Quotation of the Day

Bad arguments don't get better when you use Latin.

Jeffrey Shallit (“More Philosophical Silliness)”

Xmas Reading: Christmas and the New Year, by Ambrose Bierce

In our manner of observing Christmas there is much, no doubt, that is absurd. Christmas is to some extent a day of meaningless ceremonies, false sentiment and hollow compliments endlessly iterated and misapplied. The observances “appropriate to the day” had, many of them, their origin in an age with which our own has little in common and in countries whose social and religious characteristics were unlike those obtaining here. As in so many other matters, America has in this been content to take her heritage without inquiry and without alteration, sacredly preserving much that once had a meaning now lost, much that is now an anachronism, a mere “survival.” Even to the Christmas vocabulary we have added little. St. Nicholas himself, the patron saint of deceived children, still masquerades under the Spanish feminine title of “Santa” and the German nickname of “Claus.” The back of our American coal grate is still idealized as a “yule log,” and the English “holly” is supposed in most cases fitly to be shadowed forth by a cedar bough, while a comparatively innocuous but equally inedible indigenous comestible figures as the fatal English “plum pudding.” Nearly all our Christmas literature is, longo intervallo, European in spirit and Dickensish in form. In short, we have Christmas merely because we were in the line of succession. We have taken it as it was transmitted, and we try to make the worst of it.

The approach of the season is apparent in the manner of the friend or relative whose orbs furtively explore your own, seeking a sign of what you are going to give him; in the irrepressible solicitations of babes and cloutlings; in wild cascades of such literature as Greenleaf on Evidence, for Boys (“Boot-Leg” series), The Little Girls’ Illustrated Differential Calculus and Aunt Hetty’s Rabelais, in words of one syllable. Most clearly is the advent of the blessed anniversary manifest in maddening iteration of the greeting wherein, with a precision that never by any chance mistakes its adjective, you are wished a “merry” Christmas by the same person who a week later will be making ninety-nine “happies” out of a possible hundred in New Year greetings similarly insincere and similarly insufferable. It is unknown to me why a Christmas should be always merry but never happy, and why the happiness appropriate to the New Year should not be expressed in merriment. These be mysteries in whose penetration abundance of human stupidity might be disclosed. By the time that one has been wished a “merry Christmas” or a “happy New Year” some scores of times in the course of a morning walk, by persons who he knows care nothing about either his merriment or his happiness, he is disposed, if he is a person of right feeling, to take a pessimist view of the “compliments of the season” and of the season of compliments. He cherishes, according to disposition, a bitter animosity or a tolerant contempt toward his race. He relinquishes for another year his hope of meeting some day a brilliant genius or inspired idiot who will have the intrepidity to vary the adjective and wish him a “happy Christmas” or a “merry New Year”; or with an even more captivating originality, keep his mouth shut.

As to the sum of sincerity and genuine good will that utters itself in making and accepting gifts (the other distinctive feature of holiday time) statistics, unhappily, are wanting and estimates untrustworthy. It may reasonably be assumed that the custom, though largely a survival—gifts having originally been given in a propitiatory way by the weak to the powerful—is something more; the present of a goggle-eyed doll from a man six feet high to a baby twenty-nine inches long not being lucidly explainable by assumption of an interested motive.

To the children the day is delightful and instructive. It enables them to see their elders in all the various stages of interesting idiocy, and teaches them by means of the Santa Claus deception that exceedingly hard liars may be good mothers and fathers and miscellaneous relatives—thus habituating the infant mind to charitable judgment and establishing an elastic standard of truth that will be useful in their later life.

The annual recurrence of the “carnival of crime” at Christmas has been variously accounted for by different authorities. By some it is supposed to be a providential dispensation intended to heighten the holiday joys of those who are fortunate enough to escape with their lives. Others attribute it to the lax morality consequent upon the demand for presents, and still others to the remorse inspired by consciousness of ruinous purchases. It is affirmed by some that persons deliberately and with malice aforethought put themselves in the way of being killed, in order to avert the tiresome iteration of Christmas greetings. If this is correct, the annual Christmas “holocaust” is not an evil demanding abatement, but a blessing to be received in a spirit of devout and pious gratitude.

When the earth in its eternal circumgression arrives at the point where it was at the same time the year before, the sentimentalist whom Christmas has not exhausted of his essence squeezes out his pitiful dreg of emotion to baptize the New Year withal. He dusts and polishes his aspirations, and reerects his resolve, extracting these well-worn properties from the cobwebby corners of his moral lumber-room, whither they were relegated three hundred and sixty-four days before. He “swears off.” In short, he sets the centuries at defiance, breaks the sequence of cause and effect, repeals the laws of nature and makes himself a new disposition from a bit of nothing left over at the creation of the universe. He can not add an inch to his stature, but thinks he can add a virtue to his character. He can not shed his nails, but believes he can renounce his vices. Unable to eradicate a freckle from his skin, he is confident he can decree a habit out of his conduct. An improvident friend of mine writes upon his mirror with a bit of soap the cabalistic word, AFAHMASP. This is the fiat lux to create the shining virtue of thrift, for it means, A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted. What need have we of morality’s countless ministries; the complicated machinery of the church; recurrent suasions of precept and unceasing counsel of example; pursuing din of homily; still, small voice of solicitude and inaudible argument of surroundings—if one may make of himself what he will with a mirror and a bit of soap? But (it may be urged) if one can not reform himself, how can he reform others? Dear reader, let us have a frank understanding. He can not.

The practice of inflating the midnight steam-shrieker and belaboring the nocturnal ding-dong to frighten the encroaching New Year is obviously ineffectual, and might profitably be discontinued. It is no whit more sensible and dignified than the custom of savages who beat their sounding dogs to scare away an eclipse. If one elect to live with barbarians, one must endure the barbarous noises of their barbarous superstitions, but the disagreeable simpleton who sits up till midnight to ring a bell or fire a gun because the earth has arrived at a given point in its orbit should nevertheless be deprecated as an enemy to his race. He is a sore trial to the feelings, an affliction almost too sharp for endurance. If he and his sentimental abettors might be melted and cast into a great bell, every right-minded man would derive an innocent delight from pounding it, not only on January first but all the year long.

[from Tangential Views (1911)]

Xmas Reading: The Feast by J*s*ph C*nr*d

[Sir Max Beerbohm imagines how Joseph Conrad might tell a Christmas story]

The hut in which slept the white man was on a clearing between the forest and the river. Silence, the silence murmurous and unquiet of a tropical night, brooded over the hut that, baked through by the sun, sweated a vapour beneath the cynical light of the stars. Mahamo lay rigid and watchful at the hut’s mouth. In his upturned eyes, and along the polished surface of his lean body black and immobile, the stars were reflected, creating an illusion of themselves who are illusions.

The roofs of the congested trees, writhing in some kind of agony private and eternal, made tenebrous and shifty silhouettes against the sky, like shapes cut out of black paper by a maniac who pushes them with his thumb this way and that, irritably, on a concave surface of blue steel. Resin oozed unseen from the upper branches to the trunks swathed in creepers that clutched and interlocked with tendrils venomous, frantic and faint. Down below, by force of habit, the lush herbage went through the farce of growth—that farce old and screaming, whose trite end is decomposition.

Within the hut the form of the white man, corpulent and pale, was covered with a mosquito-net that was itself illusory like everything else, only more so. Flying squadrons of mosquitoes inside its meshes flickered and darted over him, working hard, but keeping silence so as not to excite him from sleep. Cohorts of yellow ants disputed him against cohorts of purple ants, the two kinds slaying one another in thousands. The battle was undecided when suddenly, with no such warning as it gives in some parts of the world, the sun blazed up over the horizon, turning night into day, and the insects vanished back into their camps.

The white man ground his knuckles into the corners of his eyes, emitting that snore final and querulous of a middle-aged man awakened rudely. With a gesture brusque but flaccid he plucked aside the net and peered around. The bales of cotton cloth, the beads, the brass wire, the bottles of rum, had not been spirited away in the night. So far so good. The faithful servant of his employers was now at liberty to care for his own interests. He regarded himself, passing his hands over his skin.

“Hi! Mahamo!” he shouted. “I’ve been eaten up.”

The islander, with one sinuous motion, sprang from the ground, through the mouth of the hut. Then, after a glance, he threw high his hands in thanks to such good and evil spirits as had charge of his concerns. In a tone half of reproach, half of apology, he murmured—

“You white men sometimes say strange things that deceive the heart.”

“Reach me that ammonia bottle, d’you hear?” answered the white man. “This is a pretty place you’ve brought me to!” He took a draught. “Christmas Day, too! Of all the— But I suppose it seems all right to you, you funny blackamoor, to be here on Christmas Day?”

“We are here on the day appointed, Mr. Williams. It is a feast-day of your people?”

Mr. Williams had lain back, with closed eyes, on his mat. Nostalgia was doing duty to him for imagination. He was wafted to a bedroom in Marylebone, where in honour of the Day he lay late dozing, with great contentment; outside, a slush of snow in the street, the sound of churchbells; from below a savour of especial cookery. “Yes,” he said, “it’s a feast-day of my people.”

“Of mine also,” said the islander humbly.

“Is it though? But they'll do business first?”

“They must first do that.”

“And they’ll bring their ivory with them?”

“Every man will bring ivory,” answered the islander, with a smile gleaming and wide.

“How soon’ll they be here?”

“Has not the sun risen? They are on their way.”

“Well, I hope they’ll hurry. The sooner we’re off this cursed island of yours the better. Take all those things out,” Mr. Williams added, pointing to the merchandise, “and arrange them—neatly, mind you!”

In certain circumstances it is right that a man be humoured in trifles. Mahamo, having borne out the merchandise, arranged it very neatly.

While Mr. Williams made his toilet, the sun and the forest, careless of the doings of white and black men alike, waged their warfare implacable and daily. The forest from its inmost depths sent forth perpetually its legions of shadows that fell dead in the instant of exposure to the enemy whose rays heroic and absurd its outposts annihilated. There came from those inilluminable depths the equable rumour of myriads of winged things and crawling things newly roused to the task of killing and being killed. Thence detached itself, little by little, an insidious sound of a drum beaten. This sound drew more near.

Mr. Williams, issuing from the hut, heard it, and stood gaping towards it.

“Is that them?” he asked.

“That is they,” the islander murmured, moving away towards the edge of the forest.

Sounds of chanting were a now audible accompanient to the drum.

“What’s that they’re singing?” asked Mr. Williams.

“They sing of their business,” said Mahamo.

“Oh!” Mr. Williams was slightly shocked. “I’d have thought they’d be singing of their feast.”

“It is of their feast they sing.”

It has been stated that Mr. Williams was not imaginative. But a few years of life in climates alien and intemperate had disordered his nerves. There was that in the rhythms of the hymn which made bristle his flesh.

Suddenly, when they were very near, the voices ceased, leaving a legacy of silence more sinister than themselves. And now the black spaces between the trees were relieved by bits of white that were the eyeballs and teeth of Mahamo’s brethren.

“It was of their feast, it was of you, they sang,” said Mahamo.

“Look here,” cried Mr. Williams in his voice of a man not to be trifled with. “Look here, if you've—”

He was silenced by sight of what seemed to be a young sapling sprung up from the ground within a yard of him—a young sapling tremulous, with a root of steel. Then a thread-like shadow skimmed the air, and another spear came impinging the ground within an inch of his feet.

As he turned in his flight he saw the goods so neatly arranged at his orders, and there flashed through him, even in the thick of the spears, the thought that he would be a grave loss to his employers. This—for Mr. Williams was, not less than the goods, of a kind easily replaced—was an illusion. It was the last of Mr. Williams’ illusions.

[from A Christmas Garland (1912)]

Xmas Reading: Christmas Afternoon, by Robert Benchley

Done in the Manner, if Not the Spirit, of Dickens

What an afternoon! Mr. Gummidge said that, in his estimation, there never had been such an afternoon since the world began, a sentiment which was heartily endorsed by Mrs. Gummidge and all the little Gummidges, not to mention the relatives who had come over from Jersey for the day.

In the first place, there was the ennui. And such ennui as it was! A heavy, overpowering ennui, such as results from a participation in eight courses of steaming, gravied food, topping off with salted nuts which the little old spinster Gummidge from Oak Hill said she never knew when to stop eating— and true enough she didn't—a dragging, devitalizing ennui, which left its victims strewn about the livingroom in various attitudes of prostration suggestive of those of the petrified occupants in a newly unearthed Pompeiian dwelling; an ennui which carried with it a retinue of yawns, snarls and thinly veiled insults, and which ended in ruptures in the clan spirit serious enough to last throughout the glad new year.

Then there were the toys! Three and a quarter dozen toys to be divided among seven children. Surely enough, you or I might say, to satisfy the little tots. But that would be because we didn't know the tots. In came Baby Lester Gummidge, Lillian's boy, dragging an electric grain-elevator which happened to be the only toy in the entire collection which appealed to little Norman, fiveyear-old son of Luther, who lived in Rahway. In came curly-headed Erne in frantic and throaty disputation with Arthur, Jr., over the possession of an articulated zebra. In came Everett, bearing a mechanical man which would no longer dance, owing to a previous forcible feeding by the baby of a marshmallow into its only available aperture. In came Fonlansbee, teeth buried in the hand of little Ormond, which bore a popular but battered remnant of what had once been the proud false-bosom of a hussar’s uniform. In they all came, one after another, some crying, some snapping, some pulling, some pushing—all appealing to their respective parents for aid in their intra-mural warfare.

And the cigar smoke! Mrs. Gummidge said that she didn't mind the smoke from a good cigarette, but would they mind if she opened the windows for just a minute in order to clear the room of the heavy aroma of used cigars? Mr. Gummidge stoutly maintained that they were good cigars. His brother, George Gummidge, said that he, likewise, would say that they were. At which colloquial sally both the Gummidge brothers laughed testily, thereby breaking the laughter record for the afternoon.

Aunt Libbie, who lived with George, remarked from the dark corner of the room that it seemed just like Sunday to her. An amendment was offered to this statement by the cousin, who was in the insurance business, stating that it was worse than Sunday. Murmurings indicative of as hearty agreement with this sentiment as their lethargy would allow came from the other members of the family circle, causing Mr. Gummidge to suggest a walk in the air to settle their dinner.

And then arose such a chorus of protestations as has seldom been heard. It was too cloudy to walk. It was too raw. It looked like snow. It looked like rain. Luther Gummidge said that he must be starting along home soon, anyway, bringing forth the acid query from Mrs. Gummidge as to whether or not he was bored. Lillian said that she felt a cold coming on, and added that something they had had for dinner must have been undercooked. And so it went, back and forth, forth and back, up and down, and in and out, until Mr. Gummidge’s suggestion of a walk in the air was reduced to a tattered impossibility and the entire company glowed with ill-feeling.

In the meantime, we must not forget the children. No one else could. Aunt Libbie said that she didn’t think there was anything like children to make a Christmas; to which Uncle Ray, the one with the Masonic fob, said, “No, thank God!” Although Christmas is supposed to be the season of good cheer, you (or I, for that matter) couldn’t have told, from listening to the little ones, but what it was the children’s Armageddon season, when Nature had decreed that only the fittest should survive, in order that the race might be carried on by the strongest, the most predatory and those possessing the best protective coloring. Although there were constant admonitions to Fonlansbee to “Let Ormond have that whistle now; it’s his,” and to Arthur, Jr., not to be selfish, but to “give the kiddiecar to Effie; she’s smaller than you are,” the net result was always that Fonlansbee kept the whistle and Arthur, Jr., rode in permanent, albeit disputed, possession of the kiddie-car. Oh, that we mortals should set ourselves up against the inscrutable workings of Nature!

Hallo! A great deal of commotion! That was Uncle George stumbling over the electric train, which had early in the afternoon ceased to function and which had been left directly across the threshold. A great deal of crying! That was Arthur, Jr., bewailing the destruction of his already useless train, about which he had forgotten until the present moment. A great deal of recrimination! That was Arthur, Sr., and George fixing it up. And finally a great crashing! That was Baby Lester pulling over the tree on top of himself, necessitating the bringing to bear of all of Uncle Ray's knowledge of forestry to extricate him from the wreckage.

And finally Mrs. Gummidge passed the Christmas candy around. Mr. Gummidge afterward admitted that this was a tactical error on the part of his spouse. I no more believe that Mrs. Gummidge thought they wanted that Chrismas candy than I believe that she thought they wanted the cold turkey which she later suggested. My opinion is that she wanted to drive them home. At any rate, that is what she succeeded in doing. Such cries as there were of “Ugh! Don't let me see another thing to eat!” and “Take it away!” Then came hurried scramblings in the coat-closet for overshoes. There were the rasping sounds made by cross parents when putting wraps on children. There were insincere exhortations to “come and see us soon” and to “get together for lunch some time.” And, finally, there were slammings of doors and the silence of utter exhaustion, while Mrs. Gummidge went about picking up stray sheets of wrapping paper.

And, as Tiny Tim might say in speaking of Christmas afternoon as an institution, “God help us, every one.”

Quotation of the Day

We should treat others well because we wish to be treated well. We should seek justice for others because we want justice for ourselves. We should protect the rights of others because we want our own rights protected. Our shared humanity demands it.

Ed Brayton (My Interfaith Thanksgiving Service Talk)

Quotation of the Day

The eleventh day of the eleventh month has always seemed to me to be special. Even if the reason for it fell apart as the years went on, it was a symbol of something close to the high part of the heart. Perhaps a life that stretches through two or three wars takes its first war rather seriously, but I still think we should have kept the name "Armistice Day." Its implications were a little more profound, a little more hopeful.

Walt Kelly (Ten Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo, p. 100)

Quotation of the Day

To project modern day standards of morality and conduct onto those of the past is akin to contaminating a crime scene. Our desire to play Monday Morning Quarterback with Columbus' legacy actually does more to distort true history than anything. In the same way that each individual is to blame for his/her own tobacco addiction, we must judge Columbus by the standards of his time and according to the world as he saw it.

Brad Hart (“Why We Must Sue Native Americans This Columbus Day”)

Quotation of the Day

Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo – they were interesting, and they got involved. But “God”? Blegh.

That’s why Jesus, you know. People got bored, and they wanted a god who could put bums on seats, one with some good lines. Jesus can be pretty entertaining, in a rebel without a cause way. He’s uneven, but he has moments.

Ophelia Benson (Holy Holy Holy Yawn)

Quotation of the Day

Let it be noted that on this day, Saturday 13 July 2013, it was still deemed legal in the US to chase and then shoot dead an unarmed young black man on his way home from the store because you didn't like the look of him.

The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year was tragic. But in the age of Obama the acquittal of George Zimmerman offers at least that clarity. For the salient facts in this case were not in dispute. On 26 February 2012 Martin was on his way home, minding his own business armed only with a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. Zimmerman pursued him, armed with a 9mm handgun, believing him to be a criminal. Martin resisted. They fought. Zimmerman shot him dead.

Who screamed. Who was stronger. Who called whom what and when and why are all details to warm the heart of a cable news producer with 24 hours to fill. Strip them all away and the truth remains that Martin's heart would still be beating if Zimmerman had not chased him down and shot him.

There is no doubt about who the aggressor was here. The only reason the two interacted at all, physically or otherwise, is that Zimmerman believed it was his civic duty to apprehend an innocent teenager who caused suspicion by his existence alone.

Gary Younge
("Open Season on Black Boys after a Verdict Like This")

Quotation of the Day

It is one thing for rich people to believe intellectually that everyone depends on them. In reality, it is they who are the moochers and looters, who depend on an entire system of low-wage workers for their luxurious lifestyles.

Mano Singham (“Threatening to Go Galt, Again”)

Last Republican on Death Bed and Other Predictions

I’ve been amusing myself by scanning issues of The Portholer, the shipboard publication of the U.S.A.H.S. Marigold during World War II. The Marigold, a hospital ship, is mainly remembered as the first Allied ship to arrive in Japan; according to my father, who served on it, crew members were ashore playing baseball as the surrender was signed.

One particular page, a humorous look at the Post-War World, dated January 1, 1999, caught my attention. The first story, titled "Last Republican on Death Bed":

Dead Pan, Nevada: Mr. Lemuel K. Olegard, 103 yrs old, known as “the vanishing American” today lay on his death bed. For a full century he voted the straight Republican ticket. In his delirium he muttered a name like “Wilkie”, no one can place it.

Other stories note the discovery of vitamin Z, the unionization of the presidency (President Ickes has joined the P.O.T. [Presidents of Things] branch of the C.I.O), and the accidental destruction of the earth by the “newest cosmic bomb”. (I’m not sure how that last story, datelined Metropolis, Mars, squares with stories from Washington D.C. and Off the China Coast, but then, you know what they say about consistency and hobgoblins.)

Anyway, this is what the future looked like to somebody or other circa 26 August 1945. Enjoy.

That Old Benghazi Spirit

You can’t help but be impressed by the industry with which Congressional Republicans try to whip up a scandal soufflé from a handful of revised talking points and some cherry-picked emailed phrases. It’s an uphill battle, as Sisyphus could attest, but just like him, the Republicans can surely eventually succeed. It’s a matter of having high hopes—those high apple pie in the sky hopes.

Take some inspiration from the men’s rights activists. They’ve been having a lovely month, all things considered. A man’s right to sex on demand has been asserted by none other than Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka. Holding women captive as sex-slaves is sometimes necessary, he says, “[t]o maintain discipline in the military”. Men have their needs, after all. “For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That’s clear to anyone,” Hashimoto explained. I bet it would be clear to Ariel Castro.

There’s a man who lived the men’s rights dream. “I don’t know why I kept looking for another,” Ariel wrote, adding “I already had 2 in my possession.” Young women, that is, women he kept locked in his basement on account of his need for sex on demand. Two women weren’t enough for those needs, though, it turned out, and he had to kidnap a third girl, his daughter's fourteen-year-old friend whom he thought for some reason was a lot older. And what business did they have walking around freely anyway? Ahmad Shafi, leader of the Bangladeshi political party Hefajat-e-Islam gets it.

He’s gone to the mat to defend Abdul Quader Molla and his fellow war-criminals who in 1971 were involved in the mass rape of the women of Bangladesh. Calling for the execution of anybody wanting the war criminals punished, he demands the end of such “alien cultural practices” as “free mixing of the sexes”. We see where he stands on this issue. I can only assume that he would give his blessing to Ariel Castro’s solution for keeping women apart from the rest of society, given his passionate defense of those who separated young women from their families and subjected them to sexual abuse that—assuming they weren’t murdered and left in mass graves—scarred them for life.

And apparently it is all the fault of feminism. As one Groot comments “What feminists fail to see is that as men are driven more and more by their agenda to the bottom of the power and privilege scale, more and more crimes like this will be committed. Unchecked hypergamy ensures that men like these have no real chance for healthy relationships and often take through criminal efforts what alphas and the elites have access to; that being multiple women.” There, you see? If only women voluntarily chained themselves in men’s basements, there would be no need for men to do it for them. Or something.

Yeah, keep on working on that sow’s ear, boys—you’ll get a silk purse out of it some day. There’s nothing quite like that old Benghazi spirit.

The Mysterious Stranger: The Forgotten Version

I’ve written elsewhere (Dubious Documents: The Case of Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger) about the editorial chicanery involved in the original publication of Mark Twain’s The Chronicle of Young Satan under the title The Mysterious Stranger and the baleful effect it has had on the interpretation of these texts. What’s bugging me today, however, is another annoyance. I see the Wikipedia article on the story repeats a mistake that others (some of whom should know better) have made, in that it states there were three manuscript attempts at the story. According to the piece the three were (1) The Chronicle of Young Satan Schoolhouse Hill, and (3) No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger. (I also find it annoying that the author says the “first substantial version is commonly referred to as The Chronicle of Young Satan”, in that it is commonly referred to by that title because that is the title Mark Twain gave it.) But actually there were four “substantial” versions of the story. The missing version here is Mark Twain’s very first attempt at the tale, title unknown, but referred to as the Pre-Eseldorf version by John Tuckey and as the St. Petersburg Fragment by William M. Gibson. It is listed as Version A and described on pp. 4-5 of the original publication by the University of California Press in 1969.

Mark Twain, as was his wont, destroyed much of the manuscript, and we probably wouldn’t even know it had existed if he hadn’t reused some of the pages in The Chronicle of Young Satan. Nineteen pages survive, altered and refitted to serve the purposes of the new story. The original story was set (apparently) in St. Petersburg, the fictional town in which Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the slave Jim lived. The first surviving page (12) starts in the middle of a speech by Satan telling the three boys who are the main characters to “Sit still and say nothing.” The narrator (whom we later learn is named George) continues:

We looked up and saw Mr. Black approaching through the black walnuts. We three were sitting together in the grass, and Satan sat in front of us in the path. Mr. Black came slowly along with his head down, thinking, and stopped within a couple of yards of us and took off his hat and got his silk handkerchief out of it, and stood there mopping his face and looking as if he were going to speak to us, but he didn’t. Presently he muttered, “I can’t think what brought me here; it seems as if I were in my study a minute ago—but I suppose I have been dreaming along for half an hour and have come all this stretch without noticing; I can’t account for it; but it is no matter, it is pleasant out, to-day.” Then he went mumbling along to himself and walked

We will soon learn that Mr. Black is a former Presbyterian minster now fallen on hard times since he became a Universalist, and that the three boys are George (the narrator), Pole, and Huck. (George is referred to as Tom Sawyer in the notes.) After a gap of several pages, the narrative resumes with a connected sequence that takes us to the end of chapter 1 and through the beginning of chapter 2. In it Satan speaks disparagingly of mankind and its possession of the moral sense, promises to return, and vanishes like a soap bubble. Mr. Black returns, observing that he has lost his wallet, and while it only contains four dollars, that is the only money he has. The boys offer to look for it, but Mr. Black finds it almost immediately, but it turns out to be stuffed with money, over a thousand dollars. The boys realize that Satan is responsible for this, but are forced to remain silent; they urge Mr. Black to take the money. Mr. Black says that some enemy might be responsible, but Huck tells him, “Mr. Black, you haven't a real enemy in the village—nor Margaret, either. And not even a half-enemy that’s rich enough to chance eleven hundred dollars at one dash to do you a mean turn. I’ll ask you if that’s so, or not?” The boys sign a paper attesting to the way that Mr. Black found the money.

Chapter 2 begins with an account of the improvement in Mr. Black’s fortunes:

It made immense talk next day, when Mr. Black paid off his mortgage in gold and bought nine hundred dollars worth of ten percent county scrip and deposited it in the bank; and lots of people called at the house to congratulate, and a heap of cool old friends warmed up and got friendly again; and Margaret was invited to a picnic, and the piano scholars that had deserted her began to book for lessons again.

And there was no mystery; the old gentleman told the whole circumstance just as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see; though the Presbyterians didn't take any stock in that, a body couldn't expect it. One or two said it looked more like the hand of Satan; and you know that seemed a surprisingly good guess for ignorant people like that. Some came privately and tried to get us boys to come out and “tell the truth;” and on honor promised they wouldn’t ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something that would answer—however, we couldn't; we hadn’t the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.

The boys are afraid that the gold will turn to dirt, like fairy gold, but it doesn’t, and they seek out Mr. Black to ask him about the moral sense that Satan had denigrated. This essentially brings us to the end of the surviving sequence.

There is a single isolated page further on, which reads:

through the garden, there was Tom Andrews sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Margaret to take a walk along the river with him when Peggy was done making the piano sorry the peace hadn’t been signed before the Battle came off. He was a young lawyer, and talented; and he had had a good practice and a thriving one, but it was all gone, now. Drink—that was his trouble. He got a start at it and it beat him. He was seedy, now, and he was always so prim and gentlemanlike in those other days; and proud, too, for he was of good Kentucky stock; and back of that, Virginian — F. F. V., in fact. He had been courting Mar-

Where the story went after that, if anywhere, is impossible to say on the available evidence, but several things jump out. Mr. Black, whose unfortunate change in theology proved so costly to him, is clearly another caricature of Mark Twain’s brother Orion Clemens; when he metamorphoses into Father Peter (in Young Satan) the connection is less obvious, though Father Peter may still have had universalist tendencies:

But the Bishop suspended him for talking around in conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it …

And there is no sign of the villainous Father Adolf, inspired by an Austrian politician Mark Twain loathed, Dr. Karl Lueger. When Mark Twain adapted Huck’s claim that Mr. Black had not a real enemy in the village, he had to add the key phrase “with the exception of Father Adolf” to fit the new situation.

So, then, I guess the question is, why has the notion that there were only three versions of the tale taken such root? The answer is more or less obvious: the first version was not printed as such in the definitive 1969 edition put out by the University of California press. It is there, after a fashion, in that it can be reconstructed by carefully going through the textual commentary on The Chronicle of Young Satan and noting the MS alterations (which is how I arrived at the description given above), but that is not entirely satisfactory. I suppose the fact that the MS has not survived independently may have influenced the editor, but if it had been up to me, I would have preferred that the few pages it would have cost to present it had been used for that purpose.

Quotation of the Day

DC is the heroes you want to be, Marvel is the heroes you would probably be. You want to be Superman, but chances are you will be the Hulk and struggling with his rage…

Avicenna (“A Voice for Me – Once a Good Girl Goes Bad”)

Warriors for Peace

One hundred forty years ago today, just south of the line that divides Oregon from California, tense negotiations were under way. The United States (represented by General Canby) was at war with part of the Modoc tribe (under the leadership of Captain Jack), and people on both sides thought that with a little effort further bloodshed could be averted. They were wrong, in hindsight, but the attempt seems worthy, noble even, something that could have paid off.

By many accounts Captain Jack believed in peace between the Modocs and the settlers. His people lived on the fringes of civilization, so to speak, hunting, gathering, and fishing on the one hand, while working as ranchhands and selling small items on the other. Some accused them of extortion and prostitution as well. The point is, they were part of the economic system, and for the most part they lived quietly on their traditional lands. It was to his advantage to keep the peace, and he usually succeeded in keeping things under control.

General Canby took the peace policy announced by President Grant seriously enough to pursue it past the point that many observers considered prudent. If there were any two men who could have reached some sort of agreement between the two sides, you would think that it would be Captain Jack and General Canby. Which, when you think about it, makes it all the more surprising that one of them should shoot the other under a flag of truce.

The thing is, the Modocs and the government were not on the same page when it came to two key issues: amnesty for all, and relocation of the Modocs. They were actually the same issue, and went back to the circumstances of the Lost River Fight, when a small detachment of soldiers and a handful of local citizens took on two villages on either side of Lost River. Modoc casualties on the side attacked by settlers inspired retaliation, and of course, as might be expected, the injured didn’t do anything halfway sane, like go after the settlers who had attacked them. No, they took their revenge on unsuspecting neighbors along the lake, murdering people who had no idea what was going on or for what cause they were dying.

At least two of the participants in the revenge attacks were men of influence—John Schonchin, spoken of as a chief among the Modocs, and Hooker Jim, who was married to the daughter of an influential shaman. Absolutely core to the Modoc position, then, was a general amnesty for all involved in the hostilities, including the settlers who had killed during the first attack, and the Modocs who had killed in revenge for it.

It would appear that the Federal authorities had no trouble with this as a concept; the trouble was that such a general amnesty was beyond the reach of their authority. Murder was (and is) an offense handled at the state level, and Oregon fully intended to prosecute some Modoc or other for the murders committed along Tule Lake in November 1872. Governor Grover made it quite clear to the Federal authorities that he had no intention of signing off on any deal that left those who murdered the settlers free and unpunished. (He was, however, apparently indifferent to the issue of justice for the Modoc dead.) Further, he was opposed to any peaceful solution to the Modoc Difficulty anyway.

Military officials had an alternative plan that would accomplish much the same thing, though without any legal amnesty. If the Modocs surrendered as prisoners of war they would be under military jurisdiction, and Oregon couldn’t touch them. They could then be transferred somewhere outside of Oregon’s reach, and so go free. The catch was that bit about going out of Oregon. The country the Modocs were fighting for lay in Oregon. The whole point of the exercise was not to give it up.

The Modoc leaders may have been willing to go further than their followers on the issue of moving. In a conference in early March, attended by both Elijah Steele (a local lawyer Modoc leaders looked to for advice) and John Fairchild (a local rancher who often employed young Modoc men as ranchhands), the two men brought back opposing reports. Steele, who had spoken mainly with the Modoc leaders, said that they were prepared to move to Arizona rather than surrender their men to settler justice. Fairchild, who had spoken mainly with the rank and file, said that the Modocs had no intention of leaving Oregon.

So, on the one side, amnesty was out of the question because of the intransigence of the Oregon authorities—faithfully reflecting the attitude of their constituents, as far as the available record shows. And on the other side relocation was out because of the intransigence of the Modoc leaders—apparently reflecting the will of their constituents. The impasse was perfect.

General Canby believed he had a way through that impasse. The Modoc leaders had to be aware that they would not do well in any all-out conflict with the troops; while they had driven them back from their stronghold in January, there were a great many more troops now, and they were much better armed and equipped. Canby decided to opt for a show of force. He moved the troops closer to the Stronghold, and kept them there. This policy of gradual compression, as he called it, was bound to bring the Modocs to their senses.

The thing is, if you put too much pressure on something, it may blow apart. The Modoc Difficulty blew apart fairly spectacularly on 11 April 1873. Negotiations seemed to be making some sort of progress; Captain Jack gave up all claim to the Modoc traditional lands in Oregon, but argued that the Modocs should retain the lava beds in California. Talks resumed that morning; present were General Canby, A. B. Meacham, the Reverend Thomas, and Commissioner Dyar, representing the Federal government, along with Frank and Toby Riddle as translators. On the other side were the Modoc chiefs, Captain Jack and John Schonchin, along with such prominent leaders as Boston Charley, Hooker Jim, Black Jim, and Bogus Charley. Negotiations lurched along slowly, with General Canby trying to emphasize his role as a peacemaker. Abruptly Captain Jack gave a signal, pulled out a gun, and fired at Canby. His first shot misfired, but the second was successful. Canby died on the spot, the only regular general to be killed in action during any of the Indian wars. At the same time Boston Charley killed the Reverend Thomas, John Schonchin shot Meacham repeatedly, and Black Jim and Hooker Jim took shots at Dyar. Dyar escaped and Meacham was left for dead, but ultimately recovered.

Postmortems would go on for at least a hundred and forty years, but neither General Canby, who died abruptly in what should have been his retirement, nor the Reverend Thomas, who had the briefest of walk-on parts in this war, would take part. The two of them died nobly, perhaps, warriors in the cause of peace. But I can’t help but feel that they didn’t have to die, that, you know, common sense might have warned them, as Frank Riddle did, not to trust any in them Indians.

There Might Be Something to This

A commenter at Butterflies and Wheels observes in a discussion of FGM:

We don’t want to be imperialists and go all culturally colonialist and stuff so that leaves us with the only other option – being condescending and paternalistic.

Maybe what we need to do as the world becomes more educated and modern and egalitarian is set aside places where footbinding, FGM, stonings, beheadings, lynchings, slavery (sexual and other), shame killings and other valuable cultural traditions can be preserved.

Like maybe special World Brutality Heritage Parks or something.

Quotation of the Day

It’s when things blow up that it becomes impossible not to notice that women get treated scarily, threateningly and very specifically worse. And THAT’s what SendGrid capitulated to. Their actions have been cowardly and intellectually dishonest. They could learn something from the employee they just cut loose.

Rachel Sklar according to Business Insider

Quotation of the Day

I came from nothing and will die with nothing but my dignity. So why not use my life for good?

attributed to Marco McMillan

Observation for the Day

… rather than making things better, our current method of handling economic problems—this Reagan-esque belief that if sufficiently pumped full of cash, businesses will explode into wealth for all—is making the world worse for us, not better. The longer we continue to delude ourselves into thinking that if we just keep ruining things more, then somehow it’ll come full circle and start to improve, the longer it’s going to take us to pull out of our nosedive, and the further apart the haves will get from the have-nots.

Crommunist (“Driving us apart”)

Asininity of the Day

I think it’s important to remember, when we talk about the economy, that a private sector job and a public sector job are not the same things. They’re not equivalent. I’m not saying public sector jobs aren’t important. But a private sector job pays for itself.

Carly Fiorina
(quoted in “Paul Krugman Destroys GOP’s Talking Points On Government Jobs” by Jeff Spross)