managers of big city shops once lifted the rule prescribing certain modes for their female working staffs--if they should give their women clerks a free hand in choosing their own wardrobes for store hours--well, you know how women are!
Nevertheless and to the contrary notwithstanding, I will admit while I am on this phase of my topic that there likewise is something to be said in dispraise of my own sex too. In the other--and better half of this literary double sketch-team act, my admired and talented friend, Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, cites chapter and verse to prove the unaccountable vagaries of some men in the matter of dress. There she made but one mistake--a mistake of under-estimation. She mentioned specifically some men; she should have included all men.
The only imaginable reason why any rational he-biped of adult age clings to the habiliments ordained for him by the custom and the tailors of this generation, is because he is used to them. A man can stand anything once he gets used to
laining the true meaning of Vatsyayana, for the commentator appears to have had a considerable knowledge of the times of the older author, and gives in some places very minute information. This cannot be said of the other commentary, called "Sutra vritti," which was written about A.D., by Narsing Shastri, a pupil of a Sarveshwar Shastri; the latter was a descendant of Bhaskur, and so also was our author, for at the conclusion of every part he calls himself Bhaskur Narsing Shastra. He was induced to write the work by order of the learned Raja Vrijalala, while he was residing in Benares, but as to the merits of this commentary it does not deserve much commendation. In many cases the writer does not appear to have understood the meaning of the original author, and has changed the text in many places to fit in with his own explanations.
A complete translation of the original work now follows. It has been prepared in complete accordance with the text of the manuscript, and is given, without further comments
Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; and the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 on, which was written with a view to publication. The entire manuscript shows little evidence of revision. In fact, the expression is so homely and natural that his grandson, William Temple Franklin, in editing the work changed some of the phrases because he thought them inelegant and vulgar.
Franklin began the story of his life while on a visit to his friend, Bishop Shipley, at Twyford, in Hampshire, southern England, in 1771. He took the manuscript, completed to 1731, with him when he returned to Philadelphia in 1775. It was left there with his other papers when he went to France in the following year, and disappeared during the confusion incident to the Revolution. Twenty-three pages of closely written manuscript fell into the hands of Abel Jam
very dress might serve as a pall for your coffin.
And I felt life rising within me like a subterranean lake, expanding and overflowing; my blood leaped fiercely through my arteries; my long-restrained youth suddenly burst into active being, like the aloe which blooms but once in a hundred years, and then bursts into blossom with a clap of thunder.
What could I do in order to see Clarimonde once more? I had no pretext to offer for desiring to leave the seminary, not knowing any person in the city. I would not even be able to remain there but a short time, and was only waiting my assignment to the curacy which I must thereafter occupy. I tried to remove the bars of the window; but it was at a fearful height from the ground, and I found that as I had no ladder it would be useless to think of escaping thus. And, furthermore, I could descend thence only by night in any event, and afterward how should I be able to find my way through the inextricable labyrinth of streets? All these difficulties, which
ore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.
The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment--which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?
Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance. It was my uncle roaring for me to come to him. I made very nearly one leap of it--so loud, so fierce was his tone.
CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"I Declare," cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist, "I declare to you it is Runic--and contains some wonderful secret, which I must get at, at any price."
I was about to reply when he stopped me.
"Sit down," he said,
Inside, her anxiety increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and rough. There was even a female attendant, to whom she would have to announce her wants during the voyage. Of course a revolving platform ran the length of the boat, but she was expected to walk from it to her cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and spasms of rage shook her. The glass valves had closed, she could not go back. She saw, at the end of the vestibule, the lift in which she had ascended going quietly up and down, empty. Beneath those corridors of shining tiles were rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep in the hive was her own room. Vashti was afraid.
"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.
Then the sides of the vestibule seemed to melt together, as do the passages that we see in dreams, the l
dered me goodservice in the investigation of phobias, obsessions, illusions, and thelike, and which, under the name "psycho-analysis," had found acceptanceby a whole school of investigators. The manifold analogies of dream lifewith the most diverse conditions of psychical disease in the wakingstate have been rightly insisted upon by a number of medical observers.It seemed, therefore, a priori, hopeful to apply to the interpretationof dreams methods of investigation which had been tested inpsychopathological processes. Obsessions and those peculiar sensationsof haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as dodreams to our waking consciousness; their origin is as unknown toconsciousness as is that of dreams. It was practical ends that impelledus, in these diseases, to fathom their origin and formation. Experiencehad shown us that a cure and a consequent mastery of the obsessing ideasdid result when once those thoughts, the connecting links between themorbid ideas and the re
however, that this thought did not occur to me until the following day removes any possible right to a claim to heroism to which the narration of this episode might possibly otherwise entitle me.
I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice is not optional with me.
In this instance I was, of course, positive that Powell was the center of attraction, but whether I thought or acted first I do not know, but within an instant from the moment the scene broke upon my view I had whipped out my revolvers and was charging down upon the entire army of warriors, shooting
beneath the rose-trees; and here and there a daisy grafted on a rose-branch flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr.Luther Burbank's far-off prodigies.
In the centre of this enchanted garden MadameNilsson, in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin,a reticule dangling from a blue girdle, and large yellowbraids carefully disposed on each side of her muslinchemisette, listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul'simpassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehensionof his designs whenever, by word or glance, hepersuasively indicated the ground floor window of theneat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing.
"The darling!" thought Newland Archer, his glanceflitting back to the young girl with the lilies-of-the-valley. "She doesn't even guess what it's all about."And he contemplated her absorbed young face with athrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculineinitiation was mingled with a tender reverence forher abysmal purity. "We'll read Faust together
ldManse. And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enoughto find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seizethe public by the button, and talk of my three years' experiencein a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P. , Clerk ofthis Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truthseems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth uponthe wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling asidehis volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understandhim better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Someauthors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves insuch confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly beaddressed only and exclusively to the one heart andmind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at largeon the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segmentof the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existenceby bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous,however,
managers of big city shops once lifted the rule prescribing certain modes for their female working staffs--if they should give their women clerks a free hand in choosing their own wardrobes for store hours--well, you know how women are!
Nevertheless and to the contrary notwithstanding, I will admit while I am on this phase of my topic that there likewise is something to be said in dispraise of my own sex too. In the other--and better half of this literary double sketch-team act, my admired and talented friend, Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, cites chapter and verse to prove the unaccountable vagaries of some men in the matter of dress. There she made but one mistake--a mistake of under-estimation. She mentioned specifically some men; she should have included all men.
The only imaginable reason why any rational he-biped of adult age clings to the habiliments ordained for him by the custom and the tailors of this generation, is because he is used to them. A man can stand anything once he gets used to
laining the true meaning of Vatsyayana, for the commentator appears to have had a considerable knowledge of the times of the older author, and gives in some places very minute information. This cannot be said of the other commentary, called "Sutra vritti," which was written about A.D., by Narsing Shastri, a pupil of a Sarveshwar Shastri; the latter was a descendant of Bhaskur, and so also was our author, for at the conclusion of every part he calls himself Bhaskur Narsing Shastra. He was induced to write the work by order of the learned Raja Vrijalala, while he was residing in Benares, but as to the merits of this commentary it does not deserve much commendation. In many cases the writer does not appear to have understood the meaning of the original author, and has changed the text in many places to fit in with his own explanations.
A complete translation of the original work now follows. It has been prepared in complete accordance with the text of the manuscript, and is given, without further comments
Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; and the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 on, which was written with a view to publication. The entire manuscript shows little evidence of revision. In fact, the expression is so homely and natural that his grandson, William Temple Franklin, in editing the work changed some of the phrases because he thought them inelegant and vulgar.
Franklin began the story of his life while on a visit to his friend, Bishop Shipley, at Twyford, in Hampshire, southern England, in 1771. He took the manuscript, completed to 1731, with him when he returned to Philadelphia in 1775. It was left there with his other papers when he went to France in the following year, and disappeared during the confusion incident to the Revolution. Twenty-three pages of closely written manuscript fell into the hands of Abel Jam
very dress might serve as a pall for your coffin.
And I felt life rising within me like a subterranean lake, expanding and overflowing; my blood leaped fiercely through my arteries; my long-restrained youth suddenly burst into active being, like the aloe which blooms but once in a hundred years, and then bursts into blossom with a clap of thunder.
What could I do in order to see Clarimonde once more? I had no pretext to offer for desiring to leave the seminary, not knowing any person in the city. I would not even be able to remain there but a short time, and was only waiting my assignment to the curacy which I must thereafter occupy. I tried to remove the bars of the window; but it was at a fearful height from the ground, and I found that as I had no ladder it would be useless to think of escaping thus. And, furthermore, I could descend thence only by night in any event, and afterward how should I be able to find my way through the inextricable labyrinth of streets? All these difficulties, which
ore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.
The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment--which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?
Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance. It was my uncle roaring for me to come to him. I made very nearly one leap of it--so loud, so fierce was his tone.
CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"I Declare," cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist, "I declare to you it is Runic--and contains some wonderful secret, which I must get at, at any price."
I was about to reply when he stopped me.
"Sit down," he said,
Inside, her anxiety increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and rough. There was even a female attendant, to whom she would have to announce her wants during the voyage. Of course a revolving platform ran the length of the boat, but she was expected to walk from it to her cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and spasms of rage shook her. The glass valves had closed, she could not go back. She saw, at the end of the vestibule, the lift in which she had ascended going quietly up and down, empty. Beneath those corridors of shining tiles were rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep in the hive was her own room. Vashti was afraid.
"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.
Then the sides of the vestibule seemed to melt together, as do the passages that we see in dreams, the l
dered me goodservice in the investigation of phobias, obsessions, illusions, and thelike, and which, under the name "psycho-analysis," had found acceptanceby a whole school of investigators. The manifold analogies of dream lifewith the most diverse conditions of psychical disease in the wakingstate have been rightly insisted upon by a number of medical observers.It seemed, therefore, a priori, hopeful to apply to the interpretationof dreams methods of investigation which had been tested inpsychopathological processes. Obsessions and those peculiar sensationsof haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as dodreams to our waking consciousness; their origin is as unknown toconsciousness as is that of dreams. It was practical ends that impelledus, in these diseases, to fathom their origin and formation. Experiencehad shown us that a cure and a consequent mastery of the obsessing ideasdid result when once those thoughts, the connecting links between themorbid ideas and the re
however, that this thought did not occur to me until the following day removes any possible right to a claim to heroism to which the narration of this episode might possibly otherwise entitle me.
I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice is not optional with me.
In this instance I was, of course, positive that Powell was the center of attraction, but whether I thought or acted first I do not know, but within an instant from the moment the scene broke upon my view I had whipped out my revolvers and was charging down upon the entire army of warriors, shooting
beneath the rose-trees; and here and there a daisy grafted on a rose-branch flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr.Luther Burbank's far-off prodigies.
In the centre of this enchanted garden MadameNilsson, in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin,a reticule dangling from a blue girdle, and large yellowbraids carefully disposed on each side of her muslinchemisette, listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul'simpassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehensionof his designs whenever, by word or glance, hepersuasively indicated the ground floor window of theneat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing.
"The darling!" thought Newland Archer, his glanceflitting back to the young girl with the lilies-of-the-valley. "She doesn't even guess what it's all about."And he contemplated her absorbed young face with athrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculineinitiation was mingled with a tender reverence forher abysmal purity. "We'll read Faust together
ldManse. And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enoughto find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seizethe public by the button, and talk of my three years' experiencein a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P. , Clerk ofthis Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truthseems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth uponthe wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling asidehis volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understandhim better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Someauthors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves insuch confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly beaddressed only and exclusively to the one heart andmind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at largeon the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segmentof the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existenceby bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous,however,