed and
trembling. He saw that she had read his heart and knew his love.
'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' read
the Canon heavily.
Hyacinth's heart swelled in him. His whole being seemed to throb with
exultation, and he responded in a voice he could not recognise for his.
'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end. Amen.'
Marion stood silent. Her head was bowed down, and her hands clasped
tight together.
Of the remainder of the morning's service Hyacinth could never
afterwards remember anything. No doubt Canon Beecher read the Psalms and
lessons and prayers; no doubt he preached. Probably, also, hymns were
sung, and Marion played them, but he could not imagine how. It seemed
quite impossible that she could have touched the keys with her fingers,
or that she could have uttered any sound; yet no one had remarked the
absence of hymns or even noticed any peculiarity in their performance.
Not till after the service was over did he regain full consciousness
of himself and his surroundings; then he became exceedingly alert. He
watched the Canon disappear into the vestry, heard the congregation
trample down the aisle, listened to Marion playing a final voluntary.
It seemed to him as he sat there waiting for her to stop that she played
much longer than usual. He could hear Mrs. Beecher and Mr. Quinn talking
in the porch, and every moment he expected the Canon to appear. At last
the music ceased, and the lid of the harmonium was closed and locked. He
stepped forward and took Marion's hands in his.
'Marion,' he said, 'I love you. It was only this morning that I found
it out, but I know--oh, I know--that I love you far, far more than I can
tell you.'
The hand which lay in his grew cold, and the girl's head was bowed so
that he could not see her face. He felt her tremble.
'Marion, Marion, I love you, love you, love you!'
Then very slowly she raised her head and looked at him. He stooped to
kiss her lips, and felt her face flush and glow when he touched it. Then
she drew her hands from his and fled down the church to her mother.
Hyacinth stood agape with wonder at the words which he had spoken. The
knowledge of his love had come on him like a sudden gust, and he only
half realized what he had done. He walked back to his lodgings, going
over and over the amazing words, recalling with flushed astonishment the
kiss. Then a chilling doubt beset him suddenly. Did Marion know how poor
he was? Never in his life had the fear of poverty or the desire of
gain determined Hyacinth's plans. He knew very well that no such
considerations would have in any way affected his conduct towards
Marion. Once he realized that he loved her, the confession of his
love was quite inevitable. Yet he felt vaguely that he might be judged
blameworthy. He had read a few novels, and he knew that even the writers
whose chief business it is to glorify the passion of love do not dare to
represent it as independent of money. He knew, too, that many penniless
heroes won admiration--he did not in the least understand why they
should--by silently deserting affectionate women. He knew that kisses
were immoral except for those who possessed a modest competence. These
authorized ethics of marriage engagements were wholly incomprehensible
to him, and it in no way disquieted his conscience that he had bound
Marion to him with his kiss; yet he felt that she had a right to know
what income he hoped to earn, and what kind of home he would have to
offer her. A hundred pounds a year might be deemed insufficient, and
he knew that, not being either a raven or a lily, he could not count on
finding food and clothes ready when he wanted them.
The daughters of the Irish Church clergy, even of the dignitaries, are
not brought up in luxury. Still, they are most of them accustomed to a
daily supply of food--plain, perhaps, but sufficient--and will look for
as much in the homes of their husbands. A girl like Marion Beecher does
not expect to secure a position which will enable her to send her own
clothes to a laundress or hire a cook who can make pastry; but it is not
fair to ask her to wash the family's blankets or to boil potatoes for a
pig. Probably her friends would think her lucky in marrying a curate or
a dispensary doctor with one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and
the prospect of one-third as much again after a while. But Hyacinth
remembered that he was poorer than any curate. He determined to put the
matter plainly before Marion without delay.
The Rectory door was opened for him by Elsie Beecher, and, in spite of
her wondering protests, Hyacinth walked into the dining-room and asked
that Marion should be sent to him. The room was empty, as he expected.
He stood and waited for her, deriving faint comfort and courage from the
threadbare carpet, patched tablecloth, and poor crazy chairs. They were
strange properties for a scene with possibilities of deep romance in it,
but they made his confession of poverty easier.
Marion entered at last and stood beside him. He neither took her hand
nor looked at her.
'When I told you to-day that I loved you,' he said, 'I ought to have
told you that I am very poor.'
'I know it,' she said.
'But I am poorer even than you know. I am not in Mr. Quinn's employment
any more. I have no settled income, and only a prospect of earning a
very small one.' He paused. 'I shall have to go away from Ballymoy. I
must live in Dublin. I do not think it is fair to ask you to marry me. I
shall have no more to live upon than----'
She moved a step nearer to him and laid her hand on his arm.
'Look at me,' she said.
He raised his eyes to her face, and saw again there, as he had seen in
church, the wonderful shining of love, which is stronger than all things
and holds poverty and hardship cheap.
'Keep looking at me still,' she said. 'Now tell me: Do you really think
it matters that you are poor? Do you think I care whether you have much
or little? Tell me.'
He could not answer her, although he knew that there was only one answer
to her question.
'Do you think that I love money? Do you doubt that I love you?'
Her voice sunk almost to a whisper as she spoke, and her eyes fell from
looking into his. Just as when he kissed her in the church, she flushed
suddenly, but this time she did not try to escape from him. Instead she
clung to his arm, and hid her face against his shoulder. He put his arms
round her and held her close.
'I know,' he said. 'I was a fool to come here thinking that my being
poor would matter. I might have known. Indeed, I think I did know even
before I spoke to you.'
She had no answer except a long soft laugh, which was half smothered in
his arms.
CHAPTER XX
On Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons Canon Beecher enjoyed the
privilege of a fire in his study. He was supposed to be engaged at these
seasons in the preparation of his sermons, a serious and exacting work
which demanded solitude and profound quiet. In earlier years he really
had prepared his sermons painfully, but long practice brings to the
preacher a certain fatal facility. Old ideas are not improved by being
clothed in new phrases, and of new ideas--a new idea will occasionally
obtrude itself even on the Christian preacher--the Canon was exceedingly
mistrustful. The study was an unexciting and comparatively comfortable
room. The firelight on winter afternoons played pleasantly on the
dim gold backs of the works of St. Augustine, a fine folio edition
bequeathed to Mrs. Beecher by a scholarly uncle, which reposed
undisturbed along a lower shelf. Adventurous rays occasionally explored
a faded print of the Good Shepherd which hung above the books, and
gleamed upon the handle of the safe where the parish registers and
church plate were stored. The quiet and the process of digesting his
mid-day dinner frequently tempted the Canon to indulge in a series of
pleasant naps on Sunday afternoons.
When Hyacinth tapped at the study door and entered, the room was almost
dark, and the sermon preparation, if proceeding at all, can have got no
further than the preliminary concatenation of ideas. The Canon, however,
was aggressively, perhaps suspiciously, wide awake.
'Who is that?' he asked. 'Oh, Conneally, it is you. I am very glad to
see you. Curiously enough, I thought of going down to call on you this
afternoon. I wanted to have a talk with you. I dare say you have come up
to consult me.'
Hyacinth was astonished. How could anyone have guessed what he came
about? Had Marion told her father already?
'It is a sad business,' the Canon went on--' very distressing and
perplexing indeed. But so far as you personally are concerned,
Conneally, I cannot regard it as an unmixed misfortune. You were meant
for something better, if I may say so, than selling blankets. Now, I
have a plan for your future, which I talked over last week with an old
friend of yours. Now that something has been settled about the Quinns,
we must all give our minds to your affairs.'
Then Hyacinth understood that Canon Beecher expected to be consulted
about his future plans, and even had some scheme of his own in mind.
'Yes,' he replied, 'I shall be very glad of your help and advice,
although I think I have decided about what I am going to do. It was
not on that subject I came to speak to you to-day, but on another, more
important, I think, for you and for me and for Marion.'
'For Marion?'
'I ought to tell you at once that I love your daughter Marion, and I am
sure that she loves me. I want to marry her.'
'My dear boy! I had not the slightest idea of this. It is one of the
most extraordinary things--or perhaps extraordinary is not exactly the
proper word--one of the most surprising things I----'
The Canon stopped abruptly and sat stroking his chin with his forefinger
in the effort to adjust his mind to the new situation presented to it.
It was characteristic of the man that the thought of Hyacinth's poverty
was not the first which presented itself. Indeed, Canon Beecher was one
of those unreasonable Christians who are actually convinced of the truth
of certain paradoxical sayings in the Gospel about wealth and poverty.
He believed that there were things of more importance in life than the
possession of money. Fortunately, such Christians are rare, for their
absurd creed forms a standing menace to the existence of Church and
sect alike. Fortunately also, ecclesiastical authorities have sufficient
wisdom to keep these eccentrics in the background, confining them as far
as possible to remote and obscure places. If ever a few of them escape
into the open and find means of expressing themselves, the whole
machinery of modern religion will become dislocated, and the Church will
very likely relapse into the barbarity of the Apostolic age.
'I believe, Conneally,' said the Canon at last, 'that you are a good
man. I do not merely mean that you are moral and upright, but that you
sincerely desire to follow in the footsteps of the Master.'
He looked as if he wanted some kind of answer, at least a confirmation
of his belief. Fresh from his interview with Marion, and having the
Canon's eyes upon him, it did not seem impossible to Hyacinth to answer
yes. Even the thought of the work he was to engage in with Miss Goold
and Patrick O'Dwyer seemed to offer no ground for hesitation. Was he
not enlisting with them to take part in the great battle? He had
never ceased to believe his father's words: 'And the battlefield is
Ireland--our dear Ireland which we love!' He felt for the moment that
he was altogether prepared to make the confession of faith the Canon
required.
'Yes,' he said, 'I am on His side.'
'And you love Marion? Are you quite sure of that? Are you certain that
this is not a passing fancy?'
This time Hyacinth had no doubt whatever about his answer.
'I am as certain of my love as I am of anything in the world.'
'I am glad. I am very glad that this has happened--for your sake,
because I have always liked you; also for Marion's sake. I shall see you
happy because you love one another, and because you both love the Lord.
I ask no more than those two things. But I must go and tell my wife at
once. She will be glad, too.'
He rose and went to the door. With his hand stretched out to open it he
stopped, struck by a sudden thought.
'By the way, I ought to ask you--if you mean to be married--have you
any--I mean it is necessary--I hope you won't think I am laying undue
stress upon such matters, but I really--I mean we really ought to
consider what you are to live upon.'
It was the prospect of imparting the news to his wife which forced this
speech from him. Mrs. Beecher was, indeed, the least worldly of women.
Did she not marry the Canon, then a mere curate, on the slenderest
income, and bear him successively five babies in defiance of common
prudence? But it had fallen to her lot to order the affairs of the
household, and she had learnt that the people who give you bread and
beef demand, after an interval, more or less money in exchange. It was
likely that, after her first rapture had subsided, she would make some
inquiry about Hyacinth's income and prospects. The Canon felt he ought
to be prepared.
'Of course, I have lost my position with Mr. Quinn. You know that. But I
have an offer of work which I hope will lead on to something better,
and will enable me in a short time to earn enough money to marry on.
You know--or perhaps you don't, for I am afraid I never told you '--he
remembered that he had carefully concealed his connection with the
_Croppy_ from his friends at Ballymoy, and paused--' I have done some
little writing. Oh, nothing very much--not a book, or anything like
that, only a few articles for the press. Well, a friend of mine has got
me the offer of a post in connection with a weekly paper. It is not a
very great thing in itself just now, but it may improve, and there is
always the prospect of picking up other work of the same kind.'
The Canon, who had never seen even an abstract of one of his own sermons
in print, had a proper reverence for the men who guide the world's
thought through the press.
'That is very good, Conneally--very satisfactory indeed. I always knew
you had brains. But why did you never tell me what you were doing? I
should have been deeply interested in anything you wrote.'
Hyacinth's conscience smote him.
'The truth is, that I was sure you wouldn't approve of the paper I
wrote for. It is the _Croppy_, the organ of the extreme left wing of the
Nationalist party. It is Miss Goold--Augusta Goold--who now offers me
work on that paper. She says---- But you had better read what she says
for yourself. Then you will know the worst of it.'
He took the letter from his pocket. The Canon lit a candle and read it
through slowly and attentively. When he had finished he laid it upon the
table and sat down. Hyacinth waited in extreme anxiety for what was to
come.
'I do not like the cause you mean to work for or the people you call
your friends. I would rather see my daughter's husband doing almost
anything else in the world. I would be happier if you proposed to break
stones upon the roadside. You know what my political opinions are.
I regard the _Croppy_ as a disloyal and seditious paper, bent upon
fostering a dangerous spirit.'
Hyacinth listened patiently. He had steeled himself against the hearing
of some such words, and was determined not to be moved to argument or
self-defence except as a last resort.
'I hope,' he said, 'that you will at least give me credit for honestly
acting in accordance with my convictions.'
'I am sure--quite sure--that you are honest, and believe that your cause
is the right one. I recognise, too, though this is a very difficult
thing to do, that you have every right to form and hold your own
political opinions. It seems to me that they are very wrong and very
mischievous, but it is quite possible that I am mistaken and prejudiced.
In any case, I am not called upon to refuse you my affection or to
separate you from my daughter because we differ about politics.'
Hyacinth breathed a great sigh of relief. He looked at the Canon in
wonder and admiration. It had been beyond hope that a man grown gray in
a narrow faith, a faith in which for centuries religion and politics had
been inextricably blended, could have risen in one clear flight above
the mire of prejudice. It seemed, even after he had spoken, impossible
that in Ireland, where political opponents believe each other to be
thieves and murderers, there could be found even one man, and he from
the least emancipated class of all, who could understand and practise
tolerance.
'I say,' went on the Canon, speaking very slowly, and with evident
difficulty, 'that I have no right to put you away from me because of
your political opinions. But there is something here '--he touched Miss
Goold's letter--' from which I must by all means try to save you.
Will you let me speak to you, not as Marion's father, not even as your
friend, but as Christ's ambassador set here to watch for your soul? But
I need not excuse myself for what I am about to say. You will at least
listen to me patiently.'
He took up Miss Goold's letter and searched through it for a short time;
then he read aloud:
'"He just asked one question about you: Does Mr. Conneally hate England
and the Empire and everything English, from the Parliament to the police
barrack? For it is this hatred which must animate our work. I said
I thought you did." Now consider what those words mean. You are to
dedicate your powers, the talents God has given you, to preaching
a gospel of hate. This is not a question of politics. I am ready
to believe that in the contest of which our unhappy country is the
battle-ground a man may be either on your side or mine, and yet be
a follower of Christ. It is impossible to think that anyone can
deliberately, with his eyes open, accept hatred for the inspiration of
his life and still be true to Him.'
Hyacinth was greatly moved by the solemnity with which the Canon spoke.
There was that in him which witnessed to the truth of what he heard. Yet
he refused to be convinced. When he spoke it was clear that he was not
addressing his companion, for his eyes were fixed upon the picture of
the Good Shepherd, faintly illuminated by the candle light. He desired
to order his own thought on the dilemma, to justify, if he could, his
own position to himself. 'It is true that the Gospel of Christ is a
Gospel of love. Yet there are circumstances in which it is wrong to
follow it. Is it possible to rouse our people out of their sordid
apathy, to save Ireland for a place among the nations, except by
preaching a mighty indignation against the tyranny which has crushed us
to the dust?'
He felt that Canon Beecher's eyes never left him for a moment while he
spoke. He looked up, and saw in them an intense pleading. There
stole over him a desire to yield, to submit himself to this appealing
tenderness. He defended himself desperately against his weakness.
'I am not choosing the pleasanter way. It would be easier for me to give
up the fight for Ireland, to desert the beaten side, to forget the lost
cause.' He turned to Canon Beecher, speaking almost fiercely: 'Do you
think it is a small thing for me to surrender your friendship, and
perhaps--perhaps to lose Marion? Is there not _some_ of the nobility of
sacrifice in refusing to listen to you?'
'I cannot argue with you. No doubt you are cleverer than I am. But I
_know_ this--God is love, and only he who dwelleth in love dwelleth in
God.'
'But I do love: I love Ireland.'
'Ah yes; but He says, "Love your enemies."'
'Then,' said Hyacinth, 'I will not have Him for my God.'
Hardly had he spoken than he started and grew suddenly cold. It was no
doubt some trick of memory, but he believed that he heard very faintly
from far off a remembered voice:
'Will you be sure to know the good side from the bad, the Captain from
the enemy.'
They were the last words his father had said to him. They had passed
unregarded when they were spoken, but lingered unthought of in some
recess of his memory. Now they came on him full of meaning, insistent
for an answer.
'You have chosen,' said the Canon.
He had chosen. Could he be sure that he had chosen right, that he knew
the good side from the bad?
'You have chosen, and I have no more to say. Only, before it becomes
impossible for you and me to kneel together, I ask you to let me pray
with you once more. You can do this because you still believe He hears
us, although you have decided to walk no more with Him.'
They knelt together, and Hyacinth, numbly indifferent, felt his hand
grasped and held.
'O Christ,' said Canon Beecher, 'this child of Thine has chosen to live
by hatred rather than by love. Do Thou therefore remove love from him,
lest it prove a hindrance to him on the way on which he goes. Let the
memory of the cross be blotted out from his mind, so that he may do
successfully that which he desires.'
Hyacinth wrenched his hand free from the grasp which held it, and flung
himself forward across the table at which they knelt. Except for his
sobs and his choking efforts to subdue them, there was silence in the
room. Canon Beecher rose from his knees and stood watching him, his lips
moving with unspoken supplication. At last Hyacinth also rose and stood,
calm suddenly.
'You have conquered me,' he said.
'My son, my son, this is joy indeed! All along I knew He could not fail
you. But I have not conquered you. The Lord Jesus has saved you.'
'I do not know,' said Hyacinth slowly, 'whether I have been saved or
lost. I am not sure even now that I know the good side from the bad.
But I do know that I cannot live without the hope of being loved by Him.
Whether it is the better part to which I resign myself I cannot tell.
No doubt He knows. As for me, if I have been forced to make a great
betrayal, if I am to live hereafter very basely--and I think I am--at
least I have not cut myself off from the opportunity of loving Him.'
CHAPTER XXI
Canon Beecher took no notice of Hyacinth's last speech. He had returned
with amazing swiftness and ease from the region of high emotion to the
commonplace. Excursions to the shining peaks of mystical experience are
for most men so rare that the glory leaves them with dazzled eyes, and
they walk stumblingly for a while along the dull roads of the world.
But Canon Beecher, in the course of his pleading with Hyacinth, had been
only in places very well known to him. The presence chamber of the King
was to him also the room of a familiar friend. It was no breathless
descent from the green hill of the cross to the thoroughfare of common
life.
'Now, my dear boy,' he said, 'we really must go and talk to my wife and
Marion. Besides, I must tell you the plan I have made for you--the plan
I was just going to speak about when you put it out of my head with the
news of your love-making.'
For Hyacinth a great effort was necessary before he could get back to
his normal state. His hands were trembling violently. His forehead and
hair were damp with sweat. His whole body was intensely cold. His mind
was confused, and he listened to what was said to him with only the
vaguest apprehension of its meaning. The Canon laid a firm hand upon
his arm, and led him away from the study. In the passage he stopped, and
asked Hyacinth to go back and blow out the candle which still burned on
the study table.
'And just put some turf on the fire,' he added; 'I don't want it to go
out.'
The pause enabled Hyacinth to regain his self-command, and the
performance of the perfectly ordinary acts required of him helped to
bring him back again to common life.
When they entered the drawing-room it was evident that Mrs. Beecher had
already heard the news, and was, in fact, discussing the matter eagerly
with Marion. She sprang up, and hastened across the room to meet them.
'I am so glad,' she said--'so delighted! I am sure you and Marion will
be happy together.'
She took Hyacinth's hands in hers, and held them while she spoke, then
drew nearer to him and looked up in his face expectantly. A fearful
suspicion seized him that on an occasion of the kind she might consider
it right to kiss him. It was with the greatest difficulty that he
suppressed a wholly unreasonable impulse to laugh aloud. Apparently the
need of such affectionate stimulant was strong in Mrs. Beecher. When
Hyacinth hung back, she left him for her husband, put her arms round his
neck, and kissed him heartily on both cheeks.
'Isn't it fortunate,' she said, 'that you saw Dr. Henry last week while
you were in Dublin? You little thought how important that talk with him
was going to turn out--I mean, of course, important for us. It always
was important for Mr.--I mean for Hyacinth.'
The Canon seemed a little embarrassed. He cleared his throat somewhat
unnecessarily, and then said:
'I haven't mentioned that matter yet.'
'Not mentioned Dr. Henry's offer! Then, what have you been talking about
all this time?'
It did not seem necessary to tell Mrs. Beecher all that had been said,
or to repeat the scene in the study for her benefit. The Canon cleared
his throat again.
'I was in Dublin last week attending a meeting of the Scriptural Schools
Society, and I met Dr. Henry. We were talking about the Quinns. I told
you that Mr. Quinn is to be the new secretary of the society, didn't I?
Dr. Henry knows Mr. Quinn slightly, and was greatly interested in him.
Your name naturally was mentioned. Dr. Henry seems to have taken a
warm interest in you when you were in college, and to have a very high
opinion of your abilities. He did not know what had become of you, and
was very pleased to hear that you were a friend of ours.'
Hyacinth knew at once what was coming--knew what Canon Beecher's plan
for his future was, and why he was pleased with it; understood how Mrs.
Beecher came to describe this conversation with Dr. Henry as fortunate.
He waited for the rest of the recital, vaguely surprised at his own want
of feeling.
'I told him,' the Canon went on, eying Hyacinth doubtfully, 'that you
had lost your employment here. I hope you don't object to my
having mentioned that. I am sure you wouldn't if you had heard how
sympathetically he spoke of you. He assured me that he was most anxious
to help you in any way in his power. He just asked one question about
you.' Hyacinth started. Where had he heard those identical words before?
Oh yes, they were in Miss Goold's letter. Patrick O'Dwyer also had just
asked one question about him. He smiled faintly as the Canon went on:
'"Is he fit, spiritually fit, to be ordained? For it is the desire to
serve God which must animate our work." I said I thought you were. I
told him how you sang in our choir here, and how fond you seemed of our
quiet life, and what a good fellow you are. You see, I did not know then
that I was praising the man who is to be my son-in-law. He asked me to
remind you of a promise he had once made, and to say that he was ready
to fufil it. I understood him to mean that he would recommend you to any
Bishop you like for ordination.'
Hyacinth remained silent. He felt that in surrendering his work for the
_Croppy_ he surrendered also his right to make any choice. He was ready
to be shepherded into any position, like a sheep into a pen. And he
had no particular wish to resist. He saw a simple satisfaction in Mrs.
Beecher's face and a beautiful joy in Marion's eyes. It was impossible
for him to disappoint them. He smiled a response to Mrs. Beecher's
kindly triumph.
'Isn't that splendid! Now you and Marion will be able to be married
quite soon, and I do dislike long engagements. Of course, you will be
very poor at first, but no poorer than we were. And Marion is not afraid
of being poor--are you, dear?'
'That is just what I have been saying to him,' said Marion; 'isn't it,
Hyacinth? Of course I am not afraid. I have always said that if I ever
married I should like to marry a clergyman, and if one does that one is
sure to be poor.'
Evidently there was no doubt in either of their minds that Hyacinth
would accept Dr. Henry's offer. Nor had he any doubt himself. The thing
seemed too inevitable to be anything but right. Only on Canon Beecher's
face there lingered a shadow of uncertainty. Hyacinth saw it, and
relieved his mind at once.
'I shall write to Dr. Henry to-night and thank him. I shall ask him to
try and get me a curacy as soon as possible.'
'Thank you,' said the Canon.
'I think,' added Hyacinth, 'that I should prefer getting work in
England.'
'Oh, why,' said Mrs. Beecher. 'Wouldn't it be better to stay in Ireland!
and then we might have Marion somewhere within reach.'
'My dear,' said the Canon, 'we must let Hyacinth decide for himself. I
am sure he knows what is wisest for him to do.'
Hyacinth was not at all sure that he knew what was wisest, and he was
quite certain that he had not decided for himself in any matter of the
slightest importance. He had suggested an English curacy in the vague
hope that it might be easier there to forget his hopes and dreams for
Ireland. It seemed to him, too, that a voluntary exile, of which he
could not think without pain, might be a kind of atonement for the
betrayal of his old enthusiasm.
The Canon followed him to the door when he left.
'My dear boy'--there was a break in his voice as he spoke--' my dear
boy, you have made me very happy. I am sure that you will not enter upon
the work of the ministry from any unworthy motive. The call will become
clearer to you by degrees. I mean the inward call. The outward call, the
leading of circumstance, has already made abundantly plain the way you
ought to walk in. The other will come--the voice which brings assurance
and peace when it speaks.'
Hyacinth looked at him wistfully. There seemed very little possibility
of anything like assurance for him, and only such peace as might be
gained by smothering the cries with which his heart assailed him. The
Canon held his hand and wrung it.
'I can understand why you want to go to England. Your political opinions
will interfere very little with your work there. Here, of course, it
would be different. Yes, your choice is certainly wise, for nothing
must be allowed to hinder your work. "Laying aside every weight," you
remember, "let us run the race." Yes, I understand.'
It was perfectly clear to Hyacinth that the Canon did not understand in
the least. It was not likely that anyone ever would understand.
Gradually his despondency gave way before the crowding in of thoughts of
satisfaction. He was to have Marion, to live with her, to love her, and
be loved by her as long as they both lived. He saw life stretching out
before him, a sunlit, pleasant journey in Marion's company. It did not
seem to him that any trouble could be really bad, any disappointment
intolerable, any toil oppressive with her love for an atmosphere round
him. He believed, too, that the work he was undertaking was a good work,
perhaps the highest and noblest kind of work there is to be done in the
world. From this conviction also came a glow of happiness. Yet there
kept recurring chill shudderings of self-reproach. Something within him
kept whispering that he had bartered his soul for happiness.
'I have chosen the easier and therefore the baser way,' he said. 'I have
shrunk from toil and pain. I have refused to make the sacrifice demanded
of me.'
He went back again to the story of his father's vision. For a moment
it seemed quite clear that he had deliberately refused the call to the
great fight, that he had judged himself unworthy, being cowardly and
selfish in his heart. Then he remembered that the Captain of whom his
father had told him was no one else but Christ, the same Christ of whom
Canon Beecher spoke, the Good Shepherd whose love he had discovered to
be the greatest need of all.
'I must have Him,' he said--'I must have Him--and Marion.'
Again with the renewed decision came a glow of happiness and a sense of
rest, until there rose, as if to smite him, the thought of Ireland--of
Ireland, poor, derided of strangers, deserted by her sons, roped in as
a prize-ring where selfish men struggle ignobly for sordid gains The
children of the land fled from it sick with despair. Its deserted houses
were full of all doleful things. Cormorants and the daughters of the owl
lodged in the lintels of them.
Sullen desolation was on the threshold, while satyrs cried to their
fellows across tracts of brown rush-grown land. Aliens came to hiss and
passed by wagging their hands. Over all was the monotony of the gray
sky, descending and still descending with clouds that came upon the
land, mistily folding it in close embraces of death. Voices sounded far
off and unreal through the gloom. The final convulsive struggles of the
nation's life grew feebler and fewer. Of all causes Ireland's seemed the
most hopelessly lost. Was he, too, going to forsake her? He felt that in
spite of all the good promised him there would always hang over his life
a gloom that oven Marion's love would not disperse, the heavy shadow of
Ireland's Calvary. For Marion there would be no such darkness, nor would
Marion understand it. But surely Christ understood. Words of His crowded
to the memory. 'When He beheld the city He wept over it, saying,
Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem!' Most certainly He understood this, as He
understood all human emotion. He, too, had yearned over a nation's fall,
had felt the heartbreak of the patriot.
'I have chosen Him,' he said at last. 'Once having caught a glimpse of
Him, I could not do without Him. He understands it all, and He has given
me Marion.'
CHAPTER XXII
It was a brilliant July day, and the convent at Robeen was decked for a
festival. The occasion was a very great one. Cloth of gold hung in the
chapel, the entrance-hall was splendid with flowers, and the whole
white front of the buildings had put on signs of holiday. Indeed,
this festival was unique, the very greatest day in the history of the
sisterhood. Easter, Christmas, and the saints' days recurred annually
in their proper order, and the emotions they brought with them were no
doubt familiar to holy ladies whose business it was to live in close
touch with the other world. But on this day the great of the earth,
beings much more unapproachable, as a rule, than the saints, were to
visit the convent. Honour was to be paid to ladies whose magnificence
was guaranteed by worldly titles; to the Proconsuls of the far-off
Imperial power, holders of the purse-strings of the richest nation
upon earth; to Judges accustomed to sit in splendid robes and awful
head-dresses, pronouncing the doom of malefactors; to a member of the
Cabinet, a very mighty man, though untitled; and quite possibly--a
glittering hope--to the Lord Lieutenant himself.
It was therefore no wonder that the nuns had decked their convent
with all possible splendour. On each side of the iron gateway was a
flag-post. From the top of one fluttered the green banner of Ireland,
with its gold harp and a great crown over it. From the other hung
the Union Jack, emblem of that marriage of nationalities for whose
consummation eight centuries have not sufficed. It was hoisted upside
down--not with intentional disrespect, but because Sister Gertrude, who
superintended this part of the decorations, had long ago renounced the
world, and did not remember that the tangled crosses had a top or a
bottom to them. Between the posts hung a festoon of signalling flags,
long pointed strips of bunting with red balls or blue on them. The
central streamer just tipped as it fluttered the top of the iron cross
which marked the religious nature of the gateway. The straight gravel
walk inside was covered with red baize, and on each side of it were
planted tapering poles, round which crimson and white muslin circled
in alternate stripes, giving them the appearance of huge old-fashioned
sugar-sticks. These added to the gaiety of the scene, though it cannot
be supposed that they were of any actual use. The most bewildered
visitor was hardly likely to stray off the red baize or miss his way to
the door in front of him. Within the great entrance-hall were palms and
flowering shrubs in pots or tubs. The mosaic flooring, imported from
Italy, and a source of pride to all the Sisters, shone with much washing
and polishing. The Madonna with the blue eyes and the golden crown,
before which even Bishops crossed themselves, was less in evidence than
usual, for the expected guests were mostly heretics. She stood retired
behind the flower-pots, and veiled her benignity with the leaves of
palms.
Right and left of the hall stretched corridors, whose shining parquet
invited the curious to explore the working-rooms and eating-rooms which
lay beyond. The door of the chapel stood open, and offered a vision
of simpering angels crowding the canvas of the altar-piece, a
justly-admired specimen of German religious art. Before it, dimly
seen, two nuns knelt, types of conventual piety, absorbed in spiritual
contemplation amid the tumult of the world's invasion of their
sanctuary. Another door led to the garden. Here a fountain played into a
great stone basin, and neat gravel walks intersected each other at sharp
angles among flower-beds. The grass which lay around the maze of paths
was sacred as a rule, even from the list slippers of the nuns, but
to-day booths stood on it like stalls at a charity bazaar, hung with
tweeds, blankets, and stockings. A tall Calvary lowered incongruously
over one. An inferior Madonna, deposed from her old station in the
entrance-hall, presided in a weather-beaten blue robe over another.
Beyond the garden, blocked off from it by a white wall, lay the factory
itself, the magnet which was drawing the great of the earth to the
nunnery. Here were the workers, all of them bright young women, smiling
pleasantly and well washed for the occasion. They were dressed in neat
violet petticoats and white blouses, with shawls thrown back from their
heads, a glorified presentment of the Mayo woman's working dress. Here
and there, a touch of realism creditable to the Reverend Mother's talent
for stage management, one sat in bare feet--not, of course, dust or mud
stained, as bare feet are apt to be in Connaught, but clean. The careful
observer of detail might have been led to suppose that the Sisters
improved upon the practice of the Holy Father himself, and daily washed
the feet of the poor.
Everywhere fresh-complexioned, gentle-faced nuns flitted silently about.
The brass crosses pendent over their breasts relieved with a single
glitter the sombre folds of their robes. Snowy coifs, which had cost the
industrial schoolgirls of a sister house hours of labour and many tears,
shone, glazed and unwrinkled, round their heads. Even the youngest of
them had acquired the difficult art of walking gracefully with her hands
folded in front of her.
At about two o'clock the visitors began to arrive, although the train
from Dublin which was to bring the very elect was not due for another
half-hour. Lady Geoghegan, grown pleasantly stout and cheerfully
benignant, came by a local train, and rejoiced the eyes of beholders
with a dress made of one of the convent tweeds. Sir Gerald followed
her, awkward and unwilling. He had been dragged with difficulty from his
books and the society of his children, and was doubtful whether a cigar
in a nunnery garden might not be counted sacrilege. With them was
a wonderful person--an English priest: it was thus he described
himself--whom Lady Geoghegan had met in Yorkshire. His charming manners
and good Church principles had won her favour and earned him the holiday
he was enjoying at Clogher House. He was arrayed in a pair of gray
trousers, a white shirt, and a blazer with the arms of Brazenose College
embroidered on the pocket, his sacerdotal character being marked only
by his collar. He leaped gaily from the car which brought them from the
station, and, as he assisted his hostess to alight, amazed the little
crowd around the gate by chaffing the driver in an entirely unknown
tongue. The good man had an ear for music, and plumed himself on his
ability to pick up any dialect he heard--Scotch, Yorkshire, or Irish
brogue. The driver was bewildered, but smiled pleasantly. He realized
that the gentleman was a foreigner, and since the meaning of his speech
was not clear, it was quite likely that he might be hazy about the value
of money and the rates of car hire.
The Duchess of Drummin came in her landau. Like Lady Geoghegan, she
marked the national and industrial nature of the occasion in her attire.
At much personal inconvenience, for the day was warm, she wore a long
cloak of rich brown tweed, adorned with rows of large leather-covered
buttons. Lady Josephine Maguire fluttered after her. She had bidden
her maid disguise a dress, neither Irish nor homespun, with as much
Carrickmacross lace as could be attached to it. Lord Eustace, who
represented his father, appeared in all the glory of a silk hat and a
frock-coat. He eyed Sir Gerald's baggy trousers and shabby wideawake
with contempt, and turned away his eyes from beholding the vanity of
obviously bad form when he came face to face with the English priest in
his blazer.
A smiling nun took charge of each party as it arrived. Lady Geoghegan
plied hers with questions, and received a series of quite uninforming
answers. Her husband followed her, bent principally upon escaping
from the precincts if he could. Already he was bored, and he knew that
speeches from great men were in store for him if he were forced to
linger. The Duchess of Drummin eyed each object presented to her notice
gravely through long-handled glasses, but gave her attendant nun very
little conversational help. Lady Josephine made every effort to be
intelligent, and inquired in a dormitory where the looking-glasses
were. She was amazed to hear that the nuns did, or failed to do, their
hair--the head-dresses concealed the result of their efforts--without
mirrors. Lord Eustace was preoccupied. Amid his unaccustomed
surroundings he walked uncertain whether to keep his hat on his head
or hold it in his hands. The English priest, whose name was Austin, got
detached from Lady Geoghegan, and picked up a stray nun for himself. She
took him, by his own request, straight to the chapel. He crossed himself
with elaborate care on entering, and knelt for a moment before the
altar. The nun was delighted.
'So you, too, are a Catholic?'
'Certainly,' he replied briskly--'an English Catholic.'
'Ah! many of our priests go to England. Perhaps you have met Father
O'Connell. He is on a London mission.'
'No,' said Mr. Austin, 'I do not happen to have met him. My church is in
Yorkshire.'
The nun gazed at him in amazement.
'Your church! Then you are----
'Yes,' he said, 'I am a priest.'
Her eyes slowly travelled over him. They began at the gray trousers,
passed to the blazer, resting a moment on the college arms, which
certainly suggested the ecclesiastical, and remained fixed on his
collar. After all, why should she, a humble nun, doubt his word when he
said he was a priest? Perhaps he might belong to some order of which
she had never heard. Eccentricities of costume might be forced on the
English clergy by Protestant intolerance. She smothered her uncertainty,
and took him at his word. They went together into the garden. Mr. Austin
took off his hat before the tarnished Madonna, and crossed himself
again. The nun's doubts vanished.
'I think,' he said, 'that I should like to buy some of this tweed. Is it
for sale?'
'Oh, certainly. Sister Aloysia will sell it to you. We are so glad, so
very glad, when anyone will buy what our poor workers make. It is all a
help to the good cause.'
'Now this,' said Mr. Austin, fingering a bright-green cloth, 'would make
a nice lady's dress. Don't you think so?'
The nun cast down her eyes.
'I do not know, Father, about dresses. Sister Aloysia, the Reverend
Father wants to buy tweed to make a dress for '--she hesitated; perhaps
it was his niece, but he looked young to have a full-grown niece--'for
his sister.'
Sister Aloysia looked round her, puzzled. She saw no Reverend Father.
'This,' said the other, 'is Father--Father----'
'Austin,' he helped her out.
'Father Austin,' added the nun.
'And you wish,' said Sister Aloysia, 'to buy a dress for your sister?'
'Not for my sister,' said Mr. Austin--'for my wife.'
Both nuns started back as if he had tried to strike them.
'Your wife! Your wife! Then you are a Protestant.'
'Certainly not,' he said. 'I detest all Protestants. I am a Catholic--an
Anglo-Catholic.'
Neither of the nuns had ever heard of an Anglo-Catholic before.
What manner of religion such people might profess was doubtful and
unimportant. One thing was clear--this was not a priest in any sense of
the word which they could recognise. They distrusted him, as a wolf,
not certainly in the clothing, but using the language, of a sheep. The
situation became embarrassing. Mr. Austin prepared to bow himself away.
'I think,' he said, 'I shall ask Lady Geoghegan'--he rolled the title
out emphatically; it formed a salve to his wounded dignity--'I shall ask
Lady Geoghegan to purchase the tweed for me. I must be on the look-out
for a friend who promised to meet me here this afternoon--a young man
whom I contemplate engaging as my curate. I am most particular in the
choice of a curate, and should, of course, prefer a public school
and 'Varsity man. I need scarcely say that I refer only to Oxford and
Cambridge as the Universities. As a rule, I do not care for Irishmen,
but on the recommendation of my friend Dr. Henry, I am willing to
consider this Mr. Conneally.'
It seemed to Mr. Austin that a preference for the English Universities,
the friendship of a distinguished professor, a contempt for the mere
Irishman, and a titled hostess ought to restore the respect he had
forfeited by the mention of his wife. Curiously enough, and this shows
the disadvantage of a monastic seclusion from the world, the nuns
remained unimpressed. The conception of a married priest was too much
for them. As he walked away Mr. Austin heard Sister Aloysia murmur:
'How very indecent!'
Meanwhile, the train from Dublin had arrived, and Mr. Austin, when he
returned after his interview with Hyacinth, found that even the two nuns
he had victimized had forgotten him in the excitement of gazing at
more important visitors. Mr. Justice Saunders, a tall, stout man with a
florid face, made a tour of the factory under the charge of one of the
senior Sisters. He took little notice of what he was shown, being
mainly bent on explaining to his escort how he came to be known in legal
circles as 'Satan Saunders.' Afterwards he added a tale of how he had
once bluffed a crowd in an out-of-the-way country town into giving three
cheers for the Queen.
'You're all loyal here,' he said. 'I saw the Union Jack flying over the
gate as I came in.'
The nun smiled, a slow, enigmatic smile, and the Judge, watching her,
was struck by her innocence and simplicity.'
'Surely,' she said, 'the Church must always be loyal.'
'Well, I'm not so sure of that. I've met a few firebrands of priests in
my time.'
'Oh, those!' she said with a shrug of her shoulders. 'You must not think
of them. It will always be easy to keep them in order when the time
comes. They spring from the cabins. What can you expect of them? But the
Church---- Can the Church fail of respect for the Sovereign?'
Mr. Clifford and Mr. Davis followed Judge Saunders. They were members of
the Congested Districts Board, and it was clear from the manner of
the nun who escorted them that they were guests of very considerable
importance in her estimation. Mr. Clifford was an Englishman who had
been imported to assist in governing Ireland because he was married to
the sister of the Chief Secretary's wife. He was otherwise qualified
for the task by possessing a fair knowledge of the points of a horse. He
believed that he knew Ireland and the Irish people thoroughly.
His colleague, Mr. Davis, was a man of quite a different stamp. The
son of a Presbyterian farmer in County Tyrone, he had joined the Irish
Parliamentary party, and made himself particularly objectionable in
Westminster. He had devoted his talents to discovering and publishing
the principles upon which appointments to lucrative posts are made
by the officials in Dublin Castle. It was found convenient at last to
provide him with a salary and a seat on the Congested Districts Board.
Thus he found himself engaged in ameliorating the lot of the Connaught
peasants. Mr. Clifford used to describe him as 'a bit of a bounder--in
fact, a complete outsider--but no fool.' His estimate of Mr. Clifford
was perhaps less complimentary.
'Every business,' he used to say, 'must have at least one gentleman in
it to do the entertaining and the dining out. We have Mr. Clifford. He's
a first-rate man at one of the Lord Lieutenant's balls.'
A professor from Trinity College was one of the two guests conducted by
the Reverend Mother herself. Nominally this learned gentleman existed
for the purpose of impressing upon the world the beauties of Latin
poetry, but he was best known to fame as an orator on the platforms
of the Primrose League, and a writer of magazine articles on Irish
questions. He was a man who owed his success in life largely to his
faculty for always keeping beside the most important person present. The
Lord Lieutenant, being slightly indisposed, had been unable to make an
early start, so the most honourable stranger was Mr. Chesney, the Chief
Secretary. To him Professor Cairns attached himself, and received a
share of the Reverend Mother's blandishments.
Mr. Chesney himself was dapper and smiling as usual. Even the early
hour at which he had been obliged to leave home had neither ruffled his
temper nor withered the flower in his buttonhole. He spent his money
generously at the various stalls in the garden, addressed friendly
remarks to the women in the factory, and asked the questions with which
Mr. Davis had primed him in the train.
Quite a crowd of minor people followed the great statesman. There were
barristers who hoped to become County Court Judges, and ladies who
enjoyed a novel kind of occasion for displaying their clothes, hoping to
see their names afterwards in the newspaper accounts of the proceedings.
There were a few foremen from leading Dublin shops, who foresaw the
possibility of a fashionable boom in Robeen tweeds and flannels. There
were also reporters from the Dublin papers, and a representative--Miss
O'Dwyer--of a syndicate which supplied ladies' journals with accounts of
the clothes worn at fashionable functions.
The supreme moment of the day arrived when the company assembled to
listen to words of wisdom from the orators selected to address them.
Seats had been provided by carting in forms from the neighbouring
national schools. A handsomely-carved chair of ecclesiastical design
awaited Mr. Chesney.
He opened his speech by assuring his audience that there was no occasion
for him to address them at all, a truth which struck home to the heart
of Sir Gerald, who was trying to arrange himself comfortably at a desk
designed for a class of infants.
'Facts,' Mr. Chesney explained himself, 'are more eloquent than words.
You have seen what I could never have described to you--the contented
workers in this factory and the artistic designs of the fabrics they
weave. Many of you remember what Robeen was a few years ago--a howling
wilderness. We are told on high authority that even the wilderness shall
blossom as a rose.'
He bowed in the direction of the Reverend Mother, possibly with a
feeling that it was suitable to acknowledge her presence when quoting
Holy Writ, possibly with a vague idea that she might consider herself
a spiritual descendant of the Prophet Isaiah. 'You see it now a hive of
happy industry.'
He observed with pleasure that the reporters were busy with their
note-books, and he knew that these editors of public utterance might be
relied on to unravel a tangled metaphor before publishing a speech. He
went on light-heartedly, confident that in the next day's papers his
wilderness would blossom into something else, and that the hive, if
it appeared at all, would be arrived at by some other process than
blossoming. The habit of rolling out agreeable platitudes to audiences
forced to listen is one which grows on public men as dram-drinking does
on the common herd. Mr. Chesney was evidently enjoying himself, and
there seemed no reason why he should ever stop. He could, and perhaps
would, have gone on for hours but for the offensive way in which Judge
Saunders snapped the case of his watch at the end of every period. There
was really no hurry, for the special train which was to bring them back
to Dublin would certainly wait until they were ready for it. Mr. Chesney
felt aggrieved at the repeated interruption, and closed his speech
without giving the audience the benefit of his peroration.
The Judge came next, and began with reminding his hearers that he
was known as 'Satan Saunders.' An account of the origin of the name
followed, and was enjoyed even by those who had listened to the Judge's
oratory before, and therefore knew the story. There was something
piquant, almost _risque_, in the constant repetition of a really wicked
word like 'Satan' in the halls of a nunnery. The audience laughed
reassuringly, and the Judge went on to supply fresh pabulum for mirth by
suggesting that the Reverend Mother should clothe her nuns in their own
tweeds. He was probably right in supposing that the new costumes would
add a gaiety to the religious life. Other jests followed, and he sat
down amid a flutter of applause after promising that when he next
presided over the Winter Assizes in a draughty court-house he would send
for a Robeen blanket and wrap his legs in it.
Mr. Clifford, who followed the Judge, began by wondering whether anyone
present had ever been in Lancashire. After a pause, during which no one
owned to having crossed the Channel, he said that Lancashire was the
home of the modern factory. There every man and woman earned good wages,
wore excellent clothes, and lived in a house fitted with hot and cold
water taps and a gas-meter. It was his hope to see Mayo turned into
another Lancashire. When ladies of undoubted commercial ability, like
the Lady Abbess who presided over the Robeen convent--Lady Abbess
sounded well, and Mr. Clifford was not strong on ecclesiastical
titles--took the matter up, success was assured. All that was required
for the development of the factory system in Mayo was capital, and that
'we, the Congested Districts Board, are in a position to supply.' With
the help of some prompting from Mr. Davis, he proceeded to lay
before the audience a few figures purporting to explain the Board's
expenditure.
Professor Cairns was evidently anxious to follow Mr. Clifford, if only
in the humble capacity of the proposer of a vote of thanks. But Ids
name was not on the programme, and Mr. Chesney was already engaged in a
whispered conversation with the Reverend Mother. Ignoring the professor,
almost rudely, he announced that the company in general was invited to
tea in the dining-room.
The refreshments provided, if not substantial, were admirable in
quality. There happened just then to be a young lady engaged, at the
expense of the County Council, in teaching cookery in a neighbouring
convent. She was sent over to Robeen for the occasion, and made a number
of delightful cakes at extremely small expense. The workers in the
factory had given the butter she required as a thank-offering, and the
necessary eggs came from another convent where the nuns, with financial
assistance from the Congested Districts Board, kept a poultry-farm.
The Reverend Mother dispensed her hospitality with the same air of
generosity with which Mr. Clifford had spoken of providing capital for
the future ecclesiastical factories.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Reverend Mother bowed out the last of her guests, and retired to
her own room well satisfied. She was assured of further support from
the Congested Districts Board, and certain debts which had grown
uncomfortably during her struggle with Mr. Quinn need trouble her no
longer. Her goods would be extensively advertised next morning in the
daily press. Her house would obtain a celebrity likely to attract
the most eligible novices--those, that is to say, who would bring the
largest sums of money as their dowries. There arose before her mind a
vision of almost unbounded wealth and all that might be done with it.
What statues of saints might not Italy supply! French painters and
German organ-builders would compete for the privilege of furnishing the
chapel of her house. Already she foresaw pavements of gorgeous mosaic,
windows radiant with Munich glass, and store of vestments to make
her sacristy famous. Grandiose plans suggested themselves of founding
daughter houses in Melbourne, in Auckland, in Capetown, in Natal. All
things were possible to a well-filled purse. She saw how her Order
might open schools in English towns, where girls could be taught French,
Italian, Latin, music, all the accomplishments dear to middle-class
parents, at ridiculously low fees, or without fees at all. She stirred
involuntarily at the splendour of her visions. The day's weariness
dropped off from her. She rose from her chair and went into the chapel.
She prostrated herself before the altar, and lay passive in a glow of
warm emotion. For God, for the Mother of God, for the Catholic Church,
she had laboured and suffered and dared. Now she was well within sight
of the end, the golden reward, the fulfilment of hopes that had never
been altogether selfish.
Her thoughts, sanctified now by the Presence on the altar, drifted out
again on to the shining sea of the future. What she, a humble nun,
had done others would do. A countless army of missionary men and women
marching from the Irish shore would conquer the world's conquerors,
regain for the Church the Anglo-Saxon race. Once in the far past Irish
men and women had Christianized Europe, and Ireland had won her glorious
title, 'Island of Saints.' Now the great day was to dawn again, the
great race to be reborn. For this end had Ireland been kept faithful and
pure for centuries, just that she might be at last the witness to
the spiritual in a materialized world. For this end had the Church in
Ireland gone through the storm of persecution, suffered the blight of
the world's contempt, that she might emerge in the end entirely fitted
for the bloodless warfare.
'And I am one of the race, a daughter of Ireland. And I am a
worker--nay, one who has accomplished something--in the vineyard of the
Church. Ah, God!'
She was swept forward on a wave of emotion. Thought ceased, expiring
in the ecstasy of a communion which transcended thought. Then suddenly,
sharp as an unexpected pain, an accusation shot across her soul,
shattering the glory of the trance in an instant.
'Who am I that I should boast?'
The long years of introspection, the discipline of hundreds of
heart-searching confessions, the hardly-learned lesson of self-distrust,
made it possible for her to recognise the vain-glory even with the halo
of devotion shining round it. She abased herself in penitence.
'Give me the work, my Lord; give others the glory and the fruit of it.
Let me toil, but withhold the reward from me. May my eyes not see it,
lest I be lifted up! Nay, give me not even work to do, lest I should be
praised or learn to praise myself. "Nunc dimittis servam tuam, Domine,
secundum verbum tuum in pace."'
There stole over her a sense of peace--numb, silent peace--wholly unlike
the satisfaction which had flooded her in her own room or during the
earlier ecstasy before the altar. She raised her eyes slowly till they
rested on the shrine where the body of the sacrifice reposed.
'Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.'
At last she rose. The lines of care and age gathered again upon her
face. Her eyes gleamed with keen intelligence. She braced herself with
the thought of all that might still lie before her. The advice of Iago,
strangely sanctified, clamoured in her heart--' Put money in thy purse.'
CHAPTER XXIV
The Reverend Mother was not the only person well satisfied with the
day. The Right Hon. T. J. Chesney leant back in his saloon-carriage,
and puffed contentedly at his cigar. It might be his part
occasionally--indeed, frequently--to talk like a fool, but the man was
shrewd enough. It really seemed that he had hit on the true method of
governing Ireland. Nationalist members of Parliament could be muzzled,
not by the foolish old methods of coercion, but by winning the goodwill
of the Bishops. No Irish member, dared open his mouth when a priest
bid him keep it shut, or give a vote contrary to the wishes of the
hierarchy. And the Bishops were reasonable men. They looked at things
from a point of view intelligible to Englishmen. There was no ridiculous
sentimentality about their demands. For so much money they would silence
the clamour of the Parliamentary party; for so much more they would
preach a modified loyalty, would assert before the world that the Irish
people were faithful servants of the Sovereign; for a good lump sum down
they would undertake to play 'God Save the King' or 'Rule, Britannia'
on the organ at Maynooth. Of course, the money must be paid: Mr. Chesney
was beginning to understand that, and felt the drawback. It would have
been much pleasanter and simpler if the Bishops would have been content
with promises. There was a certain difficulty in obtaining the necessary
funds without announcing precisely what they-were for. But, after all,
a man cannot be called a great statesman without doing something to
deserve the title, and British statesmanship is the art of hoodwinking
the taxpayer. That is all--not too difficult a task for a clever man.
Mr. Chesney reckoned on no power in Ireland likely to be seriously
troublesome. The upper classes were either helpless and sulking, or
helpless and smiling artificially. They might grumble in private or
try to make themselves popular by joining the chorus of the Church's
flatterers. Either way their influence was inconsiderable. Was there
anyone else worth considering? The Orangemen were still a noisy faction,
but their organization appeared to be breaking up. They were more bent
on devouring their own leaders than interfering with him. There were a
number of people anxious to revive the Irish language, who at one time
had caused him some little uneasiness. He had found it quite impossible
to understand the Gaelic League, and, being an Englishman, arrived
gradually at the comfortable conclusion that what he could not
understand must be foolish. Now, he had great hopes that the Bishops
might capture the movement.
If once it was safely under the patronage of the Church, he had
nothing more to fear from it No doubt, resolutions would be passed,
but resolutions------ Mr. Chesney smiled. There were, of course, the
impossible people connected with the _Croppy_. Mr. Chesney did not like
them, and in the bottom of his heart was a little nervous about them.
they seemed to be very little afraid of the authority of the Church,
and he doubted if the authority of the state would frighten them at
all. Still, there were very few of them, and their abominable spirit of
independence was spreading slowly, if at all.
'They won't,' he said to himself, 'be of any importance for some years
to come, at all events, and five years hence----'
In five years Mr. Chesney hoped to be Prime Minister, or perhaps to
have migrated to the House of Lords, At least, he expected to be out
of Ireland, Meanwhile, he lighted a fresh cigar. The condition of the
country was extremely satisfactory, and his policy was working out
better than he had hoped.
The other travellers by the special train were equally well pleased,
Ireland, so they understood Mr. Chesney, was to be made happy and
contented, peaceful and prosperous. It followed that there must be
Boards under the control of Dublin Castle--more and more Boards, an
endless procession of them. There is no way devised by the wit of man
for securing prosperity and contentment except the creation of Boards,
If Boards, then necessarily officials--officials with salaries and
travelling allowances. Nice gentlemanly men, with villas at Dalkey and
Killiney, would perform duties not too arduous in connection with the
Boards, and carry out the benevolent policy of the Government. There
was not a man in the train, except the newspaper reporters, who did not
believe in the regeneration of Ireland by Boards, and everyone hoped to
take a share in the good work, with the prospect of a retiring pension
afterwards.
The local magnates--with the exception of Sir Gerald Geoghegan, whose
temper had been bad from the first--also went home content. The minds of
great ladies work somewhat confusedly, for Providence, no doubt wisely,
has denied to most of them the faculty of reason. It was enough for them
to feel that the nuns were 'sweet women,' and that in some way not very
clear Mr. Chesney was getting the better of 'those wretched agitators.'
Only one of all whom the special train had brought down failed to return
in it. Mary O'Dwyer slipped out of the convent before the speeches
began, and wandered away towards the desolate stony hill where the
stream which turns the factory mill took its rise. It grieved her to
miss the cup of tea which a friendly nun had led her to expect; but even
tea might be too dearly purchased, and Miss O'Dwyer had a strong dislike
to listening to what Augusta Goold described as the 'sugared hypocrisies
of professional liars.' Besides, she had her cigarette-case in her
pocket, and a smoke, unattainable for her in the convent or the train,
was much to be desired. She left the road at the foot of the hill, and
picked her way along the rough bohireen which led upwards along the
course of the stream. After awhile even this track disappeared. The
stream tumbled noisily over rocks and stones, the bog-stained water
glowing auburn- in the sunlight. The ling and heather were
springy under her feet, and the air was sweet with the scent of the
bog-myrtle. She spied round her for a rock which cast a shade upon the
kind of heathery bed she had set her heart to find. Her eyes lit upon
a little party--a young man and two girls--encamped with a kettle, a
spirit-stove, and a store of bread-and-butter. Her renunciation of the
convent tea had not been made without a pang. She looked longingly at
the steam which already spouted from the kettle. The young man said
a few words to the girls, then stood up, raised his hat to her, and
beckoned. She approached him, wondering.
'Surely it can't be--I really believe it is----'
'Yes, Miss O'Dwyer, it really is myself, Hyacinth Conneally.'
'My dear boy, you are the last person I expected to meet, though of
course I knew you were somewhere down in these parts.'
'Come and have some tea,' said Hyacinth. 'And let me introduce you to
Miss Beecher and Miss Elsie Beecher.'
Miss O'Dwyer took stock of the two girls. 'They make their own clothes,'
she thought, 'and apparently only see last year's fashion-plates. The
eldest isn't bad-looking. How is it all West of Ireland girls have such
glorious complexions? Her figure wouldn't be bad if her mother bought
her a decent pair of stays. I wonder who they are, and what they are
doing here with Hyacinth. They can't be his sisters.'
While they drank their tea certain glances and smiles gave her an
inkling of the truth. 'I suppose Hyacinth is engaged to the elder one,'
she concluded. 'That kind of girl wouldn't dare to make eyes at a man
unless she had some kind of right to him.'
After tea she produced her cigarette-case.
'I hope you don't mind,' she said to Marion. 'I know it's very shocking,
but I've had a tiring day and an excellent tea, and oh, this heather is
delicious to lie on!' She stretched herself at full length as she spoke.
'I really must smoke, just to arrive at perfect felicity for once in my
life. How happy you people ought to be who always have in a place like
this!'
'Oh,' said Marion, 'it sometimes rains, you know.'
'Ah! and then these sweet spots get boggy, I suppose, and you have to
wear thick, clumping boots.'
Her own were very neat and small, and she knew that they must obtrude
themselves on the eye while she lay prone. Elsie, whose shoes were
patched as well as thick-soled, made an ineffectual attempt to cover
them with her skirt.
'Now,' said Hyacinth, 'tell us what you are doing down here. They
haven't made you an inspectress of boarded-out workhouse children, have
they? or sent you down to improve the breed of hens?'
'No,' said Miss O'Dwyer; 'I have spent the afternoon helping to govern
Ireland.'
Marion and Elsie gazed at her in wonder. A lady who smoked cigarettes
and bore the cares of State upon her shoulders was a novelty to them.
'I have sat in the seats of the mighty,' she said; 'I have breathed the
same air as Mr. Chesney and two members of the C.D.B. Think of that!
Moreover, I might, if I liked, have drunk tea with a Duchess.'
'Oh,' said Hyacinth, 'you were at the convent function, I suppose. I
wonder I didn't see you.'
'What on earth were _you_ doing there? I thought you hated the nuns and
all their ways.'
'Go on about yourself,' said Hyacinth. 'You are not employed by the
Government to inspect infant industries, are you?'
'Oh no; I was one of the representatives of the press. I have notes here
of all the beautiful clothes worn by the wives and daughters of the West
British aristocracy. Listen to this: "Lady Geoghegan was gowned in an
important creation of saffron tweed, the product of the convent looms.
We are much mistaken if this fabric in just this shade is not destined
to play a part in robing the _elegantes_ who will shed a lustre on our
house-parties during the autumn." And this--you must just listen to
this.'
'I won't,' said Hyacinth; 'you can if you like, Marion. I'll shut my
ears.'
'Very well,' said Miss O'Dwyer; 'I'll talk seriously. When are you
coming up to Dublin? You know my brother has taken over the editorship
of the _Croppy_. We are going to make it a great power in the country.
We are coming out with a policy which will sweep the old set of
political talkers out of existence, and dear the country of Mr. Chesney
and the likes of him.' She waved her hand towards the convent. 'Oh, it
is going to be great. It is great already. Why don't you come and help
us?'
Hyacinth looked at her. She had half risen and leaned upon her elbow.
Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. There was no doubt about
the genuineness of her enthusiasm. The words of her poem, long since, he
supposed, blotted from his memory, suddenly returned to him:
'O, desolate mother, O, Erin,
When shall the pulse of thy life which but flutters in Connacht
Throb through thy meadows and boglands and mountains and cities?'
Had it come at last, this revival of the nation's vitality? Had it come
just too late for him to share it?
'I shall not help you,' he said sadly; 'I do not suppose that I ever
could have helped you much, but now I shall not even try.'
She looked at him quickly with a startled expression in her eyes. Then
she turned to Marion.
'Are you preventing him?' she said.
'No,' said Hyacinth; 'it is not Marion. But I am going away--going to
England. I am going to be ordained, to become an English curate. Do you
understand? I came here to-day to see the man who is to be my Rector,
and to make final arrangements with him.'
'Oh, Hyacinth!'
For some minutes she said no more. He saw in her face a wondering
sorrow, a pathetic submissive-ness to an unexpected disappointment, like
the look in the face of a dog struck suddenly by the hand of a friend.
He felt that he could have borne her anger better. No doubt if he had
made his confession to Augusta Goold he would have been overwhelmed with
passionate wrath or withered by a superb contemptuous stare. Then he
could have worked himself to anger in return. But this!
'You will never speak to any of us again,' she went on. You will be
ashamed even to read the _Croppy_. You will wear a long black coat and
gray gloves. You will learn to talk about the "Irish Problem" and the
inestimable advantages of belonging to a world-wide Empire, and about
the great heart of the English people. I see it all--all that will
happen to you. Your hair will get quite smooth and sleek. Then you will
become a Vicar of a parish. You will live in a beautiful house, with
Virginia creeper growing over it and plum-trees in the garden. You will
have a nice clean village for a parish, with old women who drop curtsies
to you, and men--such men! stupid as bullocks! I know it all. And you
will be ashamed to call yourself an Irishman. Oh, Hyacinth!'
Miss O'Dwyer's catalogue of catastrophes was curiously mixed. Perhaps
the comedy in it tended to obscure the utter degradation of the ruin
she described. But the freakish incongruity of the speech did not strike
Hyacinth. He found in it only two notes--pity that such a fate awaited
him, and contempt for the man who submitted to it.
'I cannot help myself. Will you not make an effort to understand? I am
trying to; do what is right.'
She shook her head.
'No,' he said, 'I know it is no use. You could not understand even if I
told you all I felt.'
Her eyes filled suddenly with tears. He heard her sob. Then she turned
without a word and left them. He stood watching her till she reached
the road and started on her walk to the railway-station. Then he took
Marion's two hands in his, and held them fast.
'Will _you_ understand?' he asked her.
She looked up at him. Her face was all tenderness. Love shone on
him--trusting, unquestioning, adoring love, love that would be loyal to
the uttermost; but her eyes were full of a dumb wonder.
CHAPTER XXV
One morning near the end of September the _Irish Times_ published a list
of Irish graduates ordained in England on the previous Sunday. Among
other names appeared:
'Hyacinth Conneally, B.A., T.C.D., deacon, by the Bishop of Ripon, for
the curacy of Kirby-Stowell.'
Shortly afterwards the _Croppy_ printed the following verses, signed
'M.O'D.':
'EIRE TO H. C.
'Bight across the low, flat curragh from the sea,
Drifting, driving sweeps the rain,
Where the bogborn, bent, brown rushes grow for me,
Barren grass instead of grain.
'Out across the sad, soaked curragh towards the sea,
Striding, striving go the men,
With their spades and forks and barrows toil for me
That my corn may grow again
'Ah I but safe from blast of wind and bitter sea,
You who loved me---Tusa fein--
Live and feel and work for others, not for me,
Never coming back again.
'Yes, while all across the curragh from the West
Drifts the sea-rain off the sea,
You have chosen. Have you chosen what is best
For yourself, O son, and me?'
Hyacinth read the verses, cut them out of the _Croppy_, and locked them
in the box in which he stored the few papers of interest he possessed.
The sorrowful judgment pronounced on his conduct affected him, but only
in a dull way, like an additional blow upon a limb already bruised to
numbness. He accepted his new duties and performed them without any
feeling of enthusiasm, and after a little while without any definite
hope of doing any good. He got no further in understanding the people he
had to deal with, and he was aware that even those of them who came most
frequently into contact with him regarded him as a stranger. A young
doctor whose wife took a fancy to Marion tried to make friends with him.
The result was unsatisfactory, owing to Hyacinth's irresponsiveness. He
could not, without yawning piteously, spend an evening discussing the
performances of the local cricket club; nor did his conduct improve when
the two ladies suspended their talk and sacrificed an hour to playing
four-handed halma with their husbands. An unmarried solicitor, attracted
by Marion's beauty and friendliness, adopted the habit of calling at
Hyacinth's little house about nine or ten o'clock in the evening. He
was a man full of anecdote and simple mirth, and he often stayed, quite
happily, till midnight. Every week he brought an illustrated paper as
an offering to Marion, and recommended the short stories in it; to
her notice. He often asked Hyacinth's advice and help in solving the
conundrums set by the prize editor. He took a mild interest in politics,
and retailed gossip picked up at the Conservative Club. After a while he
gave up coming to the house. Hyacinth blamed himself for being cold and
unfriendly to the man.
Mr. Austin treated Hyacinth with kindness and some consideration, much
as a wise master treats an upper servant. He was anxious that his curate
should perform many and complicated ceremonies in church, was seriously
intent on the wearing of correctly- stoles, and 'ran,' as he
expressed it himself, a very large number of different organizations, of
each of which the objective appeared to be a tea-party in the parochial
hall. Hyacinth accepted his tuition, bowed low at the times when Mr.
Austin liked to bow, watched for the seasons when stoles bloomed white
and gold, changed to green, or faded down to violet. He tried to
make himself agreeable to the 'united mothers' and the rest when they
assembled for tea-drinking. Mr. Austin asserted that these were the
methods by which the English people were being taught the Catholic
faith. Hyacinth did not doubt it, nor did he permit himself to wonder
whether it was worth while teaching them.
To Marion the new life was full of many delights. The surpliced
choir-boys gratified her aesthetic sense, and she entered herself as one
of a band of volunteers who scrubbed the chancel tiles and polished a
brass cross. She smiled, kissed, and petted Hyacinth out of the fits of
depression which came on him, managed his small income with wonderful
skill, and wrote immensely long letters home to Ballymoy.
CHAPTER XXVI
It is very hard for a poor man to travel from one side of England to the
other side of Ireland, because railway companies, even when, to allure
the public, they advertise extraordinary excursions, charge a great
deal for their tickets. The journey becomes still more difficult of
accomplishment when the poor man is married. Then there are two tickets
to be bought, and very likely most of the money which might have bought
them has been spent securing the safe arrival of a baby--a third person
who in due time will also require a railway-ticket. This was Hyacinth's
case. For two summers he had no holiday at all, and it was only by the
most fortunate of chances that he found himself during the third
summer in a position to go to Ballymoy. He sublet his house to a
freshly-arrived supervisor of Inland Revenue, who wanted six weeks
to look about for a suitable residence. With the nine pounds paid in
advance by this gentleman, Hyacinth and Marion, having with them their
baby, a perambulator, and much other luggage, set off for Ballymoy.
The journey is not a very pleasant one, because it is made over the
lines of three English railway companies, whose trains refuse to connect
with each other at junctions, and because St. George's Channel is
generally rough. The discomfort of third-class carriages is more acutely
felt when the Irish shore is reached, but the misery of having to feed
and tend a year-old child lasts the whole journey through. Therefore,
Marion arrived in Dublin dishevelled, weary, and, for all her natural
placidness, inclined to be cross. The steamer came to port at an hour
which left them just the faint hope of catching the earliest train to
Ballymoy. Disappointment followed the nervous strain of a rush across
Dublin. Two long hours intervened before the next train started, and the
people who keep the refreshment-room in Broadstone Station are not early
risers. Marion, without tea or courage, settled herself and the baby in
the draughty waiting-room.
Hyacinth was also dishevelled, dirty, and tired, having borne his full
share of strife with the child's worst moods. But the sight of Ireland
from the steamer's deck filled him with a strange sense of exultation.
He wished to shout with gladness when the gray dome of the Custom House
rose to view, immense above the low blanket of mist. Even the incredibly
hideous iron grating of the railway viaduct set his pulse beating
joyfully. He drew deep breaths, inhaling various abominable smells
delightedly. The voices of the sleepy porters on the quay roused in him
a craving for the gentle slovenliness of Irish speech. He fussed and
hustled Marion beyond the limits of her endurance, pretending eagerness
to catch the early train, caring in reality not at all whether any train
were caught or missed, filled only with a kind of frenzy to keep moving
somehow further into Ireland. In the cab he gave utterance to ridiculous
pleasantries. He seized the child from Marion, and held him, wailing
piteously, half out of the window, that his eyes might rest on the great
gilt characters which adorn the offices of the Gaelic League. It was
with rapture that he read Irish names, written and spelt in Irish, above
the shops, and saw a banner proclaiming the annual festival of Irish
Ireland hanging ovei the door of the Rotunda. The city had grown more
Irish since he left it. There was no possibility now, even in the early
morning, with few people but scavengers and milkmen in the streets, of
mistaking for an English town.
While Marion sat torpid in the waiting-room, he paced the platform
eagerly from end to end. He saw the train pushed slowly into position
beside the platform, watched porters sweep the accumulated debris of
yesterday's traffic from the floors of the carriages, and rub with
filthy rags the brass doorhandles. Little groups of passengers began to
arrive--first a company of cattle-jobbers, four of them, red-faced men
with keen, crafty eyes, bound for some Western fair; then a laughing
party of tourists, women in short skirts and exaggeratedly protective
veils, men with fierce tweed knickerbockers dragging stuffed hold-alls
and yellow bags. These were evidently English. Their clear high-pitched
voices proclaimed contempt for their surroundings, and left no doubt of
their nationality. One of them addressed a bewildered porter in cheerful
song:
'Are you right there,
Michael? are you right?
Have you got the parcel there for Mrs. White?'
He felt, and his companions sympathized, that he was entering into the
spirit of Irish life. Then, heralded by an obsequious guard, came a
great man, proconsular in mien and gait. Bags and rugs were wheeled
beside him. In his hand was a despatch-box bearing the tremendous
initials of the Local Government Board. He took complete possession of
a first-class smoking carriage, scribbled a telegram, perhaps of
international importance, handed it to the guard for instant despatch,
and lit a finely-odorous cigar. Hyacinth, humbled by the mere view of
this incarnation of the Imperial spirit, went meekly to the waiting-room
to fetch Marion and his child. He led them across the now crowded
platform towards a third-class carriage.
'I will not go with you in your first-class carriage, Father Lavelle; so
that's flat. Nor I won't split the difference and go second either, if
that's what you're going to propose to me. Is it spend what would keep
the family of a poor man in bread and tea for a week, for the sake of
easing my back with a cushion? Get away with you. The plain deal board's
good enough for me. And, moreover, I doubt very much if I've the money
to do it, if I were ever so willing. I'm afraid to look into my purse to
count the few coppers that's left in it after paying that murdering bill
in the hotel you took me to. Gresham, indeed! A place where they're
not ashamed to charge a poor old priest three and sixpence for his
breakfast, and me not able to eat the half of what they put before me.'
Hyacinth turned quickly. Two priests stood together near the bookstall.
The one, a young man, handsome and well-dressed, he did not know. The
other he recognised at once. It seemed to be the same familiarly shabby
black coat which he wore, the same many-stained waistcoat, the identical
silk hat, ruffled and rain-spotted. The same pads of flesh hung flaccid
from his jaws; the red, cracked knuckles of his hands, well remembered,
were enormous still. Only the furrows on the face seemed to be ploughed
deeper and wider, and a few more stiff hairs curled over the general
bushiness of the grizzled eyebrows.
'Father Moran!' cried Hyacinth.
'I am Father Moran. You're right there. But who _you_ are or how you
come to know me is more than I can tell. But wait a minute. I've a sort
of recollection of your voice. Will you speak to me again, and maybe
I'll be able to put a name on you.'
Hyacinth said a few words rapidly in Irish.
'I have you now,' said the priest. 'You're Hyacinth Conneally, the boy
that went out to fight for the Boers. Father Lavelle, this is a friend
of mine that I've known ever since he was born, and I haven't laid eyes
on him these six years or more. You're going West, Mr. Conneally? But of
course you are. Where else would you be going? We'll travel together
and talk. If it's second-class you're going, Father Lavelle will have
to lend me the money to pay the extra on my ticket, so as I can go with
you. Seemingly it's a Protestant minister you've grown into. Well
now, who'd have thought it? And you so set on fighting the battle of
Armageddon and all. It's a come-down for you, so it is. But never mind.
You might have got yourself killed in it. There's many a one killed or
maimed for life in smaller fights than it. It's better to be a minister
any day than a corpse or a <DW36>. And as you are a minister, it's
likely to be third-class you're travelling. Times are changed since
I was young. It was the priests travelled third-class then, if they
travelled at all, and the ministers were cocked up on the cushions,
looking down on the likes of us out of the windows with the little red
curtains half-drawn across them. Now it'll be Father Lavelle there,
with his grand new coat that he says is Irish manufacture--but I
don't believe him--who'll be doing the gentleman. But come along, Mr.
Conneally--come along, and tell me all the battles you fought and the
Generals you made prisoners of, and how it was you took to preaching
afterwards.'
Hyacinth, somewhat shyly, introduced the priest to Marion. Then a
ticket-collector drove them into their carriage and locked the door.
Father Moran began to catechize Hyacinth before the train started, and
drew from him, as they went westwards, the story of his disappointments,
doubts, hopes, veerings, and final despair. Hyacinth spoke unwillingly
at first, giving no more than necessary answers to the questions.
Then, because he found that reticence called down on him fresh and
more detailed inquiries, and also because the priest's evident and
sympathetic interest redeemed a prying curiosity from offensiveness,
he told his tale more freely. Very soon there was no more need of
questioning, and Father Moran's share in the talk took the form of
comments interrupting a narrative.
Of Captain Albert Quinn he said:
'I've heard of him, and a nice kind of a boy he seems to have been. I
suppose he fought when he got there. He's just the sort that would be
splendid at the fighting. Well, God is good, and I suppose it's to
do the fighting for the rest of us that He makes the likes of Captain
Quinn. Did you hear that they wanted to make him a member of Parliament?
Well, they did. Nothing less would please them. But what good would
that be, when he couldn't set foot in the country for fear of being
arrested?'
Later on he was moved to laughter.
'To think of your going on the road with a bag full of blankets and
shawls! I never heard of such a thing, and all the grand notions your
head was full of! Why didn't you come my way? I'd have made Rafferty
give you an order. I'd have bought the makings of a frieze coat from you
myself--I would, indeed.'
Afterwards he became grave again.
'I won't let you say the hard word about the nuns, Mr. Conneally. Don't
do it, now. There's plenty of good convents up and down through the
country--more than ever you'll know of, being the black Protestant you
are. And the ones that ruined your business--supposing they did ruin
it, and I've only your word for that--what right have you to be blaming
them? They were trying to turn an honest penny by an honest trade, and
that's just what you and your friend Mr. Quinn were doing yourselves.'
Hyacinth, conscious of a failure in good taste, shifted his ground, only
to be interrupted again.
'Oh, you may abuse the Congested Districts Board to your heart's
content. I never could see what the Government made all the Boards for
unless it was to keep the people out of mischief. As long as there is
a Board of any kind about the country every blackguard will be so busy
throwing stones at it that he won't have time nor inclination left
to annoy decent people. And I'll say this for the Congested Districts
Board: they mean well. Indeed they do; not a doubt of it. There's one
good thing they did, anyway, if there isn't another, and that's when
they came to Carrowkeel and bought the big Curragh Farm that never
supported a Christian, but two herds and some bullocks ever since the
famine clearances. They fetched the people down off the mountains and
put them on it. Wasn't that a good thing, now? Sure, all Government
Boards do more wrong than right. It's the nature of that sort of
confederation. But it's all the more thankful we ought to be when once
in a while they do something useful.'
Hyacinth came to tell of the choice which Canon Beecher offered him, and
dwelt with tragic emphasis on his own decision. The priest listened, a
smile on his lips, a look of pity which belied the smile in his eyes.
'So you thought Ireland would be lost altogether unless you wrote
articles for Miss Goold in the _Croppy?_ It's no small opinion you have
of yourself, Hyacinth Conneally. And you thought you'd save your soul by
going to preach the Gospel to the English people? Was that it, now?'
'It was not,' said Hyacinth, 'and you know it wasn't.'
'Of course it wasn't. What was I thinking of to forget the young lady
that was in it? A fine wife you've got, any way. God bless her, and make
you a good husband to her! By the looks of her she's better than you
deserve. I suppose it was to get money you went to England, so as to buy
her pretty dresses and a beautiful house to live in? Did you think you'd
grow rich over there?'
'Indeed I did not,' said Hyacinth bitterly. 'I knew we'd never be rich.'
'Well, then, couldn't you as well have been poor in Ireland? And better,
for everybody's poor here. But there, I know well enough it wasn't money
you were after. Don't be getting angry with me, now. It wasn't for the
sake of saving your soul you went, nor to get your nice wife, though a
man might go a long way for the likes of her. I don't know why you went,
and it's my belief you don't know yourself. But you made a mistake,
whatever you did it for, going off on that English mission. Is it a
mission you call it when you're a Protestant? I don't think it is, but
it doesn't matter. You made a mistake. Why don't you come back again?'
'God knows I would if I could. It's hungry I am to get back--just sick
with hunger and the great desire that is on me to be back again in
Ireland.'
'Well, what's to hinder you? Let me tell you this: There's been four
men in your father's place since he died. Never a one of the first three
would stay. They tell me the pay's small, and the place is desolate to
them for the want of Protestants, there being none, you may say, but the
coastguards. After the third of them left it was long enough before they
got the fourth. I hear they went scouring and scraping round the four
coasts of the country with a trawl-net trying to get a man. And now
they've got him he's all for going away. He says there's no work to do,
and no people to preach to. But you'd find work, if you were there. I'd
find you work myself--work for the people you knew since you were born,
that's in the way at last of getting to be the men and women they were
meant to be, and that wants all the help can be got for them. Why don't
you come back?'
'Indeed, Father Moran, I would if I could.' 'If you could! What's the
use of talking? Isn't your wife's father a Canon? And wouldn't that
professor in the college that you used to tell me of do something for
you? What's the good of having fine friends like that if they won't get
you sent to a place like Carrowkeel, that never another minister but
yourself would as much as cat his dinner in twice if he could help it?'
Hyacinth glanced doubtfully at Marion. The child lay quiet in her arms.
She slept uncomfortably. It was clear that she had not cared to listen
to the conversation of the two men.
THE END
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hyacinth, by George A. Birmingham
*** | it. He
passed the pier, and there lay before him the long hill that led home.
The church and the ruined school stood out clearly on the skyline. Below
them, less clearly seen, was the rectory, and Hyacinth noted that the
lamp in the kitchen was lit. Then the door was opened, and he saw, plain
against the light, a man's figure, his father's. No doubt the old man
was watching and listening. Perhaps the sound of the wheels reached him
through the evening air, for in a few minutes he came out and walked
down the drive. Hyacinth saw him fumble with the fastening of the
rickety gate, and at last open it slowly and with difficulty. The car
reached a gap in the loose stone wall, a familiar gap, for across it lay
a short cut up a steeper part of the hill, which the road went round.
Hyacinth jumped down and ran up the path. In another minute the
greeting of father and son was accomplished, and the two were walking
hand-in-hand towards the house. Hyacinth noticed that his father
trembled, and that his feet stumbled uncertainly among the loose stones
and stiff weeds.
When they entered the lighted room he saw that his father seemed
older--many years older--than when he had said good-bye to him two
months before. His skin was very transparent, his lips were tremulous,
his eyes, after the first long look at his son, shifted feebly to the
fire, the table, and the floor.
'My dear son,' he said, 'I thank God that I have got you safe home
again. Indeed, it is good to see you again, Hyacinth, for it has been
very lonely while you were away. I have not been able to do very much
lately or to go out to the seashore, as I used to. Perhaps it is only
that I have not cared to. But I have tried hard to get everything ready
for your coming.'
He looked round the room with evident pride as he spoke. Hyacinth
followed his gaze, and it was with a sense of deep shame that he found
himself noticing the squalor of his home. The table was stained, and the
books which littered half of it were thick with dust and grease-spotted.
The earthen floor was damp and pitted here and there, so that the chairs
stood perilously among its inequalities. The fine white powder of turf
ashes lay thick upon the dresser. The whitewash above the fireplace was
blackened by the track of the smoke that had blown out of the chimney
and climbed up to the still blacker rafters of the roof. Hyacinth
remembered how he, and not his father, had been accustomed to clean the
room and wash the cups and plates. He wondered how such matters had been
managed in his absence, and a great sense of compassion filled his eyes
with tears as he thought of the painful struggle which the details
of life must have brought upon his father. He noted the evident
preparations for his coming. There were two eggs lying in a saucer ready
to be boiled, a fresh loaf--and this was not the day they got their
bread--and a small tin of cocoa beside his cup. The hearth was piled
with glowing turf, and the iron tripod with a saucepan on it stood
surrounded with red coals. Some sense of what Hyacinth was feeling
passed into his father's mind.
'Isn't it all right, my son? I tried to make it very nice for you. I
wanted to get Maggie Cassidy up from the village for the day, but her
baby had the chin-cough, and she couldn't come.'
He took Hyacinth's hand and held it while he spoke.
'Perhaps it looks poor to you,' he went on, 'after your college rooms
and the houses your friends live in; but it's your own home, son, isn't
it?'
Hyacinth made a gulp at the emotion which had brought him near to tears.
'It's splendid, father--simply splendid. And now I'm going to boil those
two eggs and make the cocoa, and we'll have a feast. Hallo! you've got
some jam--jam and butter and eggs, and this is the month of December,
when there's hardly a hen laying or a cow milking in the whole parish!'
He held up the jam-pot as he spoke. It was wrapped in dingy red paper,
and had a mouldy damp stain on one side. Hyacinth recognised the mark,
and remembered that he had seen the identical pot on the upper shelf of
Rafferty's shop for years. Its label bore an inscription only vaguely
prophetic of the contents--'Irish Household Jam.'
'That's right, father, you are supporting home manufacture. I declare
I wouldn't have tasted it if it had come from England. You see, I'm a
greater patriot than ever.'
Old Mr. Gonneally smiled in a feeble, wavering way. He seemed scarcely
to understand what was being said to him, but he found a quiet pleasure
in the sound of his son's voice. He settled himself in a chair by the
fireside and watched contentedly while Hyacinth put the eggs into the
saucepan, hung the kettle on its hook, and cut slices of bread. Then the
meal was eaten, Hyacinth after his long drive finding a relish even in
the household jam. He plied his father with questions, and heard what
the old man knew of the gossip of the village--how Thady Durkan had
broken his arm, and talked of giving up the fishing; how the police from
Letter-frack had found, or said they found, a whisky-still behind the
old castle; how a Gaelic League organizer had come round persuading the
people to sing and dance at the Galway Feis.
After supper Hyacinth nerved himself to tell the story of his term in
college, and his determination to leave the divinity school. More than
once he made an effort to begin, but the old man, who brightened a
little during their meal, relapsed again into dreaminess, and did not
seem to be listening to him. They pulled their chairs near to the fire,
and Mr. Conneally sat holding his son's hand fast. Sometimes he stroked
or patted it gently, but otherwise he seemed scarcely to recognise
that he was not alone. His eyes were fixed on the fire, but they stared
strangely, as if they saw something afar off, something not in the
room at all. There was no response in them when Hyacinth spoke, and no
intelligence. From time to time his lips moved slightly as if they were
forming words, but he said nothing. After awhile Hyacinth gave up the
attempt to tell his story, and sat silent for so long that in the end he
was startled when his father spoke.
'Hyacinth, my son, I have somewhat to say unto you.' Before Hyacinth
could reply to him he continued: 'And the young man answered and said
unto him, "Say on." And the old man lifted up his voice and said unto
his son, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."'
He spoke as if he were reading out of a book some narrative from the
Bible. Hyacinth realized suddenly that the communication which was to
be made to him had been rehearsed by his father alone, again and again,
that statement, question and reply, would follow each other in
due sequence from the same lips. He felt that his father was still
rehearsing, and had forgotten the real presence of his son. He grasped
the hand that held him and shook it, saying sharply:
'Father, father, I am here. Don't you know me?'
'Yes, yes, my son. Surely I know you. There is something I want to tell
you. I have wanted to tell it to you for many days. I am glad that you
are here now to listen to it.'
He paused, and Hyacinth feared that he would relapse again into dreamy
insensibility; but he did not.
'I think,' he said, 'that I should like to pray before I speak to you.'
He knelt down as Hyacinth had seen him kneel a thousand times before,
facing the eastward-looking window, now a black, uncurtained square in
the whitewashed wall. What he said was almost unintelligible. There was
no petition nor even any sequence of ideas which could be traced.
He poured forth a series of ejaculations expressive of intense and
rapturous delight, very strange to listen to in such a place and from
an old man's lips. Then the language he spoke changed from English
into Gaelic, and there came a kind of hymn of adoration. His sentences
followed each other in metrical balance like the Latin of the old
liturgies, and suited themselves naturally to a subdued melody, half
chant, half cry, like the mourning of the keeners round a grave. At
last, rising from his knees, he spoke, and his voice became wholly
unemotional, devoid of fervour or excitement. He told his story as a man
might relate some quite commonplace incident of daily life.
'One evening I was sitting here by the fire, just as I always sit. I
remember that the lamp was not lit, and that the fire was low, so that
there was not much light in the room. It came into my mind that it was
just out of such gloom that the Lord called "Samuel, Samuel," and I
wished that I was like Samuel, so innocent that I could hear the voice
of the Lord. I do not remember what I thought of after that. Perhaps for
a time I did not think at all. Then I felt that there were arms about my
neck; but not like your arms, Hyacinth, when you were a child and clung
to me. These were arms which held me lovingly, strongly, protectingly,
like--do you remember, Hyacinth?--"His right hand | 2,202 |
UES brings its integrated approach to the healthcare industry, collaborating with facility owners and doctors throughout every stage of the design and construction process to create safe, innovative and state-of-the-art healthcare projects. Our goal is to develop facilities that offer improved outcomes for the professionals and patients who use them. We make it our priority to provide environmental control solutions based upon international hospital design guidelines by ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers), WHO (World Health Organization) and CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).
Advances in healthcare technology to changing patient demographics and reimbursements, institutions like yours are<|fim_middle|> complex healthcare projects.
We're at the forefront of healthcare building trends, continuously updating our policies to stay ahead of the curve in every aspect of the design and construction process. We offer designs that are analyzed through CFD simulation software, helping us to identify critical parameters like temperature, air cleanliness through particle tracing, air directions, velocity profiles, space pressurization and more that may have an impact on the environment control. Our BIM (Building Information Modelling) through state of the art software, enables us to optimize your resources to the fullest for a sustainable and efficient design; aided with 3-D models, renders and integration of MEP, HVAC and civil layouts early in the design stage.
Our buildings are created with flexibility for future medical technology so that doctors, nurses and technicians can constantly improve their level of care, without wasting valuable patient time and money on lengthy and expensive renovations. | facing revolutionary transformations affecting the delivery of efficient, patient-centered care. When these changes result in the need for updates/renovations or a new facility, you can turn to UES for healthcare building solutions that are innovative, efficient and plan for the unique construction challenges of the healthcare market.
Studies show that patients in controlled ventilation environment have more rapid physical improvement than do those in uncontrolled environment.
Healthcare facility environmental control (which includes space layout for proper work flow, civil construction, temperature, humidity, air cleanliness, air directions, space pressurization, emergency power, lighting, communication and isolation) is an essential part whether it is complete hospital, laboratory, patient ward or research facility.
Environmental control is not for usual comfort of occupants, it is for prevention of nosocomial infections (hospital acquired infections) to healthcare workers, patients and visitors. Besides, it protects surrounding environment and specimen itself from being contaminated.
Whether building a new community hospital, renovating an urban emergency room, navigating industry regulations, ensuring infection control or planning for rapidly changing medical technology our services will help you acquire the facility you need while ensuring zero disruption of patient care and safety of all the visitors and staff. Infection control and Interim Life Safety Measures take on another level of criticality when working within occupied healthcare facilities.
Our full service approach involves all elements of planning, design and construction, including specialized capabilities in lean design and construction, QA/QC, commissioning and warranty. We design healthcare facilities with specific safety plans for health, hazard and contamination, integrating these services into already | 313 |
EA beats guidance as sales shrink, losses deepen
Publisher notes difficulty of generational transition, weak sales on legacy platforms
Feature by Brendan Sinclair Managing Editor
Electronic Arts today released its financial results for the holiday quarter, beating its forecasts but falling short of the previous year's holiday numbers.
For the three months ended December 31, EA posted revenues of $808 million, down 12 percent year-over-year, but still better than the $775 million it expected in its guidance for the quarter. The publisher also posted a net loss of $308 million. Again, that's better than the $439 million loss it projected, but worse than the $45 million net loss it posted over the 2012 holiday quarter.
"In a transitional quarter, EA delivered EPS results above our guidance driven by strong sales of our next-generation console titles, continued growth in our digital games and services, and financial discipline across the business," CFO Blake Jorgensen said.
As far as highlights went, EA boasted that it was the number one publisher in the West during December on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, citing a lineup led by Battlefield 4, Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, and Need for Speed Rivals. EA also released NBA Live 14 on those platforms and Peggle 2 on Xbox One during the quarter. The publisher said its lineup combined<|fim_middle|> previously senior news editor at GameSpot in the US.
Game Changers | Kirsty Kirby, Lab42
Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | This Week in Business
Game Changers | Pixelles
Slow and steady wins the race: How Dwarf Fortress reinvented itself after 20 years
Game Changers | Tetiana Loktionova
The games industry isn't in crisis. It's a reality check | Opinion
Forspoken | Critical Consensus
More than just ports: VR devs on bringing PSVR 1 titles to PSVR 2 | to account for 35 percent of PS4 and Xbox One software sales in the West during the quarter.
EA also touted its digital revenues, saying they jumped 27 percent year-over-year to $517 million on a non-GAAP basis. The company's mobile and handheld digital sales were up 26 percent during the quarter to $125 million, while the year-to-date totals of its microtransaction-driven Ultimate Team modes in its FIFA, NFL, and NHL games has grown 60 percent year-over-year.
Despite that growth in digital, EA is actually expecting its packaged goods business to show more growth for the full-year. EA is expecting packaged goods sales of $2.21 billion, up nearly 4 percent, while digital sales slow their growth to end the year at $1.70 billion, up just over 2 percent. Overall revenues for the fiscal year ending March 31 are expected to come in at $3.91 billion, which would be up 3 percent from the year prior. However, that's still a downgrade from previous guidance, a move Jorgensen said was prompted by "weakness in current generation software."
For the fiscal fourth quarter on its own, EA is expecting to post a net income of $230 million on revenues of $1.07 billion. Over the comparable stretch last year, the company posted a net income of $323 million on revenues of $1.21 billion
Brendan Sinclair
Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was | 330 |
Home » Tate & Lyle enters pact with Zymtronix
Tate & Lyle enters pact with Zymtronix
Photo: Tate & Lyle PLC
By Sam Danley
LONDON — Tate & Lyle PLC has invested in and partnered with Zymtronix, an Ithaca, N.Y.-based enzyme immobilization technology developer.
Zymtronix's platform was designed to improve the efficiency and sustainability of enzyme-based industrial processes by immobilizing enzymes onto magnetic metamaterials. It has broad application in the food and beverage, flavor and fragrance and agricultural industries, the companies said.
Tate & Lyle will use the technology to scale up production by improving the productivity of biocatalysis.
The two companies were brought together at Rabobank's TERRA Accelerator in San Francisco. Michael Harrison, former chief technology officer<|fim_middle|>Dash, Grubhub and Uber Eats
Lantmännen expanding oats capacity with acquisition of Tate & Lyle's oats ingredients operations
Tate & Lyle deals with sweetener issues
Tate & Lyle introduces TASTEVA Stevia Sweetener | at Tate & Lyle, joined Zymtronix's board as part of the partnership.
"We are excited to harness the power of Zymtronix's enzyme immobilization platform, which will make our manufacturing processes more efficient," said Andrew Taylor, president of innovation and commercial development at Tate & Lyle. "The platform also has the potential to accelerate our ability to make our ingredient solutions accessible to more consumers."
Suppliers Tate & Lyle
Tate & Lyle enters Brazilian j.v.
Panera enters delivery pact with Door | 107 |
LISTEN: Suspected drunk driver was just dodging potholes
James Foster
Shuyee Lee/CJAD 800
A Ste. Adele man who was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving a couple of months ago when he was actually dodging potholes on Route 117, told his story to CJAD 800's Elias Makos on Tuesday morning.
At around 11 p.m. on the evening of April 24, Tom Fermanian locked up the business he owns, the Pine Cinema, and headed down Ste. Adele Blvd. — aka Route 117 — to fill up at a gas station.
The stretch of road he was on was especially treacherous. "It looked like Sarajevo, maybe 15 years ago," Fermanian said<|fim_middle|>Group Element CJAD Footer
CJAD contact information
Listener line in studio 514-790-0800
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Program & News Director cbury@cjad.com
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DDO searching for a dastardly… | . "So I turned my car into a snake, and I slithered through all over the place, trying to avoid potholes, so I'd have a car left."
A Sûreté du Québec officer noticed he was zigagging, and caught up with him as he was setting in at the gas station to fill up.
"I knew what this was about," Fermanian said. "So I walk right away to the officer, I tell him, 'look, you're probably don't like the way I'm zigzagging on the road. And I've not been drinking."
They then asked Fermanian for his papers, and he complied without hesitation, and even offered to take a breathalyzer test before being let go.
Not long after the encounter he posted a Facebook rant, which got the attention of a Journal de Montréal reporter.
"The guy found it hilarious, and they called me up," "They're saying, 'hey, would you mind if we take a picture of where this happened?' I'm expecting [the resulting story] to be buried on page 137...and then, I wake up on Monday morning and my big face is on the newspaper."
Dodging potholes and being accused of being drunk? It really happened to him
Tom Fermanian
Meanwhile, the mayor of Ste. Adele didn't find the story so fun.
Nadine Brière caught wind of Fermanian's story on Facebook and decided to fix the road, under provincial jurisdiction, and sent the bill to the Ministry of Transportation.
Brière told the Journal de Montreal that many parts of the Laurentians are underfunded and expect money from the Ministry for road repairs, but right now there is nothing planned for the next five years, so they will have to be patient.
CJAD 800's Richard Deschamps contributed to this report.
DDO searching for a dastardly dumper clogging up city streets
Compared to other villains, the 'Delinquent Dumper' may not be as scary as the Joker or Thanos, but whoever is behind the messy misdemeanors is still causing trouble on the West Island.
Great white shark spotted off coast of Iles-de-la-Madeleine
Beaconsfield mayor calls CAQ 'incompetent' over new flood zone map
CJAD Newsletter Teaser
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Melissa Leong: Why the Summer is making you poor
Money expert Melissa Leong joins Andrew Carter for Toonie Tuesday to discuss where all your money is going this summer without you noticing.
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Dr. Mitch joins Andrew Cater to discuss why ice cream can cause a brain freeze.
An Emmy winner comes home
Robby Hoffman is back home for Just for Laughs, basking in the glow of her enduring fans.
Typo or error
| 595 |
This will be the second time I have photographed the extended Shapiro family. The first time was 5 years ago and, since then, Samantha (who originally hired me), has assisted me on several weddings, and her and her brother, Matt, acquired significant others who they brought to this year's session.
We met at Ancil Hoffman Park, this year, looking for some green<|fim_middle|>, and I love the photos we captured again this year.
Still haven't booked your own family's photo session for 2018?
My last session to get you photos before Christmas is the first weekend in December. I only have a couple of spots remaining. Get in touch now if you want to get on the schedule! | grass (which is uncharacteristic in early Fall) and some Autumn colors. The leaves had only just started to change but the light was warm and beautiful.
I love the Shapiros. There is so much genuine warmth and I appreciate so much their trust in my process; they totally go with the flow, commit to my games, ignore me and interact with one another when I ask them to. It's never forced, it's always fun | 90 |
Las antiguas iglesias de FIlipinas
Churches are always on the list of must-see whenever I find myself in a new place. Where this fascination for this structure comes from, I don't know. But the main reason I took up architecture in college was that I wanted to build the first all glass church in the world. I finished the course but never got to start on the dream.
Living and raised in a Catholic country, this fascination is fed—with gusto! Around the archipelago are amazing churches that I have yet to marvel at. Some I have been lucky enough to have visited and heard mass in, some are yet to be visited.
So on this Maundy Thursday, let me do my Catholic duty of Visita Iglesia and visit and revisit the "something old, something awesome" Houses of God. It may not be the "traditional" way, but hey it's the thought that counts.
Paoay Church, Ilocos Norte. Completed in 1710. Famous for its distinct architecture highlighted by the enormous buttresses on the sides and rear of the building, a design feature to withstand earthquakes that commonly occur throughout the country. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one best examples of the Baroque Churches of the Philippines in 1993.
San Augustin Church, Intramuros, Manila, originally known as Iglesia de San Pablo. Built in 1589 during the Spanish colonial period, it is the oldest stone church in the country. It was named a National Historical Landmark by the Philippine government in 1976, and designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993 under the collective title Baroque Churches of the Philippines. Trivia: since the time of its foundation, the devotion to Nuestra Senora dela Consolacion y Cirrea is celebrated every Saturday: and, it holds the tomb of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, founder of the City of Manila.
Baclayon Church, Bohol, aka the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Baclayon is considered to be one of the oldest churches in the Philippines. Constructed with blocks carved out of coral stones and egg whites as cement. The present structure was completed in 1727 with the bell added in 1835. Trivia: 200 natives were forced into labor to construct the church; and, there's a dungeon where natives violating the rules of the Roman Catholic Church were punished.
The Basilica Minore de San Sebastián, Manila, aka San Sebastián Church. Following several re-buildings (in wood and brick destroyed by fire and earthquakes), the present structure was completed in 1891 and is noted for its Gothic architectural features. It is the only all-steel basilica in Asia, and claimed as the only prefabricated steel church in the world. It was designated as a National Historical Landmark by the Philippine government in 1973, and included in the Tentative List for possible designation as a World Heritage Site in 2006. Trivia: Rumor has it that French engineer Gustave Eiffel was involved in the design and construction of this Church.
Church of Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, Lucban, Quezon. Not only does the province have the P<|fim_middle|> suggests the Chinese culture of the parishioners.
Basílica Menor del Santo Niño, Cebu City, aka Minor Basilica of the Holy Child, was founded in the 16th century (the present building completed 1739-1740) and is the Roman Catholic church established in the country. It was built on the spot where the image of the Santo Niño de Cebú, a statue depicting the Holy Child Jesus, was found by a soldier preserved in a burnt wooden box after Legazpi razed the village of hostile natives in1565.
*all photos from the net
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on March 28, 2013. | ahiyas, it also has this church that enshrines the patron saint the festival is dedicated to. The church was initially created in 1593 but destroyed in 1629. The second church was constructed between 1630 and 1640, gutted by fire in 1733 and reconstructed in 1738. It was partly destroyed during the World War II in 1945 and renovated by the Philippine Historical Commission in 1966.
Binondo Church, Binondo District, Manila aka Minor Basilica of St. Lorenzo Ruiz (the first Filipino saint canonized in 1987) was founded by Dominican priests in 1596 to serve their Chinese converts to Christianity. The current granite church was completed on the same site in 1852 and features an octagonal bell tower which | 183 |
iFixit Tears Down Battery, Improved Keyboard, and Removable SSD of MacBook Pro Without Touch Bar
Mac, Mac & PC repair / By mario
iFixit has published a teardown of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar, which the site calls the "Escape Edition" because of its adherence to the traditional row of<|fim_middle|>Disk 64GB NAND flash memory and Apple's custom SSD controller. Then, the site dove into the logic board to hunt for the "advanced thermal architecture" described in the MacBook's press release. The board appeared mostly the same as previous MacBooks, with Apple's new architecture apparently describing the "relocation of the heat sink screws to the backside of the logic board."
Other interesting tidbits from the teardown include the MacBook Pro's fans, and the single modular unit taped to the bottom of the notebook's fan, which houses the 3.5mm headphone port. Its location, and Apple's removal of the same port on the iPhone 7, means it "could easily be dropped in favor of a Lightning or USB-C connector" in future MacBook Pro generations. Ultimately, iFixit gave the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar a repairability score of 2, with a 10 being the easiest to repair.
Source: MacRumors.com | function keys, along with a tangible Escape key. In the teardown, iFixit delves deeper into the MacBook Pro, uncovering a battery that is 27 percent less powerful than last year's model, along with the Butterfly 2.0 keyboard that's been slightly updated since the 2015 MacBook.
After removing the extra-large new trackpad from the body of the laptop, iFixit gets a better look at the MacBook's battery. Rated for 54.5 watt hours, the 13-inch MacBook might include less battery life than last year's generation, but it does come in above the Touch Bar MacBook Pro model, which clocks in at 49.2 watt hours. In a recent performance comparison provided by Geekbench, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar's 15-watt chip was proven to be more energy efficient than the 28-watt chip in last year's entry-level model.
A new spring mechanism is discovered housed next to the MacBook Pro's hinge protector, which "rolls a flat cable up when the display is closed, and unravels when the display opens." This not only seems to make it easier to close the lid of the MacBook, but suggests the overall lighter body of the MacBook Pro needed extra help and couldn't "rely on gravity to close nicely as much as previous models have."
One of the last points iFixit focuses on is the updated Butterfly 2.0 keys on the MacBook Pro's keyboard. Comparing it with the 2015 MacBook, iFixit describes the new MacBook Pro's keys as "a little taller at the edges," so it's slightly easier to find each key with your fingers without looking directly at the board. The dome switches hiding under each key also appear to have more heft than the 2015 MacBook's, further supporting the overall better feel and increased travel on the MacBook Pro.
iFixit also looked at the MacBook's removable SSD, powered by San | 411 |
NC State TRIO Upward Bound Programs' Summer Programming
By Pat<|fim_middle|> any of the high schools in the Oklahoma City Public Schools district, the parking lots are full... | Brothwell - September 15, 2020
Like many educational organizations this year, the NC State TRIO Upward Bound Programs had to face its first summer ever operating in a fully remote capacity. Serving 186 students across five high schools in the Raleigh area, NC State's the largest Upward Bound program in North Carolina. Like all Upward Bound programs across the nation, NC State's program serves first-generation, low income college-bound students. Their seven-week summer residential program helps ensure that participating students avoid the summer melt, prepare for the fall semester, and advance along the path towards college and career success.
Faced with the challenges of COVID-19, the leadership team rallied to find innovative ways to serve their students virtually. Assistant Director Terry Baxter and Academic Coordinator Canitria Cook took charge of career and college preparation, embracing VirtualJobShadow.com as the primary resource to deliver college and career readiness objectives to students. Together, they built a robust seven-week curriculum that moved students across a wide range of work readiness lessons. At the end of the 7 weeks, students not only had developed professional resumes, they also built a set of short and long term S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, time-related) goals to prepare them for the fall semester.
Using the integrated tools and resources on VirtualJobShadow.com, the NC State TRIO Upward Bound Programs broke down their summer program as follows:
— Week One
Objective- Teach students about grit, the importance of a strong work ethic, and perseverance. Use "My Plan Outline" FlexLesson to help students navigate the platform.
Implementation- In week one, students completed two of VirtualJobShadow.com's pre-built FlexLessons, "Understanding GRIT" and "My Plan Outline." This allowed them to establish a base. They understood why work and perseverance were vital in relation to their career journey and familiarized themselves with the platform.
— Week Two
Objective- Explore careers associated with student interests.
Implementation- In week two, students took the CCIS (Career Clusters Interest Survey), which matches a person's interests to the career clusters based on activities they enjoy. Students then picked 3 videos in Career Central from each of their top 2 Career Clusters (6 videos in total) to explore in depth. They were required to watch the Job Shadowing Video associated with their chosen careers, read the career description and integrated labor market information (required education, earnings based on locale, future outlook), and complete a Career Journal for each career. One student said they liked this part because it, "showed me a lot of career options I didn't even think about."
— Week Three
Objective– Explore careers associated with student interests.
Implementation- Week three consisted of more varied career exploration. Students took the O*Net Interest Profiler, which connects a person's interests and how they relate to the world of work. Like the previous week, they then picked 3 career profiles from their top two interests to explore further, completing all the required activities assigned the previous week.
— Week Four
Objective- Students will be able to identify postsecondary schools that will set them up for their future.
Implementation- Based on the information they gathered the previous weeks, students needed to add at least 8 colleges or universities (4 from North Carolina) to the "My Colleges" list that offer degrees and/or certifications for their top career interests. They compared schools side by side to ascertain things like population, admission requirements, tuition/fees and demographics. Once that was done, each student had to create a PowerPoint presentation which would include their top career choice, information about each career, then three colleges that were an option based on that career. The students broke up into groups and presented their PowerPoints to each other via Zoom. They considered this their "Virtual College Fair," since each student learned about 3-10 new colleges and universities.
— Week Five
Objective- Creating a list of goals.
Implementation- Week five started off with each student watching at least 10 Life Skills Videos to help them think about real-world situations and skills. Taking into consideration the results of their career exploration, college exploration, and these career readiness lessons, students were then tasked with creating a list of 5 short-term and five long-term S.M.A.R.T goals.
— Week Six
Objective- Students will reflect on their career goals and experience.
Implementation- Utilizing the Post-Secondary Plan tool, students will reflect and decide on their top 3 career choices and top three college choices. They wrote a 2-page essay reflecting on whether their career goals changed and what steps they'd take to make those goals a reality. Canitria told us approximately 70% of the students wanted to still explore the careers they initially thought interested them, while the remaining 30% found new pathways to pursue. She also noted how several students who didn't want to change career paths just yet now have alternative plans in place in case their first-choice career path doesn't work out.
— Week Seven
Objective- Students will create a resume.
Implementation- In their final week, students used the Resume Builder to create an academic/professional resume they could begin using in college or career searches.
Some Upward Bound students who completed the program gave it high reviews saying it, "really made me think about my future," and that it, "answered the questions I've been wanting to ask." Terry said that the platform helped them meet their mission to ensure students stay on the college track. He added that part of their goal of the summer was to let students do something that didn't feel like just taking more online classes—something they were burned out from after their sudden switch to remote learning in the spring. Though completely online, virtual job shadowing through the VirtualJobShadow.com platform didn't feel like just another online course to the students. It felt like something "bigger picture"—helping them connect their learning to their futures and start actively engaging in their postsecondary plans.
Merced Union High School District
Ninth graders in the Merced Union High School District, located in the central San Joaquin Valley of California, are...
Working Wednesdays with TEC Connections Academy
TEC Connections Academy Director of School Counseling Services Sarah Dalton introduces us to "Working Wednesdays."
Oklahoma City Public Schools
On any given day, at | 1,304 |
Lead Your Team Personal Growth
The One Math Skill You Need to Succeed at Work
By Chad Brooks, Writer January 30, 2013 07:14 pm EST
Credit: Math on chalkboard image via Shutterstock
The key to improving<|fim_middle|> Midsize and Enterprise Businesses
lead-your-team
Best Information Security Certifications 2019
SAS Certification Guide: Overview and Career Paths | today's workforce could lie in the elementary school math class, new research shows.
A study by University of Missouri researchers identified how a lack of a specific math skill in first grade correlated to lower scores on a seventh-grade math test used to determine employability and wages in adults.
David Geary, a Missouri professor and the study's lead author, said the research made a connection between child psychology and labor economics in order to examine the roots of America's shortage of mathematically proficient workers. Data from the United States Center for Educational Statistics revealed that one in five adults lacks the math competency expected of an eighth-grader.
"We isolated a specific skill that has real-world importance in employability and observed how that skill related to grade-school mathematical performance," Geary said. "By identifying a specific numerical skill as a target, we can focus education efforts on helping deficient students as early as kindergarten and thereby give them a better chance at career success in adulthood."
The math skill researchers identified was "number system knowledge," which is the ability to conceptualize a numeral as a symbol for a quantity and understand systematic relationships between numbers. The study found that having this knowledge at the beginning of first grade predicted better functional mathematical ability in adolescence.
[LiveScience: The World's Most Beautiful Equations]
Geary said an early deficit in number system knowledge creates a weak foundation for later learning, which can lead to a lifetime of problems, not limited to reduced employment opportunities.
"Poor understanding of mathematical concepts can make a person easy prey for predatory lenders," he said. "Numerical literacy, or numeracy, also helps with saving for big purchases and managing mortgages and credit-card debt."
The researchers believe intervention programs designed to overcome this early math deficiency could prepare students for later employment, help them make wiser economic choices and improve the future U.S. workforce.
The study, which was co-authored by Missouri senior researchers Mary Hoard and Lara Nugent and Missouri doctoral graduate Drew Bailey, involved 180 13-year-olds who had been assessed every year since kindergarten for intelligence, memory, mathematical cognition, attention span and achievement. The research was recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @cbrooks76 or BusinessNewsDaily @bndarticles. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
Chad Brooks
Chad Brooks is a Chicago-based writer and editor with nearly 20 years in media. A 1998 journalism graduate of Indiana University, Chad began his career with Business News Daily in 2011 as a freelance writer. In 2014, he joined the staff full time as a senior writer. Before Business News Daily, Chad spent nearly a decade as a staff reporter for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago, covering a wide array of topics including local and state government, crime, the legal system and education. Chad has also worked on the other side of the media industry, promoting small businesses throughout the United States for two years in a public relations role. His first book, How to Start a Home-Based App Development Business, was published in 2014. He lives with his wife and daughter in the Chicago suburbs.
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