Showing posts with label 1800s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1800s. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

I am praying for your death

’The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’ This is from a diary kept by William Ralph Inge - who died 70 years ago today - during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. He was a prolific author (being nominated three times for a Nobel Prize), and a very popular - if sometimes controversial - speaker.

Inge was born in 1860 in Crayke, Yorkshire, where his father, Rev. William Inge was then curate. He was educated at Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, where his academic brilliance was evident early on. He worked as an assistant master at Eton from 1884 to 1888, and also a Fellow of King’s College. He was ordained deacon in 1888, and priest in 1892. In 1905, he married Mary Spooner and they had five children.

Inge was a prolific author of articles, lectures, sermons and books. His writing spanned a wide array of subjects, including theology, philosophy, history, and social criticism, earning him the nickname ‘The Gloomy Dean’ due to his pessimistic views on modern civilisation and technology’s impact on society. He is probably best known for his works on Plotinus and neoplatonic philosophy, and on Christian mysticism. He was also a columnist for the Evening Standard for many years, finishing in 1946. 

In 1907, Inge moved to Jesus College, Cambridge, on being appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity. However, in 1911, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith appointed him Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, a position he retained until his retirement in 1934. There he became a celebrated preacher - being often outspoken and provocative - who drew large congregations to the cathedral. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times; and he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1934, recognising his contributions to literature and philosophy. He died on 26 February 1954. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Encyclopedia.com.

Inge kept a diary during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, which Macmillan published in 1950 as Diary of a Dean St Paul’s 1911-1934. This can be digitally borrowed from Internet Archive. Here is Inge’s own explanation for the book’s raison d’être.

‘When I resigned my office in 1934, Messrs. Longman published for me a small book of reminiscences called Vale, which I meant to be my ‘farewell’ to my public. The book was destroyed by enemy action, and several friends have expressed a wish that I would leave some recollection of my life at St. Paul’s. There have been threats that otherwise someone else might seek to draw my frailties from their dead abode, though I begged my family not to allow anything like a memoir to be compiled after my death, apart from the biographical notice which the British Academy prints of its deceased members. I had no suspicion, in 1934, that 1 should still be cumbering the ground fifteen years after my retirement, or I should have known that the cacoethes scribendi, the penman’s itch, is not to be resisted as long as publishers and readers are kind.

It was a strange experiment for a Prime Minister to uproot a shy scholar from his study table, and plunge him into the turmoil of London life. For I have no social gifts. I have inherited from my mother’s family, the Churtons, the faculty of being silent in several languages. I have been further handicapped by slowly increasing deafness, and by a ridiculous inability to remember faces. I have failed to recognise at least three duchesses, and a score of less exalted people. By rights I should have ended my days in college rooms, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. But I am glad to have escaped this fate. It was owing to my dear wife, who was greatly beloved in London, and had a singular power of winning the affection of all who knew her, that we were received into a circle of distinguished and wholly delightful friends, through whom we met many of the leading men and women in the national life.’

Here are several extracts from Inge’s diary.

18 April 1911
‘By the second post arrived a letter of great importance. Asquith tells me that he has the King’s consent to offer me the Deanery of St. Paul’s, vacant by the resignation of Dr. Gregory. I showed the letter to Kitty, and at first we could hardly believe it. I wrote to the Prime Minister to say that I felt rather overwhelmed by so unexpected an honour, and that I should like to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury before making up my mind. I did so, but I had really decided to accept. If the Prime Minister singles out a man who has never stirred a finger for preferment, who has no friends in high places and is not a political supporter, he must think that the choice is right. I ought not to refuse to go where I am sent. Kitty’s parents are in favour of my acceptance. My father-in-law said, “If you have no better reason for refusing than that you would rather live at Cambridge, it is your duty to accept.” ’

3 May 1911
‘I went to London and attended a party at Lambeth. The Archbishop and Mrs. Davidson were most kind. It was not altogether a pleasant beginning of my new work. I was incommoded financially by having to pay one-third of my stipend as pension. My nonagenarian predecessor had taken all the Dean’s appointments for the year in the first four months, so that I had no patronage of preachers till the end of the year. Worse still, he had refused to resign unless he was allowed to occupy the Deanery house till his death. This was a most improper arrangement, which not only put me to the greatest inconvenience, but made it very difficult for me to do my work properly. I went to a hotel; my wife and family remained at Cambridge.

In other ways the prospect seemed equally discouraging. Canon Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, said, “You have not even a casting vote. No one who is not an Anglo-Catholic has a chance of being appointed to a Chapter living.” I talked to the Archdeacon of London (Sinclair) about one or two things that I hoped to do. He said, “As long as Alexander and Newbolt are both here you are not going to be allowed to do anything.” These two men remained at St. Paul’s till near the end of my time there: one of them indeed much longer.

It is not generally known that Cathedral statutes differ widely. The older statutes give the Dean no independent power; those of the Reformation period give him a great deal. My friend Henson as Dean of Durham was under the statutes of Mary Tudor. He developed quite an affection for Bloody Mary, who would have made short work of him. I explained to Mr. Baldwin that at St. Paul’s the Chapter and not the Dean is what is called the Ordinary. “My dear Dean,” he replied, “nobody could suspect you of being the Ordinary.” I should not advise any man who loves power to accept the Deanery of St. Paul’s. The Dean is like a mouse watched by four cats.’

27 May 1911
‘I dined with the Prime Minister - a very mixed party, from royalties to journalists. Near me were Sir George Lewis the famous solicitor, and Sir John Hare the actor.’

10 June 1911
‘To Windsor, to preach before the King and Queen. I was met by a royal carriage drawn by two white horses, and by an enormous omnibus to carry my handbag. Two magnificent gentlemen escorted me to my apartments. The sitting-room contained portraits of Gladstone, Disraeli, Melbourne and other statesmen. In the evening a ‘page’, a splendid elderly personage, came to fetch me to the Red Drawing Room, where I was introduced to Lord Knollys, Lady Mary Trefusis, Lady Ampthill, and two pretty maids of honour. Then Their Majesties were announced. I took in Lady Ampthill, with the Queen on my left. The Queen, I heard afterwards, said, “What shall I talk about to this learned man?” and she said very little. I ought to have made conversation, though I had been told that it is not etiquette. The King afterwards talked to me mainly about his French tutor Hua, whom I remember as an Eton master. I do not know what they thought of my sermon next day, but they were very gracious to me.’ 

13 February 1912
‘I took the Chair at a meeting of the Sociological Society, where Dr. Saleeby read a paper on Eugenics. All through my time as Dean I took an active interest in Eugenics. I was a friend of Sir Francis Galton until his death. Vital statistics were an old hobby of mine, and I studied the population question in all its branches. After many years on the Council of the Eugenics Society I thought they were becoming too environmental, interested, in Galton’s phrase, in nurture rather than nature; and when they appointed Sir William Beveridge to give the Galton Lecture, I resigned my membership. To subsidise the teeming birth-rate of the slums is not the way to improve the quality of the population.’

19 April 1912
‘A great service for the victims of the Titanic. We were told that thousands were unable to get in.’

12 April 1917
‘I dined with the ‘Pilgrims’, invited by Sir Rider Haggard. I met Sir Charles Parsons, General Smuts, Lord d’Abernon, H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Page, the American Ambassador, made a fine speech.’ 

7 July 1917
‘We were warned of an approaching raid. During the Second Lesson people began to leave the church, and soon there was a series of tremendous explosions close at hand. The boys sang the anthem most pluckily. The Central Telegraph Office, 150 yards from the cathedral, was wrecked. I went round to the Choir House to thank the boys for their courage.’

30 November 1917
‘I lunched with Lady Vera Herbert, whose house is full of packing-cases for our prisoners in Germany.’

14 December 1917
‘A Meeting of the ‘League for promoting International Friendship through the Churches’. I took the opportunity to tell them some unpopular truths. “We cherish three impossible hopes: (1) that we can destroy German militarism. We cannot; they will only live for revenge. (2) A restoration of the balance of power. This means a mad competition in armaments and the suicide of Europe. (3) That we can force Germany to adopt our democratic system. They do not want government by mass-bribery, and will prefer a military dictatorship.” I do not want to be unduly discouraging. There is a real horror of war among the peoples; but in spite of the proverb it takes only one to make a quarrel.’

17 December 1917
‘The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’

31 December 1917
‘So ends another year of protracted nightmare. Whatever is the end of the war, Europe is ruined for my lifetime and longer. Nearly one-fifth of the upper and middle class of military age - the public school and university men, from whom the officers arc chosen, are dead, and there is no rift in the clouds anywhere. Our people, slow and reluctant to enter the war, are now mad with rage and hatred, and will sacrifice anything rather than make terms with the enemy. It is indeed a terrible time.’

Friday, February 23, 2024

A wonderful day of Life

’A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.’
These are a few lines from the diary of the famous English composer Edward Elgar, who died 90 years ago today. Five volumes of his diaries have been published so far, with two more volumes to come. But if the first volume is anything to go by, the majority of diary entries are very short and prosaic, little more than a record of events and meetings.

Elgar was born in 1857, in the small village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester, England. His father owned a music shop and was a church organist. Elgar himself had little formal education in music and was largely self-taught, studying classical literature and compositions on his own and learning to play several instruments. Early work experiences included being a teacher, local bandmaster, and a church organist. He composed music for local events and societies, gradually building a reputation. In 1889, he married  Caroline Alice Roberts, a successful novelist. They spent much of their lives in and around Malvern, and Caroline acted as Elgar’s business manager and social secretary. They had one daughter, Carice.

Elgar’s breakthrough came in 1899 with a set of orchestral pieces - Enigma Variations - a composition that established him as a leading figure in British music. The following year, he composed another major work, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, which many consider his masterpiece. In 1904, Elgar was knighted, and from 1905 to 1908 he was the University of Birmingham’s first professor of music. His Pomp and Circumstances works were written between 1901 and 1907. 

During World War I, Elgar wrote occasional patriotic pieces. After the death of his wife in 1920, he virtually stopped composing, returning to Worcestershire in 1929. A friendship with George Bernard Shaw is said to have stimulated him to further composition, and at his death - on 23 February 1934 - he left an unfinished a third symphony, a piano concerto, and an opera. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Edward Elgar website.

Elgar may have been a great composer, but he was not a great diarist. Nevertheless, all his extant diaries - which had been used by generations of biographers but never previously been published - are being published in seven volumes as part of the ‘Collected Correspondence’. Five of the diaries have been transcribed and edited by Martin Bird and published by Elgar Works. Although Bird died in 2019, Paul Chennell has been appointed to conclude the final two volumes.

As Bird explains in his introduction to the first volume - Provincial Musician: Diaries 1857-1896 - the diaries were not kept by Elgar alone.

‘The Elgar family diaries, as we know them today, comprise a series of diaries and notebooks by Edward and Alice Elgar and their daughter Carice, covering a period of fifty years, from 1889 to 1939. This period encompasses the marriage of Edward and Alice through to the death of Carice’s husband. Samuel Blake, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. [. . .]

It seems likely that for much of the time there were multiple diaries in use: a family diary in which was written a retrospective record of the Elgars’ activities; Edward’s appointments diary; Edward’s diary containing his own retrospective record of activities; and a ‘tear off’ diary pad on which daily household appointments could be recorded. Carice, too, kept a diary, though none before 1921 is known to survive.

The first known diary to survive intact, of 1889, is Edward’s. In it he makes brief notes of his daily activities. The 1890 diary is also Edward’s, though here Alice provides the occasional entry. By 1891 the diaries have become very much a joint affair, with the balance of entries shifting gradually from Edward to Alice. From March 1895 entries are almost entirely by Alice, with the occasional comment by Edward. She kept up her recording of Elgarian activities until shortly before her death in 1920. From 1895 to 1920 just two of Edward’s diaries are known to survive, those for 1918 and 1920, and a few for the years after Alice’s death.

There is also a series of Elgar’s notebooks from some of the major holidays he took - to Paris in 1880, to Scotland in 1884. to Bavaria, Alassio, the Mediterranean cruise of 1905 and the West Country tour of 1910.’

The first volume’s contents offer a multitude of very short prosaic diary entries, sometimes combined with an explanatory narrative. Here’s a few examples.

17 August 1880
‘Left Victoria with C.E.P. (travelling 2nd Class) for Newhaven went on board the “Bordeaux”, about 10.30. Rough passage, not very ill, arrd. Dieppe abt. 6.30. Washed, had coffee &c. started for Paris 7.39, arrived there at 1.45, two hours late.’

18 August 1880
‘Wednesday, at Hotel Buckingham, Rue Pasquier, 32. Near the Madeleine, recommended here by Beare. Washed &c. Lunched at 3. Walked down to Notre Dame past the Louvre. Table d’hote at 6, too tired to eat. Strolled up the Boulevards until 10. Then bed. Very fine & hot.’

19 August 1880
‘Thursday. Slept well & comfortable rose at 9.30. started out at 11, saw S. Augustin Madeleine, S. Roch. portion of the Louvre, paintings & sculpture &c, refreshed. Palais Royal, all the shops &c. Charlie went home to write, went alone into Jardin de Tuilleries Place de la Concorde. Cabinet 15c. hair! Home to table d’hote at 6. rain & thunder &c: went into café opposite for billiards with some English, laughed consumedly at two Frenchmen playing. Afterwards, being fine, walked up the Champs Elysees to Arc de Triomphe, back again to Café chantant (programme) rather leggy. Home at 11’

1 January 1890
‘New-year’s day. Very fine & cold.
Miss E. Lander & Mr J. C. Ledlie to luncheon. Music after.’

2 January 1890
‘To the Misses Raikes. 15 Kensington Gardens Terr till Saturday Arrived in time for luncheon.
(E. to Beares)’

3 January 1890
‘at Ken: Gard: Terrace
E. called at Tuckwoods about Voluntaries & song ‘Man’
In afternoon to Farm St then Benediction Music at Ken. Gard: Terr present Genrl. R. Raikes Mr R. & Mrs R. Raikes Mrs & Miss Lambcn & Mr. &c’

4 January 1890
A & E to Tudor exhbn. called Schott’s
After luncheon, called Miss Raikes Talbot Sq & Miss Marshall Home to Oaklands 6.10’

5 January 1890
‘Very dull & wet.
At home all day.’

30 October 1896
‘A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.
D.G.
Back to Fenton about 4.
The Pennys to tea.’

Friday, February 9, 2024

I would like to be a man

Amy Lowell, a colourful and influential personality in American poetry during the first quarter of the 20th century, was born 150 years ago today. Apart from writing her own poetry, she also promoted contemporary and historical poets; and she authored the introduction to an anthology of very early Japanese diaries translated into English. She did not, it seems, keep a diary herself apart from during a few years when still a teenager. These youthful diaries have been used by biographers to show a marked youthful preference for friendship with, and love of, other girls.

Lowell was born on 9 February 1874 into a wealthy and prominent Brookline (Massachusetts) family. She was educated at home and at private schools, travelling widely with her family, but she never attended college. She had two brothers who went on to achieve some fame, one as an astronomer, and one as president of Harvard College. Amy is said to have compensated for a lack of university education by reading avidly, and through collecting books. In her late 20s, she turned to poetry, not publishing, though, until 1910 when a poem of hers appeared in Atlantic Monthly. Two years later she issued her first book of poems, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, which was followed by Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds.

From 1912 or so, Lowell and the actress Ada Dwyer Russell were reputed to be lovers, and Russell is said to be the subject of Lowell’s more erotic works. The two women travelled to England together, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, who then became both an influence and a critic of her work. In particular, Lowell is considered to have displaced Pound as leader of the so-called Imagist poets (considered by some to be forerunners of the Modernist movement); and Pound, reportedly, considered suing Lowell over her use of the word ‘Imagist’ in the title of a series of anthologies.

During her later years, Encyclopaedia Britannica says, Lovell was the most striking figure in American poetry: ‘Her vivid and powerful personality, her independence and zest made her conspicuous, as did her scorn of convention in such defiant gestures as smoking cigars.’ Apart from publishing her own poems, Lowell was also a keen promoter of both contemporary and historical poets. She died in 1925; and the following year was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection, What’s O’Clock.

Further biographical information is available from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, Modern American Poetry, or Wikipedia.

Lowell did not leave behind, as far as I can tell, any adult diaries. However, biographers have made good use of a few teenage journals which are held in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Melissa Bradshaw, for example, in Amy Lowell, Diva Poet (Ashgate Publishing, 2011) says in her introduction (available to read online at Googlebooks):

‘[Lowell’s] adolescent journals show that she regards her friends’ obsessive interest in boys as curious, and their mistaken assumption that a diary entry confessing love for a girl ("Oh my darling!!!!! My darling!!!!!!”) is directed at a boy amusing (“Walter; oh it is too rich”). In the diary entries that follow, however, she concedes that she might marry “if I ever find a man I can love and who will love me equally and will have me,” showing that she does not view marriage as a given but rather a choice predicated on companionate love.’

Towards the end of her first chapter, Bradshaw adds: ‘Entry after entry, however, chronicles her intense, passionate, unrequited love for several female friends. In these entries, Lowell tries to imagine how a life devoted to loving women might unfold and what it might look like. Unable to quite conceptualise this, she instead wishes to be a man: “I can imagine falling in love with a woman, but not with a man, I should like to be a man, and fall in love with a woman.” In one particularly anguished entry, routinely ignored by biographers, Lowell clearly articulates her desire for women, her despair at ever being allowed to fulfil her desires, and her suspicion that others might feel similarly’:

26 January 1890
‘Nobody could ever love me I know. I am but a contemptible being, but I want love, love, love. I know I am making a fool of myself but shurely there are others who have such thoughts. . . If I were a man I’d ask [Patty Storrow, a friend] to be my wife. But I am a woman. I can only ask her to love me and and I cannot do that. . . Men I could not love. My ideal is too high. But I want, need, yearn, for the love of a strong, tender woman. Oh God! Bless her and help me! Amen!’

Elsewhere in Bradshaw’s book this extract is also quoted:

8 January 1889
‘Oh! Wouldn’t I like to be a man . . . [B]eing a man would be fine; no dependence, go where you please, do what you please . . . Oh well, what me be must be. I would like to be a man. Now.’

Amy Lowell, it is also worth noting, wrote the introduction to a 1920 book called Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, and published by Houghton Mifflin in the US and Constable in the UK. The full text and illustrations are widely available on the internet, at Internet Archive and at A Celebration of Women Writers hosted by Penn Libraries. The book has twice featured in The Diary Review before - Japan, a millennium ago about Shikibu Murasaki and A lady of Old Japan about the Sarashina Diary.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 9 February 2014.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Puffins, pipits and plovers

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the American ornithologist and painter of birds, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Although there are no published books of his journals, Cornell University, which holds the Fuertes archive, has put online a journal kept by Fuertes while exploring the Alaskan coastline, though it is mostly a list of birds seen or shot at!

Fuertes was born in Ithaca, New York, on 4 February 1874. His father, from a Spanish Puerto Rican family, was a professor of civil engineering at Cornell University, while his mother was of Dutch ancestry. As a child, Louis became very interested in birds, being much influenced by Audubon’s Birds of America, and made his first painting of a bird aged 14; and, at 17, he became an Associate Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He studied architecture at Cornell University, but all his enthusiasm and aptitude was  focused on painting birds. While still an undergraduate, he was receiving commissions and having his work exhibited. After Cornell, he went to work with Abbott Handerson Thayer, a well-known American artist and naturalist.

In 1898, Fuertes made his first expedition, with Thayer and his son Gerald, to Florida, and the following year accompanied the railway magnate E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline. In 1904, Fuertes married Margaret Sumner and they had two children. He travelled across much of the US and other countries, mostly in the Americas, always in pursuit of birds. A prolific artist, he produced illustrations abundantly, mostly for ornithological books, popular and scientific. He collaborated with Frank Chapman, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, on many assignments. While on a collecting expedition together in Mexico, Fuertes discovered a species of oriole, which Chapman named Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuertes’s Oriole, after his friend.

According to an old version of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fuertes work ‘is characterised by a fidelity to nature involving not only objective but subjective accuracy. His genius lay in the power to reproduce subtle, fleeting, and intangible qualities of birds that reflected their individuality to a remarkable degree, an ability as much the result of a highly sympathetic and very extensive knowledge of birds in their haunts as it was of technical skill.’ His most extensive work was a series of large plates illustrating The Birds of New York, published by the state and covering practically every species of eastern North America. He died in 1927. Biographical information can be found from Wikipedia, Cornell University’s Guide to the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Papers, or PBS.

Cornell’s guide to Fuertes’ papers mentions diaries and journals, but few, if any, have been published. In 1936, Doubleday, Doran & Co published Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia, described as diaries kept on the Field Museum-Chicago Daily News Ethiopian Expedition, by Wilfred Hudson Osgood and Fuertes. It’s most likely, though, that Fuertes only provided the illustrations for this book. Otherwise, the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections has made freely available online diary entries written by Fuertes during Harriman’s Alaska expedition in 1899.

5 June 1899
This A.M. at Fort Wrangell, Alaska, got my first raven, & Townsend’s finch, also Stetler’s jay. Saw lutescent W., shot one, but couldn’t find it. Ridgway got a fine Oregon Junco, Fisher a red throated woodpecker, parus rufescens, & Lincoln’s finch. Heard in the forest, by Farragut bay, a hermit-like thrush song, but couldn’t find the author. The ravens made more noise even than usual. Hummers seen & heard by others of the party.

Townsend’s Sparrow in song. Its note is a typical passerella song. very clear and sweet, noticeable for the same deliberation with which the fox sparrow makes its notes. The bird was found on the sunny slope cleared of its bigger growth, facing the bay. Its appearance is somewhat thrush-like due to its heavily spotted breast and uniform brown back, though its attitudes are perfectly typical of its family.

Golden Crowned sparrows were singing at summit-White Pass. They were found in the scrub hemlock in the snow, and occasionally uttered their clear notes. The song was at once recognizable as zonotrichias, consisting of 8 notes, each perfectly distinct and true, and remarkable for the sweetness and purity of their tone: just the kind of a note one would like to find in the frosty air of the mt. tops. The attitudes and flight of the birds were exactly similar to those of the White Crowned, unless perhaps the occipital part of the crest was thrown out farther. Perhaps this appearance was due to the much darker coloration of the whole top of the head.

Mr. Ridgway got two Leucostictes (litoralis) on the R.R. track at the summit, and pipits were seen & taken. Between Juneau and Glacier bay, we saw Marbled Gull.

24 June 1899
Yesterday afternoon we were followed for hours by a large majestic bird that the various sharks aboard disagreed upon. Elliot thought he was a fulmar petrel -- while Fiske + Merriam thought it was a black-footed Albatross. Its wings were very flat -- a little down curved if anything Puffins were continually flying + little bunches from 5 to 20 or 30 would pass nearby at short intervals. They looked very curious, like parrots fore and guillemots aft. Some murrelets and one new kind of guillemots were seen; the latter white-breasted.

7 July 1899
Put off a party at Popof Island this A.M., July 7-99. and Fisher + I went ashore for about one hour, + got a pair of the big Unalaska Song Sparrow. This and the Kadiak form seen to take very kindly to the rocky shores, seldom being seen inland or in the uplands above the shore. Their song seems to preserve to a remarkable degree, its identity with that of the eastern form, tho’ the birds differ in almost every other respect.

12 July 1899
Fisher and I (many others) went ashore on the mainland at Port Clarence Bay, Alaska, and went up the stream where the ship was watering. First bird seen was a pipit (A. Pensilv. ) and soon after saw the yellow wagtail which we had found in Siberia. It turned out to be common, several specimens were obtained. Alice’s thrush was common, + obtained for the first time on the trip. Cole got a Mealy? red poll, and I found a nest with 5 eggs - both redpolls seemed common enough. About the finest sensation we had was a successful hunt after golden plover. I got 3 + F. two, all in more or less perfect summer plumage. The birds have the most beautiful calls + song. They sit at quite a distance from each other in the wet mossy hill meadows and call and answer back + forth. The calls can all be imitated by a full clear whistle, so that the birds answer quite eagerly - whip whee + a shorter note of the same notes, lower, are the common calls, but the song is a rich full warble, of a cadence - repeated - somewhat suggesting a blue-bird song done in R.B. Grosbeak quality.

Dr. F. + I, while separated by quite a distance, saw at the same time a long tailed Jaeger, sitting on a moss tuft way off on a distant hill; and unbeknownst to it and to us, he became the apex of a triangle , where F. + I were doomed to meet. Our sneak became interesting as we neared each other, + became aware of our position. The bird however, relieved us of our responsibility, + let us both out in a sportsmanlike manner by catching sight of me first, and rising with a scream which I took for alarm at first, but when he repeated it came squealing straight at me, I saw that it was defiance, and there was nothing to do but wait for him to get the right distance and shoot in self-defence. When I had come up to the beautiful bird, + was kneeling over it, Fisher’s voice came up the rise -- “let me take the other,” + I looked up to see the mate rising as he approach, at rt [angles] to the course of the first one. Nearer he came, + I itched as he passed over me at nearly 40 ft. I could see him eye me, + his squealing cries were so near that their quality seemed surprising -- very like big hawk’s cries. His long tail feathers oscillated + spread slightly at the tips with each wing stroke. He went right by me, straight on towards Dr. F. + when he got just right -- bang -- and with wings set in a V he came smoothly down into the grass, and we sat together in the mossy hillside and held the first long-tailed jaegers that either of us had ever seen to shoot at. The feet were black, like black rubber, and the rest of the legs light bird blue and the bill black with a “milky flesh color” interior.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 4 February 2014.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Fat alligators in Florida

Andrew Ellicott, one of the most important early surveyors in the United States, was born 270 years ago today. He helped survey borders with Canada and with the Spanish territories, worked on the boundaries of the District of Columbia, and completed the plan for Washington D.C. Unpublished diaries kept by Ellicott on some survey expeditions have been used by biographers, but there is one diary he published himself, concerning his work in ‘determining the boundary between the United States and the possessions of His Catholic Majesty in America’. It is full of well-observed notes on the land he’s passing through, its people, soils, rivers, minerals, and animals, not least the alligators.

Ellicott was born on 24 January 1754 in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the first child in what would be a large Quaker family. His father, a miller and clockmaker, together with his two brothers, purchased land on the Patapsco River and set up a new milling business there, founding the town of Ellicott’s Mills in 1772. Some three years later Andrew married Sarah Brown and they had nine children that survived childhood. He enlisted as a commissioned officer in the Elk Ridge Battalion of the Maryland militia during the American War of Independence, and rose to the rank of major.

After the war, Ellicott returned home to Ellicott’s Mills until he was appointed, in 1784, to the group tasked with extending the survey of the Mason-Dixon line (this had operated from 1763 tasked with resolving a border dispute between British colonies in Colonial America, but had been stalled since 1767). During the survey, he worked alongside the scientist David Rittenhouse and the educator and bishop James Madison. In 1785, the Ellicotts moved to Baltimore, where Andrew taught mathematics at the Academy of Baltimore. The following year he was elected to the legislature, and was called upon to survey and define the western border of Pennsylvania. This so-called Ellicott Line later became the principal meridian for the surveys of the Northwest Territory.

When Ellicott was subsequently appointed to lead other surveys in Pennsylvania, the family moved again in 1789 to Philadelphia. By recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, he was appointed by the new government under George Washington to survey the lands between Lake Erie and Pennsylvania to determine the border between Western New York and U.S. territory, resulting in the Erie Triangle. This survey, during which he also made the first topographical study of the Niagara River including the Niagara Falls, did much to enhance his reputation as a surveyor.

From 1791 to 1792, Ellicott surveyed the boundaries of the federal Territory of Columbia, which would become the District of Columbia in 1801. His team placed forty boundary stones a mile or so apart, many of which remain today. At the same time, he worked on surveying the future city of Washington, a project that brought much conflict with the French-born architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Further major projects followed for Ellicott, planning of the city of Erie, and working with the commission that was surveying the borders, negotiated in the Treaty of San Lorenzo, between the Spanish territories in Florida and the United States.

This latter work took four years, after which the John Adam’s government refused to pay Ellicott, and refused him access to the maps he had submitted, leaving him in serious financial trouble. It took until 1803 for the maps to be released to him, under Thomas Jefferson’s administration, which also offered Ellicott the post of Surveyor Journal. He turned it down, accepting instead a quieter life as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and moving with his family to live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Also in 1803, Jefferson engaged Ellicott to teach Meriwether Lewis, who would later be one of the leaders of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition (see White bear, drunk Indians).

After being fired by a new administration in Pennsylvania, Ellicott returned to private practice, and was hired to re-survey the border between Georgia and North Caroline. This job also ended acrimoniously, without his fees being paid, and the family moved to West Point where Ellicott worked as a professor of mathematics at the military academy. After one last significant survey, concerning the western border between Canada and the US in 1817, Ellicott died in 1820. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from biographies freely available at Internet Archive, such as Andrew Ellicott - His Life and Letters by Catharine Van Cortlandt Mathews.

Ellicott was accustomed to keeping a diary on his survey expeditions, at least from the mid-1780s. Mathews says this: ‘Records of his earlier surveys were not kept, and it is not until ten years after his marriage that we have the first of those letters and diaries which tell the story of his life so simply and so unassumingly that the biographer cannot do better than to let them speak for him. They form a clear and fascinating picture of the men and manners, the country and the State of Andrew Ellicott’s day, while through even the briefest of them, shines out the character of the man himself, in all its simplicity, integrity, and kindliness. Between the lines of almost every scrap of manuscript he has left behind him, may be traced the quiet, sensible courage, the quick and keen observation of men and things, the tremendous capacity for hard work, and the complete indifference to the lures of wealth or fame, which seem to have been recognized by all who came in contact with him as the most characteristic qualities of the man.’

In her biography (published in 1908), Mathews quotes from various of Ellicott’s unpublished diaries. The only diary of Ellicott’s that appeared in his own lifetime was the one he kept in the late 1790s while surveying the border between the US and the Spanish territories. He was only able to publish this, finally, in 1803, when allowed access to the survey’s maps. The book, which is freely available at Internet Archive has an impressive title:

The Journal of Andrew Ellicott: late commissioner on behalf of the United States during part of the year 1796, the years 1797, 1798, 1799, and part of the year 1800: for determining the boundary between the United States and the possessions of His Catholic Majesty in America, containing occasional remarks on the situation, soil, rivers, natural productions, and diseases of the different countries on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Gulf of Mexico, with six maps comprehending the Ohio, the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, the whole of West Florida, and part of East Florida; to which is added an appendix, containing all the astronomical observations made use of for determining the boundary on a large scale, likewise a great number of Thermometrical Observations made at different times and places.

Here are several extracts.

6 December 1797
‘Spent at work upon our boats. Squalls of snow all day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 28°.’

7 December 1797
‘Finished repairing our boats. Cloudy great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 18° to 26°.’

8 December 1797
‘Detained till evening by our commissary, who was employed in procuring provision. Set off about sun down.’

The town of Louis Ville stands a short distance above the rapids on the east side of the river. The situation is handsome, but said to be unhealthy. The town has improved but little for some years past. The rapids are occasioned by the water falling from one horizontal stratum of lime-stone, to another; in some places the fall is perpendicular, but the main body of the water when the river is low, runs along a channel of a tolerably regular slope, which has been through length of time worn in the rock. In the spring when the river is full, the rapids are scarcely perceptible, and boats descend without difficulty or danger. Thermometer rose from 22° to 29°.’

9 December 1797
‘Floated all night. Stopped in the morning to cook some victuals, and then proceeded on till sunset and encamped.  Thermometer rose from 27° to 35°, Water in the river 53°.’

10 December 1797
‘Left the shore at sunrise. About nine o’clock in the morning discovered a Kentucky boat fast upon a log, and upon examination found that it was deserted, and suspected that the crew were on shore in distress, which we soon found to be the case. The crew consisted of several men, women, and children, who left the boat two days before in a small canoe when they found their strength insufficient to get her off. They were without any shelter, to defend them from the inclemency of the weather, and it was then snowing very fast. We spent two hours in getting the boat off, and taking it to the shore, where we received the thanks of the unfortunate crew, and left them to pursue their journey.

Having a desire to determine the geographical position of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the large store boat not being calculated for expedition, I left her with directions to follow with all possible despatch, and pushed on myself for the mouth of the river. Stopped at sun down, to give our men time to cook some victuals: set off at eight o’clock in the evening, and proceeded down the river against a strong head wind till almost midnight, when it became so violent that we had to put to shore. Snow great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 28°. Water in the river 33°.’

11 Decmber 1797
‘Left the shore at daylight, and worked against a strong head wind till sunset, then went on shore to dress some victuals. Cloudy great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 23° to 29°. Left the shore at eight o’clock in the evening, and worked all night against a strong head wind.’

15 December 1797
‘Much ice in the river. Stopped at an Indian camp, and procured some meat. Dined at the great cave. This cave may be considered as one of the greatest natural curiosities on the river, and I have constantly lamented that I could not spare time to make a drawing of it, and take its dimensions. It is situated on the west side of the river. The entrance is large and spacious, and remarkably uniform, the dome is elliptical, and the uniformity continues to its termination in the hill.

Stopped about sunset to take in some wood. Set off in half an hour and floated all night. Cloudy part of the day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 41°.’

16 December 1797
‘At eight o’clock in the morning, one of our boats unfortunately ran on the roots of a tree, which were under water, and bilged. We spent till near one o’clock in the afternoon in repairing her, and then proceeded down the river till about sunset and encamped. The weather that day was very pleasant. Thermometer rose from 35° to 51°. Passed Cumberland river at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.’

19 December 1797
‘Set up the clock, and prepared to make some astronomical observations for the purpose of determining the latitude and longitude of the confluence of those great, and important rivers: for those, and the thermometrical observations made at this place, see the Appendix.

The map of the Ohio river which accompanies this work, is laid down from the best materials I could procure, a number of the latitudes between Pittsburgh and the rapids, were taken by myself: from thence down to the Mississippi, the latest charts have been used, except in a few places which have been corrected by my friend Don Jon Joaquin de Ferrer, an ingenious Spanish astronomer. The map is divided into two parts, that it may not be too large to fold in a quarto volume, and at the same time of such a size, as to shew distinctly the errors that may hereafter be discovered, and serve as a basis for future corrections.

The Ohio river, is formed by the junction of the Allegany and Monongahela rivers, at Pittsburgh, which name it retains till it falls into the Mississippi. It may not be improper here to observe, that all the Indians residing on the Allegany, ever since my acquaintance with the western country, have called that branch, as well as the main river, the Ohio, and appeared to know it by no other name.

The Ohio is certainly one of the finest rivers within the United States, whether considered as to magnitude, the great extent of its course, or the outlet it affords to an immense and fertile country rapidly filling with inhabitants.

The bottom and sides of the river are stony, from Pittsburgh down to the low country, which is generally supposed to be about eight hundred miles. The strata of stone are horizontally disposed, and principally consist of either freestone, or limestone. This horizontal disposition of the strata of stone, is observable through a very large extent of the United States. I have traced it from Oswego, up Lakes Ontario and Erie, with all the waters falling into them, and through all the western parts of Pennsylvania, and down the Ohio, wherever hills or mountains are to be seen.

The flat, or bottom lands on the Ohio, are not surpassed by any in the United States for fertility; but in many places they are small, and inconsiderable; being limited by hills or mountains, on one side, and the river on the other. A large proportion of the hills, and mountains, are unfit for agricultural purposes, being either too steep, or faced with rocks. The hills and mountains on the east side of the river, generally increase in magnitude, till they unite with the great ridge, commonly called the Allegany: but on the west side they decrease, till the country becomes almost a dead level.

The country produces all the immediate necessaries, of life in abundance, and far beyond the present consumption of the inhabitants; the residue, with many other articles, such as hemp, cordage, hard-ware, some glass, whisky, apples, cider, and salted provisions, are annually carried down the river to New Orleans, where they find a ready market. Mines of pit coal (lithanthrax), are not only abundant, but inexhaustible from Pittsburgh many miles down the river.

The inhabitants of no part of the United States are so much interested in establishing manufactories, as of this. They possess the raw materials, and can export their produce with ease, but their imports are attended with difficulty, great risk, and expense. And so long as they receive neither bounties, nor uncommon prices for their articles of exportation, and depend upon the Atlantic states for their supplies of European manufactures, the balance of trade will constantly be against them, and draw off that money, which should be applied to the improvement of the country, and the payment of their taxes. To this source, may in some degree be traced, the character the inhabitants have too generally had bestowed upon them of insurgents, and disorganizers; to a few individuals these epithets may be applied, but not to the body of the people. In order to judge fairly on this question, it will be necessary to take into view the local situation of the inhabitants. In the Atlantic states every article however minute, if a necessary of life, will not only find a ready market, but command cash. On the Ohio, and its waters, almost the only article, which has heretofore found a ready market at home, and would command cash, was their own distilled spirits. The taxing of this article would therefore be but little different from taxing every article in the Atlantic states, which commanded cash. Such a tax as the latter, I am inclined to believe, would be collected with difficulty, and probably with the same propriety, give the same turbulent character to a great majority of the nation.

I am far from justifying any opposition by force, to the execution of laws constitutionally enacted, they must either expire, or be constitutionally repealed; a contrary proceeding must terminate in the destruction of all order, and regular government, and leave the nation in a state of nature: but at the same time, it is a duty incumbent on the legislature, to attend to the local situations of the several constituent, or component parts of the union, and not pass laws, which are feebly felt in one part, and be oppressive in another. That some turbulent persons are to be met with on our frontiers, every person possessed of understanding and reflection, must be sensible, will be the case so long as we have a frontier, and men are able to fly from justice, or their creditors; but there are few settlements so unfortunate as to merit a general bad character from this class of inhabitants.

The people who reside on the Ohio and its waters, are brave, enterprising, and warlike, which will generally be found the strongest characteristical marks of the inhabitants of all our new settlements. It arises from their situation; being constantly in danger from the Indians, they are habituated to alarms, and acts of bravery become a duty they owe to themselves, and to their friends. But this bravery, too frequently when not checked by education, and a correct mode of thinking, degenerates into ferocity.

Vessels proper for the West India trade, may be advantageously built on the Ohio, and taken with a cargo every annual rise of the waters down to New Orleans, or out to the islands. The experiment has already been made, and attended with success.

The climate on the Ohio, does not appear to be inferior to that of any part of the union. The inhabitants enjoy as much health, as they do on any of the large rivers in the Atlantic states. At Pittsburgh, and for a considerable distance down the river, bilious complaints are scarcely known; but they are frequent at Cincinnati, and still more so at Louisville near the rapids.’

7 February 1800
‘We began our observatory, and sent a party to examine whether there was any communication between the river and Okefonoke Swamp, which after our arrival at St. Mary’s to our surprise, we found doubtful. The same day a number of canoes were sent down to the vessel to bring up some of our instruments and other articles, we were under the necessity of leaving behind.

On the 12th the instruments and other articles arrived, and a course of observations was began as soon as the weather permitted. In the evening the party that was sent to explore the source of the river, or its communication with the Okefonoke Swamp returned; but without making any satisfactory discovery, and the day following another party was despatched on the same business.

This being the season that the Alligators, or American Crocodiles were beginning to crawl out of the mud and bask in the sun, it was a favourable time to take them, both on account of their torpid state, and to examine the truth of the report of their swallowing pine knots in the fall of the year to serve them, (on account of their difficult digestion,) during the term of their torpor, which is probably about three months. For this purpose two Alligators of about eight or nine feet in length were taken and opened, and in the stomach of each was found several pine and other knots, pieces of bark, and in one of them some charcoal; but exclusive of such indigestible matter, the stomachs of both were empty. So far the report appears to be founded in fact: but whether these substances were swallowed on account of their tedious digestion, and therefore proper during the time those animals lay in the mud, or to prevent a collapse of the coats of the stomach, or by accident owing to their voracious manner of devouring their food, is difficult to determine.

The Alligator has been so often, and so well described, and those descriptions so well known, that other attempts have become unnecessary. It may nevertheless be proper to remark, that so far as the human species are concerned, the Alligators appear much less dangerous, than has generally been supposed, particularly by those unacquainted with them. And I do not recollect meeting with but one well authenticated fact of any of the human species being injured by them in that country, (where they are very numerous,) and that was a negro near New Orleans, who while standing in the water sawing a piece of timber, had one of his legs dangerously wounded by one of them. My opinion on this subject is founded on my own experience. I have frequently been a witness to Indians, including men, women and children, bathing in rivers and ponds, where those animals are extremely numerous, without any apparent dread or caution: the same practice was also pursued by myself and people, without caution, and without injury.

Some of the Alligators we killed were very fat, and would doubtless have yielded a considerable quantity of oil, which is probably almost the only use that will ever be made of them; however their tails are frequently eaten by the Indians and negroes, and Mr. Bowles informed me that he thought them one of the greatest of delicacies.

The Alligators appear to abound plentifully in musk, the smell of which is sometimes perceptible to a considerable distance, when they are wounded or killed; but whether the musk is contained in a receptacle for that purpose, and secreted by a particular gland or glands, or generally diffused through the system appears somewhat uncertain: and I confess their appearance was so disagreeable and offensive to me, that I felt no inclination to undertake the dissection of one of them.

The second party which had been sent to ascertain the connexion (if any,) between the river St. Mary’s and the Okefonoke Swamp returned on the 17th, having discovered the communication, and the day following a traverse was began, to connect the observatory with that part of the Swamp from whence the water issued, in order to determine its true geographical position.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 24 January 2014.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Luminous shards

Edvard Munch, one of Norway’s most famous sons, and the painter of one of the world’s most famous paintings, The Scream, died 80 years ago today. His so-called ‘private journals’ were published a decade or so ago by the University of Wisconsin Press. The book's editor has described the text as full of ‘luminous shards’ but, nevertheless, this work is not a journal/diary but a book of poetry. 

Munch was born in 1863, in Loten, Norway, though the family soon moved to Oslo (then called Christiania and renamed to Kristiania in 1877). His childhood was much affected by the ill health of those around him: his mother died from tuberculosis when he was just five, and some years later his sister also died from the same disease; moreover his father, a doctor, suffered from mental illness. 

Munch enrolled in a technical college in 1879 to study engineering but soon left to take up painting. From 1881, he studied at the Royal School of Art and Design, where he was exposed to a bohemian lifestyle, a stark contrast to his Lutheran upbringing. In 1883, he took part in his first public exhibition. According to Wikipedia, a full-length portrait of Karl Jensen-Hjell, a notorious bohemian-about-town, earned some scathing criticism: ‘It is impressionism carried to the extreme. It is a travesty of art.’

During visits to Paris in the late 1880s, he was exposed to Post-Impressionism styles; and in the 1890s he involved himself with the Symbolist movement in Berlin, often spending his winters in the city. His most famous painting - The Scream - is said to encapsulate the existential angst and despair that were central to his oeuvre. Throughout his life, he faced numerous personal challenges, including alcoholism and, in 1908, a nervous breakdown, which led him to seek therapy and adopt a more balanced lifestyle. 

Munch’s later years were marked by increasing recognition and numerous exhibitions, particularly in Germany, where he had a significant impact on the development of German Expressionism. Although he had several relationships with women, none seems to have lasted more than a few years. He died on 23 January 1944, leaving more than 20,000 works to the City of Oslo. See Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the official Munch website for more information.

There are tantalising references (in biographies) to diaries kept by Munch, especially when he was younger - see, for example, Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies by Arne Eggum (available to view at Internet Archive). However, the only published diary/journal that I can find is The Private Journals of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour Out of the Earth, as edited and translated by J. Gill Holland (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). This can be sampled at Googlebooks.

The blurb gives some information about the book’s text: ‘. . . Munch considered himself a writer as well as a painter. [In Paris and Berlin . . .] he evolved a highly personal style in paintings and works on paper. And in diaries that he kept for decades, he also experimented with reminiscence, fiction, prose portraits, philosophical speculations, and surrealism. [. . .] The journal entries in this volume span the period from the 1880s, when Munch was in his twenties, until the 1930s, reflecting the changes in his life and his work. [. . .] Though excerpts from these diaries have been previously published elsewhere, no translation has captured the real passion and poetry of Munch’s voice. This translation lets Munch speak for himself and evokes the primal passion of his diaries.’

And here is a helpful paragraph from Holland’s introduction: ‘What general claims can be made for these pages from Munch’s journals? It is clear that passages in the journals are imaginary. It should also be obvious that a range of moods and tones colors his entries. His journals were for decades a laboratory in which he recorded scenes, visions, stories, and meditations. I have not tried to follow any chronological order in organizing the sections. The entries are seldom dated; Munch’s memory often reached far back into the past. Perhaps these passages should be read not as biographical items strung along a time line but instead like William Wordsworth’s “spots of time,” magical moments to which the English poet returned for four decades but that were never published in his lifetime. Munch’s journal entries “can be appreciated as luminous shards picked from the mountain of colors lying outside the glasscutter’s workshop” ’.

That said, the work is better described as a collection of poetry than a journal, and has no dated entries. Here for example is one famous extract - describing how he came to paint The Scream

One evening I was walking
out on a hilly path
near Kristiania —
with two
comrades. It
was a time when life
had ripped my
soul open.
The sun was going down—had
dipped in flames below the horizon.
It was like
a flaming sword
of blood slicing through
the concave of heaven.
The sky was like
blood — sliced with
strips of fire
— the hills turned
deep blue
the fjord — cut in
cold blue, yellow, and
red colors —

The exploding
bloody red — on
the path and hand railing
—my friends turned
glaring yellow white—
—I felt
a great scream
— and I heard,
yes, a great
scream —
the colors in
nature — broke
the lines of nature
— the lines and colors
vibrated with motion
—these oscillations of life
brought not only
my eye into oscillations,
it brought also my
ears into oscillations —
so I actually heard
a scream—
I painted
the picture Scream then.




Thursday, December 28, 2023

An anguish of suffering

‘On way home, at night, an anguish of suffering in the thought that I can never hope to have an intellectual companion at home.’ This is George Gissing, a British novelist, a purveyor of unrepentant gloom according to some, who died 120 years ago today. As a young man he became disastrously involved with a prostitute, and, later, he married a woman who went mad. His diaries were published in 1978, and are said to shed light on his extraordinary life. However, Gissing’s gloomy novels are very much out of fashion at present, and the diaries have long been out of print.

Gissing was born in Wakefield in 1857, where his father was a chemist. Although apparently destined for a brilliant academic career, he failed to complete his education at Owens College, Manchester, because of a disastrous involvement with a prostitute, for whom he stole money. He was caught and imprisoned for a month. After his release, he went to the US for a year where he undertook literature and philosophy studies.

On returning to England in 1878, Gissing worked both as a tutor and a journalist while also writing and publishing novels such as Workers in the Dawn, The Unclassed, and Demos, which focused on the degrading effects of poverty. He was married twice, once to the prostitute and once to a servant girl, Edith Alice Underwood, but neither marriage brought him happiness. Edith gave him two children, but she was eventually certified insane.

In total, Gissing wrote over 20 novels (New Grub Street and The Odd Women being among the most well known), some of which, with a writer as the main character, were quite autobiographical. He also wrote more than a hundred short stories, literary criticism, essays, and many letters. Commentators say there is an unrepentant gloom about much of his writing. He travelled abroad several times; and, on one journey to Italy, was accompanied by H. G. Wells.

In the last decade of his life, Gissing became involved with Clara Collet. She helped take care of him and his two children, but was then disappointed when Gissing fell in love with a French woman, Gabrielle Fleury. Unable to get a divorce from Edith, he moved to France to live with Gabrielle. He died from emphysema - after catching a chill during a winter walk - aged only 46 on 28 December 1903. Further biographical information on Gissing can be found at Wikipedia, The George Rylands Library (University of Manchester), The Victorian Web, Victorian Secrets, and also in a 1948 article by George Orwell and reviews of a recent biography, George Gissing: A Life by Paul Delany, in The Telegraph or The Guardian.

More than 70 years after Gissing’s death, in 1978, The Harvester Press Limited (UK) and Bucknell University Press (US) published London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England - The Diary of George Gissing as edited by Pierre Coustillas. At the time of publication, the publishers stated: ‘Very few major novelists have left personal diaries. Where these exist they are a record of great interest, to the student of society, of literature and to the psychologist. George Gissing’s diary is probably the only one covering the late-Victorian period that has so far remained unpublished.’

There is also this from the publishers: ‘Professor Pierre Coustillas, perhaps the best known of all Gissing scholars, has edited and introduced the diary and placed it in its general social and literary context while also relating it to Gissing’s life and work. The editorial apparatus, including a ‘Who’s Who’ in the diary throws light on several hundred people contemporary with Gissing, and on many events which played a significant part in the writer’s extraordinary life. Professor Coustillas relates the diary to the themes and spirit of Gissing’s work.’ The published diary can be freely borrowed digitally from Internet Archive (log-in required).


1 March 1888
‘Let me describe this room. It was the first floor back; so small that the bed left little room to move. She [his mother] took it unfurnished, for 2/9 a week; the furniture she brought was: the bed. one chair, a chest of drawers, and a broken deal table. On some shelves were a few plates, cups, etc. Over the mantelpiece hung several pictures, which she had preserved from old days. There were three engravings: a landscape, a piece by l.andseer, and a Madonna of Raphael. There was a portrait of Byron, and one of Tennyson. There was a photograph of myself, taken 12 years ago - to which, the landlady tells me, she attached special value, strangely enough. Then there were several cards with Biblical texts, and three cards such as are signed by those who “take the pledge” - all bearing date during the last six months.

On the door hung a poor miserable dress and a worn out ulster; under the bed was a pair of boots, linen she had none; the very covering of the bed had gone save one sheet and one blanket. I found a number of pawn tickets, showing that she had pledged these things during last summer - when it was warm, poor creature! All the money she received went in drink; she used to spend my weekly 15/- the first day or two that she had it. Her associates were women of so low a kind that even Mrs. Sherlock did not consider them respectable enough to visit her house.

I drew out the drawers. In one I found a little bit of butter and a crust of bread, - most pitiful sight my eyes ever looked upon. There was no other food anywhere. The other drawers contained a disorderly lot of papers: there I found all my letters, away back to the American time. In a cupboard were several heaps of dirty rags; at the bottom there had been coals, but none were left. Lying about here and there were medicine bottles, and hospital prescriptions.

She lay on the bed covered with a sheet. I looked long, long at her face, but could not recognize it. It is more than three years, I think, since I saw her, and she had changed horribly. Her teeth all remained, white and perfect as formerly.

I took away very few things, just a little parcel: my letters, my portrait, her rent-book, a certificate of life-assurance which had lapsed, a copy of my Father’s “Margaret” which she had preserved, and a little workbox, the only thing that contained traces of womanly occupation.

Came home to a bad, wretched night. In nothing am I to blame; I did my utmost; again and again I had her back to me. Fate was too strong. But as I stood beside that bed, I felt that my life henceforth had a firmer purpose. Henceforth I never cease to bear testimony against the accursed social order that brings about things of this kind. I feel that she will help me more in her death than she balked me during her life. Poor, poor thing!’

26 September 1891
‘Clouded. Read Robertson’s life. Letter from Lawrence & Bullen, the new publishers, saying that Roberts had told them that I am engaged on a 1-vol. story, and offering to publish it for me at 6/ -, giving me 1/- on each copy; also willing to pay £100 on account. Note from Roberts, who is near Corfe Castle. The Illustd London News of to-day, in an article called “London in Fiction”, has this passage: “In such a book no inconsiderable part would be played by the Temple, which has been the happy hunting ground of so many of our novelists, from Sir Walter Scott to Mr. George Gissing”. The mention is good, but I have never made use of the Temple.’

6 October 1891
‘Reply from Watt. Longman won’t make an offer; MS sent on to Bentley. Wrote answer, saying I couldn’t wait after October, but on second thoughts decided not to send it, as I still possess £27. From Willersey came a basket of fine pears, addressed to Edith. Last night a furious gale, with heavy rain, and rain all to-day. In evening got the first page of new novel written.’

24 January 1893
‘Dull, warm. Wrote 4pp. of story. On way home, at night, an anguish of suffering in the thought that I can never hope to have an intellectual companion at home. Condemned for ever to associate with inferiors—and so crassly unintelligent. Never a word exchanged on anything but the paltry everyday life of the household. Never a word to me, from anyone, of understanding sympathy—or of encouragement. Few men, I am sure, have led so bitter a life.- Read half Bk III St Augustine, and some pages of [Cicero’s] “De Oratore”.’

7 February 1895
‘Terrible weather. Reports of 35° of frost from the Midlands. Worked well, though against terrible odds - hands frozen and feet like stones. Did 4pp. Got from lib. “Children of the Ghetto”[by Israel Zangwill]. Received Crabbe. Present of parkin from Mother. New servant seems satisfactory.’

9 February 1895
‘Frost harder than ever. Wrote only 1/2 p. Article of 2 cols, in Spectator to-day, an attack on me for my “perverse idealism”. Roberts writes to ask if he may write a critical article on me for the Fortnightly.’

9 August 1896
‘Nothing could be more difficult than my position as regards the boy Walter. All but every statement made to him he answers with a blunt contradiction; to all but every bidding he replies “I shan’t”. As I sit in the room, where the nurse-girl is present, he calls me all manner of abusive names. I said to him this afternoon, that, as it was too windy to go out, he had better rest an hour. “Not in your bedroom”, was his harsh reply. “I’ll rest in mother’s room, but not in yours.” And to-morrow, on some trifling provocation, he would make precisely the opposite reply. He knows there is no harmonv between his mother and me, and he begins to play upon the situation - carrying tales from one to the other, etc. The poor child is ill-tempered, untruthful, precociously insolent, surprisingly selfish. I can see that Wakefield may have a good influence, but only the merest beginnings show as yet. I should like to know how the really wise and strong father would act in this position. But no wise and strong man could have got into it. Talk of morals! What a terrible lesson is the existence of this child, born of a loveless and utterly unsuitable marriage.’

20 December 1898
‘Fine, frosty. Did 3pp. Eczema greatly better, George Whale advises me to send the sheriff a doctor’s certificate as excuse for non-attendance at Kingston. Wrote to Childcott for one. Reed circular from a Committee getting up fund for Harold Frederic’s widow and four legitimate children. As the youngest of these children is 10, and the eldest 20, I wrote to the Sec[retary, John Stokes,] asking whether anything is to be done to help the other family of young children, whose position is in every way much harder.’

10 December 1899
‘Have been up all night. A furious gale blowing. E. in long miserable pain; the Doctor has just given her chloroform, and says that the blackguard business draws to an end.

5.15. Went to the study door, and heard the cry of the child. Nurse, speedily coming down, tells me it is a boy. Wind howling savagely. So, the poor girl’s misery is over, and she has what she earnestly desired.

Sent notes to E.’s people in London, and one to Mother. Got through day without going to bed. Corrected some proofs. The wind, after lulling at mid-day, grew furious again towards night.

The baby has a very ugly dark patch over right eye. Don’t know the meaning of it.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 28 December 2013.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Baekeland makes Bakalite

‘I consider this days very successful work which has put me on the knot of several new and interesting products which may have a wide application as plastics and varnishes. Have applied for a patent for a substance which I shall call Bakalite.’ This is Leo Baekeland, born 160 years ago today and sometimes referred to as ‘The Father of the Plastics Industry’, writing in his diary on the very day he named the first synthetic plastic - a substance which would soon be known as Bakelite and take over the world. 

Baekeland, the son of a cobbler, was born in Ghent, Belgium, on 14 November 1863. He studied at Ghent Municipal Technical School and the University of Ghent, receiving a doctorate in chemistry aged only 21. He taught in Bruges and then back at the university until 1889. He married Céline Swarts that same year, and they would have two children. Together they emigrated to the US. There he worked for a photographic firm before launching his own company to manufacture Velox - his own invention, a photographic paper that could be developed under artificial light (indeed it was the first commercially successful photographic paper). In 1899, he and his partner, Leonard Jacobi, sold their Velox venture (Nepera Chemical Company) to the inventor George Eastman for $1m. With some of the money he purchased a house in Yonkers, New York, where heset up his own research lab.

Having signed a non-compete clause with Eastman, prohibiting him from photography research, Baekeland journeyed to Germany for a refresher course in electrochemistry. On returning to New York he was in demand as a consultant becoming involved in various successful ventures. But, in 1905, he began searching for a synthetic substitute for shellac (a natural secretion from a bug which had many uses), a search which led him to the discovery of Bakelite, a thermosetting plastic (produced from formaldehyde and phenol at high temperature and pressure). It was the first plastic invented that retained its shape after being heated, and it also held excellent electrical insulation properties. A process patent was awarded in 1909.

In time, his invention led Baekeland - dubbed The Father of the Plastics Industry - to receiving many honours. He served as president of the American Chemical Society in 1924. At the time of his death, in 1944, Bakelite was being used in over 15,000 different products, and world production was totalling around 175,000 tons. By then, too, Baekeland held more than 100 patents. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the National Academy of Sciences

Baekeland kept detailed diaries all his life, 62 of them, from 1907 to 1934, are held by Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Archives. Before they were given to the Smithsonian, Céline Karraker, a granddaughter of Baekeland, read the diaries taking meticulous notes and intending to write a biography of her grandfather. They were also read by Carl Kaufmann, husband of Céline Karraker’s step sister, Ruth Wyman, who used the diaries to flesh out his master’s thesis, published as Grand Duke, Wizard and Bohemian: A Biographical Profile of Leo H. Baekeland.

More recently, however, the diaries have been digitalised and transcribed by Smithsonian Digital Volunteers, and are freely available online. A pdf of volume 1, for example, can be found here, with this intro: ‘The diary entries discuss his experiments during the time period in which he filed process patents for Bakelite. This diary [. . .] details Leo H. Baekeland’s daily activities. He writes often of his visits and discussions, as well as the subjects of correspondence he has written and received. Furthermore, Baekeland’s diary sheds light on the use and distance of travel by automobile in the early twentieth century. In the notes, Baekeland explains increasing time spent in the laboratory at the end of 1907 into 1908. The diary spans the spring months through the winter.’ Here are a few extracts, including the first mention of Bakalite. (Baekeland continued to use the term ’Bakalite’ in his diary for some time but he first started also using the term ‘Bakelite’ in November 1907.)

18-21 June 1907
‘Spent all days in my laboratory and found many interesting things. An exceedingly active period which allowed me to learn many mysterious reactions with which Thurlow has been struggling unsuccessfully since over a year. See laboratory notes marks CLS and BKL.

I consider this days very successful work which has put me on the knot of several new and interesting products which may have a wide application as plastics and varnishes. Have applied for a patent for a substance which I shall call Bakalite. Have found also a very practical solution for improving Novolak and make it practical as a varnish. All this work has been carried out while Thurlow was in Detroit showing to Berry Brothers how to deodorize Novolak. I am sure he will be surprised to hear about all what I have accomplished in so short a time.’

3 April 1907
‘I spent the morning at Westchester Hat Co. Yonkers and made an experiment so as to determine whether I could felt asbestos fibre in one of the hat machines so as to produce a cheaper diaphragm than the asbestos cloth diaphragm we are using now at Niagara Falls. The experiment was thoroughly satisfactory. In a very few seconds the whole operation was finished. I used asbestos fibre No.1 of the Johns Mandeville Asbestos Co. I intend to have the experiment repeated directly on flat cathode plates in such a way that they are placed above an opening on a flat table with suction below and a distributer of fibre above. It occurs to me that in order to utilize shorter fibre, we might stretch cheesecloth either free or over the cathode plate and thus produce an initial support for the asbestos fibre. Wetting and pressing the surface favors felting. I shall try wetting with gummy solutions or perhaps silicate of soda. We might also apply the iron paint we are using now at Niagara Falls so as to bind everything together. It occurs to me that in order to counteract the difference in hydrostatic pressure at the diaphragm in the cells we might make the lower part of the diaphragm thicker than the upper part. I have given instructions to Mr. Rowland and Marsh to carry out some further experiments on the subject. Afterwards I intend to apply for a patent.

In the afternoon went to the office of D. & F. Co. and wrote some letters.’

13 July 1907
‘A very active day which I spent in my laboratory on further research work on Bakalite. Thurlow worked on acetone formaldehyde and acetone - phenol products. See laboratory notes’

14 July 1907
‘Sunday. Started very early in my laboratory. Obtained  the first large sample of Bakalite in a bottle. The subject looks very encouraging. I believe I have an excellent thing. and it would be a great disappointment if my patent application had been preceeded by an earlier invention of somebody else.’

15 July 1907
‘Got a telegram from Townsend that Bakalite patent has been filed at Patent Office last Saturday.’

16 July 1907
‘Hard at work in laboratory.’

17 July 1907
‘Another busy day in laboratory further research work in relation to Bakalite.’

18 July 1907
‘Another hot sultry day. But I do not mind it and thoroughly appreciate the luxury of being allowed to stay home in shirt sleeves and without a collar. How about these Slave millionaires in wall street who have to go to their money making pursuit notwithstanding the sweltering heat. All day spent in laboratory - Bakalite’

25 October 1907
‘Went to N.Y. with Mr. Oppenheimer in his Limousine. Met Prof Ira Woolson at Columbia and asked him to test Bakalized Wood for me. He seemed much interested in my subject when I showed him Bakalite and told him the wood was impregnated with it. He gave me some black gum to try the process on it.

Spent remainder of morning in Prof. Tuckers laboratory testing conductivity of Graphite-Bakalite. He too seemed much interested when I showed him my samples.

Went to Wall Street where I was astonished to see mounted police men and rather dense crowds. Run on the Trust Co of America in front of office of Development & Funding Co. Good metered patient crowd line extending overlay the block until beyond custom house. Probably mostly small depositors judging from looks and appearance. Great uneasiness everywhere on account of financial condition.

Received two first copies of my book which has appeared yesterday. Consulted with Marsh & Lansing three hours, (chge 1/2 day)

Hook, Marsh & myself went to Delmonicos for lunch. Wilcox secretary of Public Utilities commission came to our table. General talk everywhere. The unsatisfactory financial condition. Asked my payment of my last bill to Hooker but he asked that I should wait and be satisfied with half of it.

Evening went to Toch’s where took supper he told me all his cash was tied up at Knickerbocker Trust Co which had suspended payments. He was rather more depressed than he ever appeared to me. Lewis fetched me at Chemists club with motor car . Took Bogurt and Toch home and we arrived here about midnight.’

23 November 1907
‘Spent all day writing letters wrote one to Quigley of Armstrong Cork Co telling him how cork Bakelite could be made in a continuous process by feeding continuously hot granulated cork with Bakelite then compressing and let the hot mass harden by itself.

All afternoon was utilized for laboratory and making a condensed report on the result of my wood impregnation tests.

Evening Mandel & wife came to eat mussels. After supper Branchi & wife joined. Showed Mandel in my lab alone my products and told him how Bakalite was made.’

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Flying into an abyss

Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, died 70 years ago today. Though admired for his short stories and poems, it was his diaries, written in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and published in the 1920s, that brought him fame among his compatriot emigrés in France as well as wider attention within European literary circles. It was not until the 1990s that parts of his diaries began appearing in English versions.

Bunin was born in 1870 into an old, noble family with a literary heritage, in the province of Voronezh, Central Russia. Having been tutored at home, he was sent to a public school in Yelets in 1881, but left in 1886 due to financial difficulties caused by his father’s gambling. The following year, he published his first poem in a literary magazine. He followed his brother to Kharkov, where he worked for a local paper, and then moved further south to Oryol where he became editor of a local newspaper, enabling him to publish his own stories, poems and reviews.

His first book - Poems 1887-1991 - appeared in 1891, and thereafter he managed to place some of his writing in St Petersburg magazines. In 1892, he moved, with his lover Varvara Paschenko, to Poltava settling in the home of his brother, Yuly. From there he travelled all over Ukraine, and, in 1895, visited St Petersburg for the first time. Thereafter, dividing his time between Moscow and the Russian capital, he made friends with Chekhov and Gorky, and was much inspired by Tolstoy.

Bunin married Anna Tsakni in 1898, but left her two years later. By the end of 1906, he had fallen in love with Vera Muromtseva, and the two then lived together, travelled in the Middle East, and married in 1922. Bunin, meanwhile, was making his literary name with short story collections, such as Bird’s Shadow, as well as translations - one of Longfellow’s Hiawatha earned him a Pushkin Prize from the Russian Academy. Another Prize, and membership of the Academy followed in 1909. He also translated D. H. Lawrence, Byron and Leonard Woolf.

In 1910 Bunin published his first short novel, The Village, which gave a bleak portrayal of Russian country life, caused controversy, and brought him fame. Its harsh realism, Wikipedia’s bio notes, prompted Maxim Gorky to call him ‘the best Russian writer of the day’. After winters in 1912-1914 with Gorky on the Italian resort island of Capri, he wrote what has become his most famous short story, The Gentleman from San Francisco. Bunin did not greet the 1917 October Revolution with enthusiasm. He left Moscow first for Odessa, and then, in 1920, to settle in France, where he had another grand affair, with the poetess Galina Kuznetsova, 30 years his junior, though they were both married.

In France, Bunin was hailed as one of the most important living Russian writers, and soon became the figurehead for a generation of expatriates. In 1933, he was the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, ‘for following through and developing with chastity and artfulness the traditions of Russian classic prose’. Russipedia says, though, that ‘everyone knew the real reason behind his winning the prize was the publishing of The Accursed Days, which voiced his aristocratic aversion to the harsh realties of the Soviet state’. In 1934-1936, Petropolis published, to Bunin’s approval, his complete works in 11 volumes.

Although friends arranged for the Bunins to move to the US during the Second World War, they chose to stay in their isolated house in Grasse, often with other long-term residents, and sometimes sheltering fugitives from the Nazi regime, which Bunin hated. The Bunins returned to Paris in 1945, and from around 1948 Bunin focused his creative time on writing memoirs and a book about Chekhov which he never finished; but he was often disillusioned and bitter. He died on 8 November 1953. Further biographical information is available from Russiapedia or Wikipedia.

Bunin kept a diary for most of his life. Parts of it - 1918-1920 - first appeared in print in the mid-1920s when Bunin published them in a Paris-based Vozrozhdenye newspaper under the title The Accursed Days (later put in book form by Petropolis). It was not until 1998 that this was translated by Thomas Gaiton Marullo and published in English, by Rowman & Littlefield, as Cursed Days: Diary of a Revolution. Much of it can be freely read online at Googlebooks.

Substantial extracts from Bunin’s diaries have also appeared in translation by Marullo (published by Ivan R. Dee, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield) in three biographical volumes all subtitled A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction: Russian Requiem, 1885-1920 (1993); From the Other Shore, 1920-1933 (1995); The Twilight of Emigre Russia, 1934-1953 (2002). 

Of the first volume, Rowman & Littlefield says: ‘Mr. Marullo gives us a compelling picture of a writer searching for himself amidst a society experiencing momentous change. Bunin alternated between periods of despair and joy throughout most of his life. He stood for traditional Russian values in a time of complete upheaval - in the “dark night” between the twilight of imperial Russia and the dawn of the new Soviet state - and he despised the revolutionaries who sought to overturn the ways he cherished. His life and art come alive in this immensely successful book.’

Of the second volume, it says: ‘Mr. Marullo gives us a vivid picture of a man suddenly and agonizingly without a country. Bunin’s life and art, which depended so heavily on traditional Russian values, seemed to be overthrown in a moment, and the writer found himself marooned amidst Western culture, clinging to his old ideals. Through his writings we are also provided a window on the lively but despairing and often fractious community of Russian emigrés in Paris in the twenties, which included Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff Chafiapin, Prokofiev, Chagall, Kandinsky, Pavlova, Diaghilev, and Zamyatin.’

Here are several extracts from Bunin’s diary as translated by Marullo for Cursed Days.

18 February 1918
‘Beginning February 1st we have been ordered to observe new style. So according to the Soviets, it is now February 18th.

Yesterday there was a meeting “Wednesday [a literary group]. Many of the “young people” were there. Mayakovsky behaved rather decently most of the time, though he kept acting like a lout, strutting about and shooting off his mouth. He was wearing a shirt without a tie. The collar of his jacket was raised up for some reason, just like those poorly shaven people who live in wretched hotel rooms and use public latrines in the mornings.’

19 February 1918
‘The newspapers report that the Germans have begun their attack. Everyone says: “Oh, if it were only so!”

We took a walk to Lubyanka. There were “meetings” everywhere. A red-haired fellow talked on and on about the injustices of the old regime. He was wearing a coat with a round, dark-brown collar. His face was freshly powdered and shaven; he had red curly eyebrows and gold fillings in his mouth. A snub-nosed gentleman with bulging eyes kept objecting hotly to what the red-haired fellow was saying. Women were fervidly adding their two cents’ worth, but always at the wrong time. They kept breaking into the argument (one that was based on “principle,” so the red-haired fellow said) with details and hurried stories from their own lives, by which they felt compelled to prove God-knows-what. Several soldiers were also there. They acted as though they understood nothing; but, as always, they had their doubts about something (or more accurately, everything) and kept shaking their heads suspiciously. [. . .]

A lady complained hurriedly that now she didn’t have a piece of bread to her name, even though once she had had a school. She had had to let all her students go because she had nothing to feed them. “Whose life has gotten better with the Bolsheviks?” she asked. “Everyone’s worse off and we, the people, most of all!”

A heavily made-up little bitch interrupted her, breaking in with naive remarks. She started to say that the Germans were about to arrive and that everyone would pay through the nose for what they had done.

“Before the Germans get here, we’ll kill you all,” a worker said coldly and took off. The soldiers nodded in agreement: “If that isn’t true!” they said, and they also left.’

21 February 1918
‘Andrei (my brother Yuly’s servant) is acting more and more insane. It is even horrifying to watch. He has served my brother for almost twenty years, and he has always been simple, kind, reasonable, polite, and devoted to us. Now he’s gone completely crazy. He still does his job carefully, but it is apparent that he’s forcing himself to do so. He cannot look at us and shies away from our conversations. His whole body inwardly shakes from anger; and when he can keep silent no longer, he lets loose with wild nonsense.

For instance, this morning, when we were visiting Yuly, N. N. said, as always, that everything has perished and that Russia was flying into an abyss. Andrei was setting the table for tea. He suddenly began waving his arms, his face aflame: “Yes, yes, Russia’s flying into an abyss, all right! But who’s to blame, who? The bourgeois, that’s who! Just you wait, you’ll see how they’ll be cut to pieces!” ’

5 March 1918
‘I went to Nikolaevsky Station. It was very sunny out, almost too much so, with a light frost. From the hill behind Myasnitsky Gates - I saw a blue-grey haze, clusters of homes, and the golden cupolas of churches. Ah, Moscow! Snow was melting on the square in front of the station. The entire place shone like gold, mirrorlike. I was taken by the massive, powerful sight of carts with boxes on them. Can it really be that all this power, this wealth is coming to an end? There were a great many peasants, soldiers in many kinds of old overcoats, wearing them any old way, and with various types of weapons - one had a saber at his side, another had a rifle, another had a huge revolver in his belt . . . These are now the masters of everything, the heirs of colossal heritage . . .’