Posted on January 17, 2009 at 06:16 PM (UTC)
( about 3 years ago);
section: rant / religion
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victory baptist church in rochester ny is just about the cultiest of the rochester churches. pastor joe rants and raves for 45 minutes, making animal noises and faces and screaming about how dumb everybody but he is. i look around and think that i can't believe these people are eating this stuff up. they're giving this man a six figure salary to put on a clown act for an hour every week.
some people were friendly, some were very odd.
[reply] -- recommended reading?
193 responses to victory baptist church rochester ny
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on January 17, 2009 at 06:18 PM (UTC) ( about 3 years ago )wrote the following:
i've been there and i think so too - very authoritarian, they'll insult you if you don't follow pastor joe's teaching.
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on July 22, 2010 at 02:57 AM (UTC) ( over 1 year ago )wrote the following:
i got blacklisted and lost a lot of friends. there are better churches in town. check out the fathers house or northridge.
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 12:54 AM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an
Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and then
stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at last I
looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded and his
teeth gnawing at his knuckles.
He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.
"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though it
mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know,
they had lasted so long, I suppose.
"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the way."
Silence again.
"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought
those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.
"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar
and held her in my arms... Silent after the first babble was over. And
after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though
nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed... It was
tremendously still there, the sun high and the shadows still; even the
shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of the
thudding and banging that went all about the sky.
"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that
the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset
and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It
didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for
a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black
thing in the bright blue water.
"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased.
Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space.
That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed the
stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.
"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.
"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a
trivial conversation, "is that I didn't _think_--I didn't think at
all. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort of lethargy--
stagnant.
"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I
know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front
of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that
in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum Temple with a dead
woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten what
they were about."
He stopped, and there was a long silence.
Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk Farm
to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with a
brutal question with the tone of "Now or never."
"And did you dream again?"
"Yes."
He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.
"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have
suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting
position, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body.
Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her...
"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men were
coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.
"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into
sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty
white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of the
old wall of the vanished city, and crouching there. They were little
bright figures in the sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand,
peering cautiously before them.
"And further away I saw others, and then more at another point in the
wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order.
"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and
his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards the
temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towards
me, and when he saw me he stopped.
"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I had
seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I
shouted to the officer.
"'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my
dead.'
"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown tongue.
"I repeated what I had said.
"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he
spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.
"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him
again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old
temples, and I am here with my dead.'
"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow
face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on his
upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting unintelligible
things, questions perhaps, at me.
"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not occur
to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious tones,
bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.
"He made to go past me, and I caught hold of him.
"I saw his face change at my grip.
"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'
"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes.
"I saw a sort of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then suddenly,
with a scowl, he swept his sword back--_so_--and thrust."
He stopped abruptly.
I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the train. The brakes lifted
their voices and the carriage jarred and jerked. This present world
insisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw through the steamy window
huge electric lights glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of
stationary empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its
constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight, marched
after them. I looked again at his drawn features.
"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no fear,
no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the sword
drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt at all."
The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first
rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of men
passed to and fro without.
"Euston!" cried a voice.
"Do you mean--?"
"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness
sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face of the
man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of existence--"
"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!"
The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood
regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of
cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the
London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truck-load of lighted lamps
blazed along the platform.
"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out
all things."
"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.
"And that was the end?" I asked.
He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "_No_."
"You mean?"
"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the temple--
And then--"
"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"
"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that
fought and tore."
XXVI.
THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS.
Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the
torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The
difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the
fugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse
the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with
olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a
little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.
For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. It
spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn bushes
here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine to
break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at last
into the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it might be of a
greener kind--and above them, invisibly supported, and seeming indeed to
hang in the blue, were the snow-clad summits of mountains--that grew
larger and bolder to the northwestward as the sides of the valley drew
together. And westward the valley opened until a distant darkness under
the sky told where the forests began. But the three men looked neither
east nor west, but only steadfastly across the valley.
The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere," he
said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But, after all, they
had a full day's start."
"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white
horse.
"_She_ would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to
himself.
"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and all
to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding----"
The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him.
"Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled.
"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself.
The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't be over
the valley," he said. "If we ride hard----"
He glanced at the white horse and paused.
"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, and turned
to scan the beast his curse included.
The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed.
"I did my best," he said.
The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man
passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.
"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The little
man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three made a
multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they turned back
towards the trail...
They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came through
a waste of prickly twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of thorny
branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. And there the
trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only herbage was this
scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by hard scanning, by
leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and again, even these
white men could contrive to follow after their prey.
There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, and
ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once the
leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod.
And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool.
The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the
white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after
another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke never
a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse that the
world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the little
noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept the
brooding quiet of a painted scene.
Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward
to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their
shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and
nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was it
had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the gorge
and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. And,
moreover----? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still place
it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber! And the sky open and blank except
for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper valley.
He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips to
whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and stared
at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. Blank!
Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast or tree--
much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He dropped again
into his former pose.
It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple black
flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. After
all, the infernal valley _was_ alive. And then, to rejoice him still
more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and went,
the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a little
crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted his
finger, and held it up.
He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who had
stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught his
master's eye looking towards him.
For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode on
again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing and
disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden four
days out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, short
of water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their saddles, over
rocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives had ever been
before--for _that_!
And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had whole
cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the name
of passionate folly _this_ one in particular? asked the little man,
and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened
tongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just
because she sought to evade him...
His eye caught a whole row of high-plumed canes bending in unison, and
then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The
breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of
things--and that was well.
"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.
All three stopped abruptly.
"What?" asked the master. "What?"
"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.
"What?"
"Something coming towards us."
And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down upon
them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at a
steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he did not
seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up,
following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the
little man felt for his sword. "He's mad," said the gaunt rider.
"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.
The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it
swerved aside and went panting by them and passed. The eyes of the little
man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. For a space the man
with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come on!" he
cried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into movement
again.
The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothing
but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. "Come
on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given to one man to say
'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect? Always, all his life,
the man with the silver bridle has been saying that. If _I_ said
it--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was
disobeyed even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him,
seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of
comparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart
as his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there
was obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly...
Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back to
more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside his
gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone.
The gaunt face looked interrogation.
"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind as
the man with the silver bridle turned upon him.
"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man.
They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcast
upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down the
vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew in
strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of dark
bulks--wild hog, perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of that he said
nothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the horses.
And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a great
shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistledown, that drove before
the wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, and dropped
and rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on and passed, but at
the sight of them the restlessness of the horses increased.
Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soon
very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.
They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed,
turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurling
on down the valley again. And at that all three stopped and sat in their
saddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon them.
"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader.
But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. It
was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmy
thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it were,
but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long cobwebby
threads and streamers that floated in its wake.
"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man.
"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man.
And they looked at one another.
"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of lit up there. If it keeps
on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether."
An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approach
of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind,
ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude of
floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smooth
swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, rebounding
high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberate
assurance.
Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed.
At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing out
reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses began
to shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden, unreasonable
impatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. "Get on!" he cried;
"get on! What do these things matter? How _can_ they matter? Back to
the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across its
mouth.
He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you," he
cried. "Where is the trail?"
He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the grass.
A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer dropped
about his bridle arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran down the
back of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey masses
anchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out ends as a
sail flaps when a boat comes about--but noiselessly.
He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, of
long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the thing
down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing horse
with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat of a sword
smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the drifting balloon
of spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly and drove clear and
away.
"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full of big
spiders! Look, my lord!"
The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.
"Look, my lord!"
The master found himself staring down at a red smashed thing on the ground
that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailing
legs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down upon
them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog bank
torn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation.
"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the valley."
What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with the
silver bridle saw the little man go past him, slashing furiously at
imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and hurl
it and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before he
could rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and then
back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing
and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed
and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste
land on a windy day in July the cobweb masses were coming on.
The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He was
endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of one
arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly. The tentacles of a second
grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this second grey
mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.
The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, and
spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there was
blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man suddenly
leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. His legs
were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual movements with
his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was a thin veil of grey
across his face. With his left hand he beat at something on his body, and
suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled to rise, and fell again, and
suddenly, horribly, began to howl, "Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"
The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon the
ground.
As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming
grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, and
the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly
athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again a
clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. All about
him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and
drew nearer him...
To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment
happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its own
accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second he was
galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling furiously
overhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the spiders'
air-ships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to hurry in a
conscious pursuit.
Clatter, clatter, thud, thud,--the man with the silver bridle rode,
heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, now
left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards ahead of
him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the little man
on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. The reeds bent
before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his shoulder the master
could see the webs hurrying to overtake...
He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse
gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then he
realised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning forward on
his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.
But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had not
forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off clear
with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, kicking
spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its point into
the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance refused him any
longer as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his face by an inch or
so.
He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the on-rushing
spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of the
ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror,
and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out of
the touch of the gale.
There, under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch
and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind
fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he
crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers
across his narrowed sky.
Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot it
measured from leg to leg and its body was half a man's hand--and after he
had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a little while
and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his iron-heeled boot
and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and for a time sought
up and down for another.
Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop into
the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and fell
into deep thought and began, after his manner, to gnaw his knuckles and
bite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man with
the white horse.
He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling
footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a rueful
figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. They
approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The little
man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and came
to a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The latter winced
a little under his dependent's eye. "Well?" he said at last, with no
pretence of authority.
"You left him?"
"My horse bolted."
"I know. So did mine."
He laughed at his master mirthlessly.
"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded
bridle.
"Cowards both," said the little man.
The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his eye
on his inferior.
"Don't call me a coward," he said at length.
"You are a coward, like myself."
"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear.
That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where the
difference comes in."
"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life two
minutes before... Why are you our lord?"
The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.
"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No ... A broken sword is better
than none ... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two
men a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be
helped. You begin to understand me? I perceive that you are minded, on the
strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. It is
men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked you."
"My lord!" said the little man.
"No," said the master. "_No!_"
He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they
faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a
quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a
gasp and a blow...
Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and the
man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very cautiously
and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led the white
horse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone back to his
horse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared night and a
quickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and besides, he
disliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all swathed in
cobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.
And as he thought of those cobwebs, and of all the dangers he had been
through, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his hand
sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped it for
a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went across the
valley.
"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward. They
also, no doubt--"
And behold! far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in
the clearness of the sunset, distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little
spire of smoke.
At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger.
Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And as
he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. Far
away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at the
cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.
"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.
But he knew better.
After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white
horse.
As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some
reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived
feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs they
fled.
Their time had passed. From the ground, without either a wind to carry
them or a winding-sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could
do him little evil.
He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came too near. Once, where a
number ran together over a bare place, he was minded to dismount and
trample them with his boots, but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again
he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the smoke.
"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders. Well, well... The
next time I must spin a web."
XXVII.
THE NEW ACCELERATOR.
Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin, it
is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of investigators
overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He
has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in the
phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. And that when he was
simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people up
to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several
times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had on
me. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in search of
new sensations will become apparent enough.
Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone.
Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has
already appeared in _The Strand Magazine_--think late in 1899 but I
am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to someone who has
never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead and
the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelean touch
to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached houses in
the mixed style that make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so
interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish
portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that
he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have so often
smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, besides, he likes
to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men who find a help and
stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to follow the conception of
the New Accelerator right up from a very early stage. Of course, the
greater portion of his experimental work is not done in Folkestone, but in
Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next to the hospital that he has
been the first to use.
As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the
special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a
reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous
system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told,
unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose
in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about the
ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of his
making, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to publish
his results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. And in the
last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this question of
nervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the New
Accelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank him
for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled
value to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known as
Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already than any
lifeboat round the coast.
"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told me
nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy without
affecting the nerves, or they simply increase the available energy by
lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and local
in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves the
brain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion, and does nothing
good for the solar plexus, and what I want--and what, if it's an earthly
possibility, I mean to have--is a stimulant that stimulates all round,
that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the tip of
your great toe, and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else's
one. Eh? That's the thing I'm after."
"It would tire a man," I said.
"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. But just
think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little phial like
this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked his points
with it--"and in this precious phial is the power to think twice as fast,
move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given time as you could
otherwise do."
"But is such a thing possible?"
"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These various
preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show that
something of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times as fast
it would do."
"It _would_ do," I said.
"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up against
you, something urgent to be done, eh?"
"He could dose his private secretary," I said.
"And gain--double time. And think if _you_, for example, wanted to
finish a book."
"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em."
"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. Or
a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination."
"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more--to men like that."
"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on your
quickness in pulling the trigger."
"Or in fencing," I echoed.
"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing, it will
really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree it
brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to other
people's once--"
"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?"
"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne.
I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing _is_
possible?" I said.
"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went throbbing
by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--"
He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of his
desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff... Already I've got
something coming." The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the gravity of
his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental work unless
things were very near the end. "And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't be
surprised--it may even do the thing at a greater rate than twice."
"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded.
"It will be, I think, rather a big thing."
But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for all
that.
I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New
Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on
each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological
results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at
others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how the
preparation might be turned to commercial account. "It's a good thing,"
said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world something,
and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to pay. The
dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must have the
monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why _all_ the
fun in life should go to the dealers in ham."
My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. I
have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I
have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to
me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute
acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a
preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he would
be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty well on
the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne was only
going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature has done for
the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and
quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs
has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make
him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion
and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to be
added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! But Gibberne was
far too eager upon his technical points to enter very keenly into my
aspect of the question.
It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that
would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we
talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and the
New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was going
up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to get my
hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was coming to
my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that his eyes were
unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even then the swift
alacrity of his step.
"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; "it's more
than done. Come up to my house and see."
"Really?"
"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see."
"And it does--twice?"
"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste
it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped my arm and;
walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting with
me up the hill. A whole _char-a-banc_-ful of people turned and stared
at us in unison after the manner of people in _chars-a-banc_. It was
one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour
incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course,
but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool
and dry. I panted for mercy.
"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to a
quick march.
"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed.
"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker from
which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some last
night, you know. But that is ancient history now."
"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful
perspiration.
"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with a
dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.
"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door.
"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key in his
hand.
"And you----"
"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory
of vision into a perfectly new shape! ... Heaven knows how many thousand
times. We'll try all that after----The thing is to try the stuff now."
"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage.
"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is in that
little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?"
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 01:55 PM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
there's something else, without which neither of the other two would
help you. It seems a mad thing to say with reference to fighting men,
but that other thing which enables you to meet sacrifice gladly is
love. There's a song we sing in England, a great favourite which,
when it has recounted all the things we need to make us good and
happy, tops the list with these final requisites, "A little patience
and a lot of love." We need the patience--that goes without saying;
but it's the love that helps us to die gladly--love for our cause, our
pals, our family, our country. Under the disguise of duty one has to
do an awful lot of loving at the Front. One of the finest examples of
the thing I'm driving at, happened comparatively recently.
In a recent attack the Hun set to work to knock out our artillery. He
commenced with a heavy shelling of our batteries--this lasted for some
hours. He followed it up by clapping down on them a gas-barrage. The
gunners' only chance of protecting themselves from the deadly fumes
was to wear their gas-helmets. All of a sudden, just as the gassing of
our batteries was at its worst, all along our front-line
S.O.S. rockets commenced to go up. Our infantry, if they weren't
actually being attacked, were expecting a heavy Hun counter-attack,
and were calling on us by the quickest means possible to help them.
Of a gun-detachment there are two men who cannot do their work
accurately in gas-helmets--one of these is the layer and the other is
the fuse-setter. If the infantry were to be saved, two men out of the
detachment of each protecting gun must sacrifice themselves.
Instantly, without waiting for orders, the fuse-setters and layers
flung aside their helmets. Our guns opened up. The unmasked men lasted
about twenty minutes; when they had been dragged out of the gun-pits
choking or in convulsions, two more took their places without a
second's hesitation. This went on for upwards of two hours. The
reason given by the gunners for their splendid, calculated devotion to
duty was that they weren't going to let their pals in the trenches
down. You may call their heroism devotion to duty or anything you
like; the motive that inspired it was love.
When men, having done their "bit" get safely home from the Front and
have the chance to live among the old affections and enjoyments, the
memory of the splendid sharing of the trenches calls them back. That
memory blots out all the tragedy and squalor; they think of their
willing comrades in sacrifice and cannot rest.
I was with a young officer who was probably the most wounded man who
ever came out of France alive. He had lain for months in hospital
between sandbags, never allowed to move, he was so fragile. He had had
great shell-wounds in his legs and stomach; the artery behind his left
ear had been all but severed. When he was at last well enough to be
discharged, the doctors had warned him never to play golf or polo, or
to take any violent form of exercise lest he should do himself a
damage. He had returned to Canada for a rest and was back in London,
trying to get sent over again to the Front.
We had just come out from the Alhambra. Whistles were being blown
shrilly for taxis. London theatre-crowds were slipping cosily through
the muffled darkness--a man and girl, always a man and a girl. They
walked very closely; usually the girl was laughing. Suddenly the
contrast flashed across my mind between this bubbling joy of living
and the poignant silence of huddled forms beneath the same starlight,
not a hundred miles away in No Man's Land. He must have been seeing
the same vision and making the same contrast. He pulled on my
arm. "I've got to go back."
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on February 08, 2010 at 04:10 PM (UTC) ( about a year ago )wrote the following:
this church ruined my life - they put me on their black list and now i'm shunned by the cult. STAY AWAY. no good churches in henrietta.
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 06:45 PM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
MediaWiki is available as a part of Fedora Extras (4 or later). In order to install it, you should run
as root. After installation, open the file /usr/share/doc/mediawiki-x.y.z/INSTALL.fedora and follow the instructions there.
Note that in recent installations the INSTALL file is at /usr/share/mediawiki/INSTALL or more recently at /usr/share/doc/mediawiki-x.xx.x/INSTALL
If you need support for mathematical formulas, you also need to install mediawiki-math:
If you have a more recent Fedora, there is no package mediawiki-math. Because mediawiki requires "texvc" for LaTeX you'll also need to install LabPlot
On Fedora Core 4, installing version 1.5.8-1, additional steps are needed to enable inline LaTeX translation. Some of these steps are described in the following file:
If LaTeX formulas are displayed without translation, you might need to uncomment the following line manually in LocalSettings.php, and possibly also restart your httpd server:
Here is a method to restart the httpd server under Fedora:
After enabling $wgUseTeX, you might see an error message such as this:
Failed to parse (Can't write to or create math output directory):
In MediaWiki file Math.php one finds this source code line:
In my default LocalSettings.php I found these lines:
$IP = "/var/www/mediawiki"; $wgUploadDirectory = "$IP/images"; # ... $wgMathDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/math"; $wgTmpDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/tmp"; $wgTexvc = '/usr/bin/texvc'; $wgUseTeX = true;Which suggested this fix:
And then there was math.
For Fedora-specific bug reports, use http://bugzilla.redhat.com/ with the product field set to "Fedora Extras" and the component field to "mediawiki".
(PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert) :
If you have no error with php but no png generated, it's seems to be a problem with a configuration file of Tex. I solved my problem executing
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 01:03 AM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
Inasmuch as every task assigned by the Emperor demands especial attention; and inasmuch as I am incited, not merely to diligence, but also to devotion, when any matter is entrusted to me, be it as a consequence of my natural sense of responsibility or of my fidelity; and inasmuch as Nerva Augustus (an emperor of whom I am at a loss to say whether he devotes more industry or love to the State) has laid upon me the duties of water commissioner, an office which concerns not merely the convenience but also the health and even the safety of the City, and which has always been administered by the most eminent men of our State; now therefore I deem it of the first and greatest importance to familiarize myself with the business I have undertaken, a policy which I have always made a principle in other affairs.
2. For I believe that there is no surer foundation for any business than this, and that it would be otherwise impossible to determine what ought to be done, what ought to be avoided; likewise that there is nothing so disgraceful for a decent man as to conduct an office delegated to him, according to the instructions of assistants. Yet precisely this is inevitable whenever a person inexperienced in the matter in hand has to have recourse to the practical knowledge of subordinates. For though the latter play a necessary rôle in the way of rendering assistance, yet they are, as it were, but the hands and tools of the directing head. Observing, therefore, the practice which I have followed in many offices, I have gathered in this sketch (into one systematic body, so to speak) such facts, hitherto scattered, as I have been able to get together, which bear on the general subject, and which might serve to guide me in my administration. Now in the case of other books which I have written after practical experience, I consulted the interests of my predecessors. The present treatise also may be found useful by my own successor, but it will serve especially for my own instruction and guidance, being prepared, as it is, at the beginning of my administration.
3. And lest I seem to have omitted anything requisite to a familiarity with the entire subject, I will first set down the names of the waters which enter the City of Rome; then I will tell by whom, under what consuls, and in what year after the founding of the City each one was brought in; then at what point and at what milestone each water was taken; how far each is carried in a subterranean channel, how far on substructures, how far on arches. Then I will give the elevation of each, [the plan] of the taps, and the distributions that are made from them; how much each aqueduct brings to points outside the City, what proportion to each quarter within the City; how many public reservoirs there are, and from these how much is delivered to public works, how much to ornamental fountains (munera, as the more polite call them), how much to the water-basins; how much is granted in the name of Caesar; how much for private uses by the favour of the Emperor; what is the law with regard to the construction and maintenance of the aqueducts, what penalties enforce it, whether established by resolutions of the Senate or by edicts of the Emperors.
4. For four hundred and forty-one years from the foundation of the City, the Romans were satisfied with the use of such waters as they drew from the Tiber, from wells, or from springs. Esteem for springs still continues, and is observed with veneration. They are believed to bring healing to the sick, as, for example, the springs of the Camenae, of Apollo, and of Juturna. But there now run into the City: the Appian aqueduct, Old Anio, Marcia, Tepula, Julia, Virgo, Alsietina, which is also called Augusta, Claudia, New Anio.
5. In the consulship of Marcus Valerius Maximus and Publius Decius Mus, in the thirtieth year after the beginning of the Samnite War, the Appian aqueduct was brought into the City by Appius Claudius Crassus, the Censor, who afterwards received the surname of "the Blind," the same man who had charge of constructing the Appian Way from the Porta Capena as far as the City of Capua. As colleague in the censorship Appius had Gaius Plautius, to whom was given the name of "the Hunter" for having discovered the springs of this water. But since Plautius resigned the censorship within a year and six months, under the mistaken impression that his colleague would do the same, the honour of giving his name to the aqueduct fell to Appius alone, who, by various subterfuges, is reported to have extended the term of his consulship, until he should complete both the Way and this aqueduct. The intake of the Appia is on the Lucullan estate, between the seventh and eighth milestones, on the Praenestine Way, on a cross-road, •780 paces to the left. From its intake to the Salinae at the Porta Trigemina, its channel has a length of •11,190 paces, of which •11,130 paces run underground, while above ground •sixty paces are carried on substructures and, near the Porta Capena, on arches. Near Spes Vetus, on the edge of the Torquatian and Epaphroditian Gardens, there joins it a branch of Augusta, added by Augustus as a supplementary supply *
This branch has its intake at the sixth milestone, on the Praenestine Way, on a cross-road, •980 paces to the left, near the Collatian Way. Its course, by underground channel, extends to •6,380 paces before reaching The Twins. The distribution of Appia begins at the foot of the Publician Ascent, near the Porta Trigemina, at the place designated as the Salinae.
6. Forty years after Appia was brought in, in the four hundred and eighty-first year from the founding of the City, Manius Curius Dentatus, who held the censorship with Lucius Papirius Cursor, contracted to have the waters of what is now called Old Anio brought into the City, with the proceeds of the booty captured from Pyrrhus. This was in the second consulship of Spurius Carvilius and Lucius Papirius. Then two years later the question of completing the aqueduct was discussed in the Senate on the motion *
of the praetor. At the close of the discussion, Curius, who had let the original contract, and Fulvius Flaccus were appointed by decree of the Senate as a board of two to bring in the water. Within five days of the time he had been appointed, one of the two commissioners, Curius, died; thus the credit of achieving the work rested with Flaccus. The intake of Old Anio is above Tibur at the twentieth milestone outside the * 
Gate, where it gives a part of its water to supply the Tiburtines. Owing to the exigence of elevation, its conduit has a length of •43,000 paces. Of this, the channel runs underground for •42,779 paces, while there are above ground substructures for •221 paces.
7. One hundred and twenty-seven years later, that is in the six hundred and eighth year from the founding of the City, in the consulship of Servius Sulpicius Galba and Lucius Aurelius Cotta, when the conduits of Appia and Old Anio had become leaky by reason of age, and water was also being diverted from them unlawfully by individuals, the Senate commissioned Marcius, who at that time administered the law as praetor between citizens, to reclaim and repair these conduits; and since the growth of the City was seen to demand a more bountiful supply of water, the same man was charged by the Senate to bring into the City other waters so far as he could. *
He restored the old channels and brought in a third supply, more wholesome than these, * 
which is called Marcia after the man who introduced it. We read in Fenestella, that 180,000,000 sesterces were granted to Marcius for these works, and since the term of his praetorship was not sufficient for the completion of the enterprise, it was extended for a second year. At that time the Decemvirs, on consulting the Sibylline Books for another purpose, are said to have discovered that it was not right for the Marcian water, or rather the Anio (for tradition more regularly mentions this) to be brought to the Capitol. The matter is said to have been debated in the Senate, in the consulship of Appius Claudius and Quintus Caecilius, Marcus Lepidus acting as spokesman for the Board of Decemvirs; and three years later the matter is said to have been brought up again by Lucius Lentulus, in the consulship of Gaius Laelius and Quintus Servilius, but on both occasions the influence of Marcius Rex carried the day; and thus the water was brought to the Capitol. The intake of Marcia is at the thirty-sixth milestone on the Valerian Way, on a cross-road, three miles to the right as you come from Rome. But on the Sublacensian Way, which was first paved under the Emperor Nero, at the thirty-eighth milestone, within •200 paces to the left [a view of its source may be seen]. Its waters stand like a tranquil pool, of deep green hue. Its conduit has a length, from the intake to the City, of•61,710½ paces; •54,247½ paces of underground conduit; •7,463 paces on structures above ground, of which, at some distance from the City, in several places where it crosses valleys, there are•463 paces on arches; nearer the City, beginning at the seventh milestone, •528 paces on substructures, and the remaining •6,472 paces on arches.
8. The Censors, Gnaeus Servilius Caepio and Lucius Cassius Longinus, called Ravilla, in the year 627 after the founding of the City, in the consulate of Marcus Plautus Hypsaeus and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, had the water called Tepula brought to Rome and to the Capitol, from the estate of Lucullus, which some persons hold to belong to Tusculan territory. The intake of Tepula is at the tenth milestone on the Latin Way, near a cross-road, two miles to the right as you proceed from Rome *
From that point it was conducted in its own channel to the City.
9. Later *
in the second consulate of the Emperor Caesar Augustus, when Lucius Volcatius was his colleague, in the year 719 after the foundation of the City, [Marcus] Agrippa, when aedile, after his first consulship, took another independent source of supply, at the twelfth milestone from the City on the Latin Way, on a cross-road two miles to the right as you proceed from Rome, and also tapped Tepula. The name Julia was given to the new aqueduct by its builder, but since the waters were again divided for distribution, the name Tepula remained. The conduit of Julia has a length of •15,426½ paces; •7,000 paces on masonry above ground, of which •528 paces next the City, beginning at the seventh milestone, are on substructures, the other •6,472 paces being on arches. Past the intake of Julia flows a brook, which is called Crabra. Agrippa refrained from taking in this brook either because he had condemned it, or because he thought it ought to be left to the proprietors at Tusculum, for this is the water which all the estates of that district receive in turn, dealt out to them on regular days and in regular quantities. But our water-men, failing to practise the same restraint, have always claimed a part of it to supplement Julia, not, however, thus increasing the actual flow of Julia, since they habitually exhausted it by diverting its waters for their own profit. I therefore shut off the Crabra brook and at the Emperor's command restored it entirely to the Tusculan proprietors, who now, possibly not without surprise, take its waters, without knowing to what cause to ascribe the unusual abundance. The Julian aqueduct, on the other hand, by reason of the destruction of the branch pipes through which it was secretly plundered, has maintained its normal quantity even in times of most extraordinary drought. In the same year, Agrippa repaired the conduits of Appia, Old Anio, and Marcia, which had almost worn out, and with unique forethought provided the City with a large number of fountains.
10. The same man, after his own third consulship, in the consulship of Gaius Sentius and Quintus Lucretius, twelve years after he had constructed the Julian aqueduct, also brought Virgo to Rome, taking it from the estate of Lucullus. We learn that June 9 was the day that it first began to flow in the City. It was called Virgo, •because a young girl pointed out certain springs to some soldiers hunting for water, and when they followed these up and dug, they found a copious supply. A small temple, situated near the spring, contains a painting which illustrates this origin of the aqueduct. The intake of Virgo is on the Collatian Way at the eighth milestone, in a marshy spot, surrounded by a concrete enclosure for the purpose of confining the gushing waters. Its volume is augmented by several tributaries. Its length is •14,105 paces. For •12,865 paces of this distance it is carried in an underground channel, for •1,240 paces above ground. Of these 1,240 paces, it is carried for •540 paces on substructures at various points, and for •700 paces on arches. The underground conduits of the tributaries measure •1,405 paces.
11. I fail to see what motive induced Augustus, a most sagacious sovereign, to bring in the Alsietinian water, also called Augusta. For this has nothing to commend it, — is in fact positively unwholesome, and for that reason is nowhere delivered for consumption by the people. It may have been that when Augustus began the construction of his Naumachia, he brought this water in a special conduit, in order not to encroach on the existing supply of wholesome water, and then granted the surplus of the Naumachia to the adjacent gardens and to private users for irrigation. It is customary, however, in the district across the Tiber, in an emergency, whenever the bridges are undergoing repairs and the water supply is cut off from this side of the river, to draw from Alsietina to maintain the flow of the public fountains. Its source is the Alsietinian Lake, at the fourteenth milestone, on the Claudian Way, on a cross-road, six miles and a half to the right. Its conduit has a length of •22,172 paces, with •358 paces on arches.
12. To supplement Marcia, whenever dry seasons required an additional supply, Augustus also, by an underground channel, brought to the conduit of Marcia another water of the same excellent quality, called Augusta from the name of its donor. Its source is beyond the springs of Marcia; its conduit, up to its junction with Marcia, measures •800 paces.
13. After these aqueducts, Gaius Caesar, the successor of Tiberius, in the second year of his reign, in the consulate of Marcus Aquila Julianus and Publius Nonius Asprenas, in the year 791 after the founding of the City, began two others, inasmuch as the seven then existing seemed insufficient to meet both the public needs and the luxurious private demands of the day. These works Claudius completed on the most magnificent scale, and dedicated in the consulship of Sulla and Titianus, on the 1st of August in the year 803 after the founding of the City. To the one water, which had its sources in the Caerulean and Curtian springs, was given the name Claudia. This is next to Marcia in excellence. The second began to be designated as New Anio, in order the more readily to distinguish by title the two Anios that had now begun to flow to the City. To the former Anio the name of "Old" was added.
14. The intake of Claudia is at the thirty-eighth milestone on the Sublacensian Way, on a cross-road, •less than three hundred paces to the left. The water comes from two very large and beautiful springs, the Caerulean, so designated from its appearance, and the Curtian. Claudia also receives the spring which is called Albudinus, which is of such excellence that, when Marcia, too, needs supplementing, this water answers the purpose so admirably that by its addition there is no change in Marcia's quality. The spring of Augusta was turned into Claudia, because it was plainly evident that Marcia was of sufficient volume by itself. But Augusta remained, nevertheless, a reserve supply to Marcia, the understanding being that Augusta should run into Claudia only when the conduit of Marcia would not carry it. Claudia's conduit has a length of •46,606 paces, of which •36,230 are in a subterranean channel, •10,176 on structures above ground; of these last there are at various points in the upper reaches •3,076 paces on arches; and near the City, beginning at the seventh milestone, •609 paces on substructures and •6,491 on arches.
15. The intake of New Anio is at the forty-second milestone on the Sublacensian Way, in the district of Simbruvium. The water is taken from the river, which, even without the effect of rainstorms, is muddy and discoloured, because it has rich and cultivated fields adjoining it, and in consequence loose banks. For this reason, a settling reservoir was put in beyond the inlet of the aqueduct, in order that the water might settle there and clarify itself, between the river and the conduit. But even despite this precaution, the water reaches the City in a discoloured condition whenever there are rains. It is joined by the Herculanean brook, which has its source on the same Way, at the thirty-eighth milestone, opposite the springs of Claudia, beyond the river and the highway. This is naturally very clear, but loses the charm of its purity by admixture with New Anio. The conduit of New Anio measures •58,700 paces, of which •49,300 are in an underground channel, •9,400 paces above ground on masonry; of these, at various points in the upper reaches are •2,300 paces on substructures or arches; while nearer the City, beginning at the seventh milestone, are •609 paces on substructures,•6,491 paces on arches. These are the highest arches, rising at certain points to •109 feet.
16. With such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle Pyramids or the useless, though famous, works of the Greeks!
17. It has seemed to me not inappropriate to include also a statement of the lengths of the channels of the several aqueducts, according to the kinds of construction. For since the chief function of this office of water-commissioner lies in their upkeep, the man in charge of them ought to know which of them demand the heavier outlay. My zeal was not satisfied with submitting details to examination; I also had plans made of the aqueducts, on which it is shown where there are valleys and how great these are; where rivers are crossed; and where conduits laid on hillsides demand more particular constant care for their maintenance and repair. By this provision, one reaps the advantage of being able to have the works before one's eyes, so to speak, at a moment's notice, and to consider them as though standing by their side.
18. The several aqueducts reach the City at different elevations. In consequence certain ones deliver water on higher ground, while others cannot rise to the loftier points; for the hills have gradually grown higher with rubbish in consequence of frequent conflagrations. There are five whose head rises to every point in the City, but of these some are forced up with greater, others with lesser pressure. The highest is New Anio; next comes Claudia; the third place is taken by Julia; the fourth by Tepula; the last by Marcia, although at its intake this mounts even to the level of Claudia. But the ancients laid the lines of their aqueducts at a lower elevation, either because they had not yet nicely worked out the art of levelling, or because they purposely sunk their aqueducts in the ground, in order that they might not easily be cut by the enemy, since frequent wars were still waged with the Italians. But now, whenever a conduit has succumbed to old age, it is the practice to carry it in certain parts on substructures or on arches, in order to save length, abandoning the subterranean loops in the valleys. The sixth rank in height is held by Old Anio, which would likewise be capable of supplying even the higher portions of the City, if it were raised up on substructures or arches, wherever the nature of the valleys and low places demands. Its elevation is followed by that of Virgo, then by that of Appia. These, since they were brought from points near the City, could not rise to such high elevations. Lowest of all is Alsietina, which supplies the ward across the Tiber and the very lowest districts.
19. Of these waters, six are received in covered catch-basins, this side the seventh milestone on the Latin Way. Here, taking fresh breath, so to speak, after the run, they deposit their sediment. Their volume also is determined by gauges set up at the same point. Three of these, Julia, Marcia, and Tepula, are carried by the same arches from the catch-basins onward. Tepula, which, as we have above explained, was tapped and added to the conduit of Julia, now leaves the basin of this same Julia, receives its own quota of water, and runs in its own conduit, under its own name. The topmost of these three is Julia; next below is Tepula; then Marcia. These flowing [under ground] reach the level of the Viminal Hill, and in fact even of the Viminal Gate. There they again emerge. Yet a part of Julia is first diverted at Spes Vetus, and distributed to the reservoirs of Mount Caelius. But Marcia delivers a part of its waters into the so‑called Herculanean Conduit, behind the Gardens of Pallas. This conduit, carried along the Caelian, affords no service to the occupants of the hill, on account of its low level; it ends beyond the Porta Capena.
20. New Anio and Claudia are carried together from their catch-basins on lofty arches, Anio being above. Their arches end behind the Gardens of Pallas, and from that point their waters are distributed in pipes to serve the City. Yet Claudia first transfers a part of its waters near Spes Vetus to the so‑called Neronian Arches. These arches pass along the Caelian Hill and end near the Temple of the Deified Claudius. Both aqueducts deliver the volume which they receive, partly about the Caelian, partly on the Palatine and Aventine, and to the ward beyond the Tiber.
21. Old Anio, this side the fourth milestone, passes under New Anio, which here shifts from the Latin to the Labican Way; it has its own catch-basin. Then, this side the second milestone, it gives a part of its waters to the so‑called Octavian Conduit and reaches the Asinian Gardens in the neighbourhood of the New Way, whence it is distributed throughout that district. But the main conduit, which passes Spes Vetus, comes inside the Esquiline Gate and is distributed to high-lying mains throughout the City.
22. Neither Virgo, nor Appia, nor Alsietina has a receiving reservoir or catch-basin. The arches of Virgo begin under the Lucullan Gardens, and end on the Campus Martius in front of the Voting Porticoes. The conduit of Appia, running along the base of the Caelian and Aventine, emerges, as we have said above, at the foot of the Publician Ascent. The conduit of Alsietina terminates behind the Naumachia, for which it seems to have been constructed.
23. Since I have given in detail the builders of the several aqueducts, their dates, and, in addition, their sources, the lengths of their channels, and their elevations in sequence, it seems to me not out of keeping to add also some separate details, and to show how great is the supply which suffices not only for public and private uses and purposes, but also for the satisfaction of luxury; by how many reservoirs it is distributed and in what wards; how much water is delivered outside the City; how much is used for water-basins, how much for fountains, how much for public buildings, how much in the name of Caesar, how much for private consumption. But before I mention the names quinaria, centenaria, and those of the other ajutages by which water is gauged, I deem it appropriate to state what is their origin, what their capacities, and what each name means; and, after setting forth the rule according to which their proportions and capacities are computed, to show in what way I discovered their discrepancies, and what course I pursued in correcting them.
24. The ajutages to measure water are arranged according to the standard either of digits or of inches. Digits are the standard in Campania and in most parts of Italy; inches are the standard in *
Now the digit, by common understanding, is 1/16 part of a foot; the inch 1/12 part. But precisely as there is a difference between the inch and the digit, just so the standard of the digit itself is not uniform. One is called square; another, round. The square digit is larger than the round digit by 3/14 of its own size, while the round is smaller than the square by 3/11 of its size, obviously because the corners are cut off.
25. Later on, an ajutage called a quinaria came into use in the City, to the exclusion of the former measures. This was based neither on the inch, nor on either of the digits, but was introduced, as some think, by Agrippa, or, as others believe, by plumbers at the instance of Vitruvius, the architect. Those who represent Agrippa as its inventor, declare it was so designated because five small ajutages or punctures, so to speak, of the old sort, through which water used to be distributed when the supply was scanty, were now united in one pipe. Those who refer it to Vitruvius and the plumbers, declare that it was so named from the fact that a flat sheet of lead 5 digits wide, made up into a round pipe, forms this ajutage.º But this is indefinite, because the plate, when made up into a round shape, will be extended on the exterior surface and contracted on the interior surface. The most probable explanation is that the quinaria received its name from having a diameter of 5/4 of a digit, a standard which holds in the following ajutages also up to the 20‑pipe, the diameter of each pipe increasing by the addition of 1/4 of a digit. For example the 6‑pipe is six quarters in diameter, a 7‑pipe seven quarters, and so on by a uniform increase up to a 20‑pipe.
26. Every ajutage, now, is gauged either by its diameter or circumference, or by its area of clear cross-section, from any of which factors its capacity becomes evident. That we may distinguish the more readily between the inch ajutage, the square digit, the circular digit, and the quinaria itself, use must be made of the value of the quinaria, the ajutage which is most accurately determined and best known. Now the inch ajutage, has a diameter of 1â…“ digits. Its capacity is [slightly] more than 1 1/8 quinariae, i.e., 1½ twelfths of a quinaria plus 3/288 plus 2/3 of 1/288 more. The square digit, reduced to the circle is 1 digit plus 1½ twelfths of a digit plus 1/72 in diameter; its capacity is 10/12 of a quinaria. The circular digit is 1 digit in diameter; its capacity is 7/12 plus 1/2 twelfth plus 1/72 of a quinaria.
27. Now the ajutages which are derived from the quinaria increase on two principles. One principle is that the quinaria itself is taken a given number of times, i.e., in one orifice the equivalent of several quinariae is included, in which case the size of the orifice increases according to the increase in the number of quinariae. This principle is regularly employed, whenever several quinariae are delivered by one pipe and received in a reservoir, from which consumers receive their individual supply, — this being done in order that the conduit may not be tapped too often.
28. The second principle is followed, whenever the pipe does not increase according to some necessary multiple of quinariae, but according to the size of diameters, in conformity with which principle they enlarge their capacity and receive their names; as for example, when a quarter [of a digit] is added to the diameter of a quinaria, we get as a result the senaria, but its capacity is not increased by a whole quinaria, for it contains a quinaria plus 5/12 plus 1/48. So on, by adding successive quarters of a digit to the diameter, as was said above, we get by gradual increases, a 7‑pipe (septenaria), an 8‑pipe (octonaria), and up to the 20‑pipe (vicenaria).
29. After that we have the method of gauging which is based on the number of square digits contained in the cross-section, that is, the orifice of each ajutage, from which number of square digits the pipes also get their names. Thus those which in cross-section, that is, in circular orifice, have 25 square digits, are called 25‑pipes. Similarly we have the 30‑pipe (tricenaria), and so on, by a regular increase of 5 square digits, up to the 120‑pipe.
30. In the case of the 20‑pipe, which is on the border line between the two methods of gauging, the two methods almost coincide. For according to the reckoning to be used in the first-named set of ajutages, it is twenty quarter digits in diameter, inasmuch as its diameter is 5 digits; while according to the computation to be applied to the higher ajutages, it has an area of 20 square digits, less a fraction.
31. The gauging of the entire series of ajutages from the 5‑pipe (quinaria) up to the 120‑pipe, is determined in the way I have explained, and in each class the principle adopted is adhered to for that class. It conforms also to the ajutages set down and verified in the records of our most puissant and patriotic emperor. Whether, therefore, computation or authority is to be followed, on either ground the ajutages of the records are of greater weight. But the water-men, while they conform to the obvious reckoning in most ajutages, have made deviation in the case of four of them, namely: the 12-, 20-, 100-, and 120‑pipe.
32. In case of the 12‑pipe, the error is not great, nor is its use frequent. They have added 1/24 plus 1/48 to its diameter, and to its capacity 1/4 of a quinaria. A greater discrepancy is detected in case of the three remaining ajutages. These water-men diminish the 20‑pipe in its diameter by 1/2 plus 1/24 of a digit, its capacity by 3 quinariae plus 1/4 plus 1/24; and common use is made of this ajutage for delivery. But in case of the 100‑pipe and 120‑pipe, through which they regularly receive water, the pipes are not diminished but enlarged! For to the diameter of the 100‑pipe they add2/3 plus 1/24 of a digit, and to the capacity, 10 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 1/24. To the diameter of the 120‑pipe they add 3 digits plus 7/12 plus 1/24 plus 1/48; to its capacity, 66 quinariae plus 1/6.
33. Thus by diminishing the size of the 20‑pipe by which they constantly deliver, and enlarging the 100- and 120‑pipes, by which they always receive, they steal in case of the 100‑pipe 27 quinariae, and in case of the 120‑pipe 86 quinariae. While this is proved by computation, it is also obvious from the facts. For from the 20‑pipe, which Caesar rates at 16 quinariae, they do not deliver more than 13; and it is equally certain that from the 100‑pipe and the 120‑pipe, which they have expanded, they deliver only up to a limited amount, since Caesar, as his records show, has made delivery according to his grant, when out of each 100‑pipe he furnishes 81½ quinariae, and similarly out of a 120‑pipe, 98.
34. In all there are 25 ajutages. They all conform to their computed and recorded capacities, barring these four which the water-men have altered. But everything embraced under the head of mensuration ought to be fixed, unchanged, and constant. For only so will any special computation accord with general principles. Just as a sextarius, for example, has a regular ratio to a cyathus, and similarly a modius to both a cyathus and sextarius, so also the multiplication of the quinariae in case of the larger ajutages must follow a regular progression. However, when less is found in the delivery ajutages and more in the receiving ajutages, it is obvious that there is not error, but fraud.
35. Let us remember that every stream of water, whenever it comes from a higher point and flows into a reservoir after a short run, not only comes up to its measure, but actually yields a surplus; but whenever it comes from a lower point, that is, under less pressure, and is conducted a longer distance, it shrinks in volume, owing to the resistance of its conduit; and that, therefore, on this principle it needs either a check or a help in its discharge.
36. But the position of the calix is also a factor. Placed at right angles and level, it maintains the normal quantity. Set against the current of the water, and sloping downward, it will take in more. If it slopes to one side, so that the water flows by, and if it is inclined with the current, that is, is less favorably placed for taking in water, it will receive the water slowly and in scant quantity. The calix, now, is a bronze ajutage, inserted into a conduit or reservoir, and to it the service pipes are attached. Its length ought not to be less than 12 digits, while its orifice ought to have such capacity as is specified. Bronze seems to have been selected, since, being hard, it is more difficult to bend, and is not easily expanded or contracted.
37. I have described below all the 25 ajutages that there are (although only 15 of them are in use), gauging them according to the method of computation spoken of, and correcting the four which the water-men have altered. To these specifications all ajutages in use ought to conform, or if those four remain in use, they ought to be gauged by the number of quinariae which they contain. The ajutages that are not in use are so referred to.
38. The inch ajutage is 1 digit plus 1/3 of a digit in diameter; it contains more than a quinaria by 1½ twelfths of a quinaria plus 3/288 plus 2/3 of 1/288. The square digit has the same height as breadth. The square digit converted into its equivalent circle is 1 digit plus 1½ twelfths of a digit plus 1/72 in diameter; it measures 10/12 of a quinaria. The circular digit is 1 digit in diameter; and measures 7/12 plus 1½ twelfth plus 1/72 of a quinaria in area.
39. The quinaria: 1 digit plus 3/12 in diameter; 3 digits plus 1/2 plus 5/12 plus 3/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 1 quinaria.
40. The 6‑pipe: 1½ digits in diameter; 4 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 1/24 plus 2/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 1 quinaria plus 5/12 plus 7/288.
41. The 7‑pipe: 1 digit plus 1/2 plus 3/12 in diameter; 5 digits plus 1/2 in circumference; it has a capacity of 1 quinaria, plus 1/2 plus 5/12 plus 1/24; is not in use.
42. The 8‑pipe: 2 digits in diameter; 6 digits plus 3/12 plus 10/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 2 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 1/24 plus 5/288.
43. The 10‑pipe: 2½ digits in diameter; 7 digits plus 1/2 plus 4/12 plus 7/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 4 quinariae.
44. The 12‑pipe: 3 digits in diameter; 9 digits plus 5/12 plus 3/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 5 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 3/288; is not in use. But with the water-men it measured 3 digits plus 1/24 plus 6/288 in diameter, containing 6 quinariae.
45. The 15‑pipe: 3 digits plus 1/2 plus 3/12 in diameter; 11 digits plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 10/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 9 quinariae.
46. The 20‑pipe: 5 digits plus 1/24 plus 1/288 in diameter; 15 digits plus 1/2 plus 4/12 plus 6/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 16 quinariae plus 3/12 plus 1/24. With the water-men it measured 4 digits plus 1/2 in diameter, holding 13 quinariae.
47. The 25‑pipe: 5 digits plus 1/2 plus 1/12 plus 1/24 plus 5/288 in diameter; 17 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 1/24 plus 7/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 20 quinariae plus 4/12 plus 9/288; is not in use.
48. The 30‑pipe: 6 digits plus 2/12 plus 3/288 in diameter; 19 digits plus 5/12 in circumference; it has a capacity of 24 quinariae plus 5/12 plus 5/288.
49. The 35‑pipe: 6 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 2/288 in diameter; 20 digits plus 1/2 plus 5/12 plus 1/24 plus 4/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 28 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 3/288; is not in use.
50. The 40‑pipe: 7 digits plus 1/12 plus 1/24 plus 3/288 in diameter; 22 digits plus 5/12 in circumference; it has a capacity of 32 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 1/12.
51. The 45‑pipe: 7 digits plus 1/12 plus 1/24 plus 8/288 in diameter; 23 digits plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 36 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 1/12 plus 1/24 plus 8/288; is not in use.
52. The 50‑pipe: 7 digits plus 1/2 plus 5/12 plus 1/24 plus 5/288 in diameter; 25 digits plus 1/24 plus 7/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 40 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 1/24 plus 5/288.
53. The 55‑pipe: 8 digits plus 4/12 plus 10/288 in diameter; 26 digits plus 3/12 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 44 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 1/24 plus 2/288; is not in use.
54. The 60‑pipe: 8 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 1/24 plus 8/288 in diameter; 27 digits plus 5/12 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 48 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 4/12 plus 11/288.
55. The 65‑pipe: 9 digits plus 1/12 plus 3/288 in diameter; 28 digits plus 1/2 plus 1/12 in circumference; it has a capacity of 52 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 1/24 plus 8/288; is not in use.
56. The 70‑pipe: 9 digits plus 5/12 plus 6/288 in diameter; 29 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 in circumference; it has a capacity of 57 quinariae plus 5/288.
57. The 75‑pipe: 9 digits plus 1/2 plus 3/12 plus 6/288 in diameter; 30 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 8/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 61 quinariae plus 1/12 plus 2/288; is not in use.
58. The 80‑pipe: 10 digits plus 1/12 plus 2/288 in diameter; 31 digits plus 1/12 plus 2/12 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 65 quinariae plus 2/12.
59. The 85‑pipe: 10 digits plus 4/12 plus 1/24 plus 7/288 in diameter; 32 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 4/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 69 quinariae plus 3/12; is not in use.
60. The 90‑pipe: 10 digits plus 1/2 plus 2/12 plus 10/288 in diameter; 33 digits plus 1/2 plus 1/12 plus 1/24 plus 2/288 in circumference; it has a capacity of 73 quinariae plus 3/12 plus 1/24 plus 5/288.
61. The 95‑pipe: 10 digits plus 1/2 plus 5/12 plus 1/24 plus 9/288 in diameter; 34 digits plus 1/2 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 77 quinariae plus 4/12 plus 1/24 plus 2/288; is not in use.
62. The 100‑pipe: 11 digits plus 3/12 plus 9/288 in diameter; 35 digits plus 5/12 plus 1/24 in circumference; it has a capacity of 81 quinariae plus 5/12 plus 10/288. With the water-men it had a diameter of 12 digits; having a capacity of 92 quinariae.
63. The 120‑pipe: 12 digits plus 4/12 plus 6/288 in diameter; 38 digits plus 1/2 plus 4/12 in circumference; it has a capacity of 97 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 3/12. With the water-men it had a diameter of 16 digits, having a capacity of 163 quinariae plus 1/2 plus 5/12, which is the measure of two 100‑pipes.
Book II
64. Having detailed those facts which it was necessary to state with reference to the ajutages, I will now set down what discharge each aqueduct, according to the imperial records, was thought to have up to the time of my administration, and also how much it actually did deliver; then the true measure, which I reached by careful investigation, acting on the suggestion of that best and most industrious emperor, Nerva. Now there were, in the aggregate, 12,755 quinariae set down in the records, but 14,018 quinariae actually delivered; that is, 1,263 more quinariae were reported as delivered than were reckoned as received. Since I considered it the most important function of my office to determine the facts concerning the water-supply, my astonishment at this state of affairs stirred me profoundly and led me to investigate how it happened that more was being delivered than belonged to the property, so to speak. Accordingly, I first of all undertook measurements of the intakes of the conduits and discovered a total supply far greater — that is, by about 10,000 quinariae — than I found in the records, as I shall explain in connection with each aqueduct.
65. In the records Appia is credited with 841 quinariae. A gauging of this aqueduct could not be taken at the intake, since there it consists of two channels. But at The Twins, which is below Spes Vetus, where it joins with a branch of Augusta, I found a depth of water of •5 feet, and a width of •1¾ feet, making an area of •8¾ square feet, twenty-two 100‑pipes plus a 40‑pipe, which makes 1,825 quinariae, — more than the records would have it by 984 quinariae. It was delivering 704 quinariae, — 137 quinariae less than credited in the records; and, furthermore, 1,121 quinariae less than given by the gauging at The Twins. A considerable amount of this, however, is lost by leaks in the conduit, which, being deeply buried, does not clearly exhibit them. And yet their presence is plainly indicated by the fact that in very many parts of the City excellent water is met with, which leaks from that aqueduct. But we also detected some illicit pipes within the City. Outside the City, however, on account of the depth of the level, which at the intake is •50 feet underground, the conduit suffers no depredations.
66. Old Anio is credited in the records with the amount of 1,541 quinariae. At the intake I found 4,398 quinariae, exclusive of the quantity which is diverted into the special conduit of the Tiburtines, — 2,857 quinariae more than is recorded. There were distributed 262 quinariae, before the aqueduct reaches its settling-reservoir. The quantity at the reservoir, determined from the gauges placed there, was 2,362 quinariae, so that 1,774 quinariae were lost between the intake and the reservoir. Down-stream from the settling-reservoir, 1,348 quinariae were delivered, — more than we have stated to be the capacity according to the records by 69 quinariae, but less than we have shown was received into the conduit from the settling-reservoir by 1,014 quinariae. The total which was lost between the intake and the settling-reservoir, amounted to 2,788 quinariae, which I should have suspected resulted from an error of measurement, had I not discovered where it was diverted.
67. In the records Marcia is credited with the quantity of 2,162 quinariae. Gauging it at the intake, I found 4,690 quinariae, — 2,528 quinariae more than appear in the records. There were delivered, before it reaches the settling-reservoir, 95 quinariae; and 92 quinariae were given to supplement Tepula; likewise 164 to Anio. The total delivered before the settling-reservoir is reached, was 351 quinariae. The quantity which is computed at the reservoir from the gauges set up there, along with what is carried around the reservoir and received in the same channel on arches, is 2,944quinariae. The aggregate of what is delivered above the reservoir or is received on arches is 3,295 quinariae, — more than is set down in the scheduled capacity by 1,133 quinariae, and less than given by the gaugings made at the intake by 1,395 quinariae. After passing the reservoir, it delivered 1,840 quinariae, — 227 quinariae less than we said was set down in the scheduled capacity, and 1,104 quinariae less than is taken from the reservoir upon the arches. The aggregate of what was lost either between the intake and the reservoir or downstream from the reservoir, was 2,499 quinariae, the diversion of which, as in case of the other aqueducts, we discovered at several places. For that there is no lack of water is manifest also from the fact that at the intake, besides the volume which we noted that we found from the capacity of the conduit, over 300 quinariae are wasted.
68. Tepula is credited in the records with 400 quinariae. This aqueduct has no springs; it consists only of some veins of water taken from Julia. Its intake is therefore to be set down as beginning with the Julian reservoir, for from this it first receives 190 quinariae; then immediately thereafter 92 quinariae from Marcia, and further from New Anio at the Epaphroditian Gardens 163 quinariae. This makes in all 445 quinariae, — more than the records show by 45 quinariae, — which appear in the delivery.
69. Julia is credited in the records with a measure of 649 quinariae. At the intake the gaugings could not be made, because the intake is composed of several tributaries. But at the sixth mile-stone from the City, Julia is wholly taken into the settling reservoir, at which place its volume, according to the plainly visible gauges, amounts to 1,206 quinariae, — more than set down in the records by 557 quinariae. Besides this, near the City, behind the Gardens of Pallas, it receives from Claudia 162 quinariae, making the whole number of quinariae received by Julia 1,368. Of this amount, it discharges 190 into Tepula, and delivers on its own account 803 quinariae; from this we get a total of 993 quinariae which it delivers, — more than the records credit by 344 quinariae; less than we set it down as having at the reservoir by 213, which is precisely the amount we found diverted by those who were taking water without a grant from the sovereign.
70. Virgo is credited in the records with a measure of 652 quinariae. I could not take a gauging of this at the intake, because Virgo is made up of several tributaries, and enters its channels with too slow a current. Near the City, however, at the seventh mile-stone, on the land which now belongs to Cejonius Commodus, where Virgo has a greater velocity, I made a gauging, and it amounted to 2,504 quinariae, — 1,852 quinariae more than was set down in the records. The correctness of our gauging is very easily proved; for Virgo discharges all the quinariae which we found by gauging, that is, 2,504.
71. The measure of the capacity of Alsietina is not set down in the records, nor could it be accurately arrived at under present conditions, because [it receives] from Lake Alsietinus, and afterwards in the vicinity of Careiae from Sabatinus as much water as the water-men arrange for. Alsietina delivers 392 quinariae.
72. Claudia, flowing more abundantly than the others, is especially exposed to depredation. In the records it is credited with only 2,855 quinariae, although I found at the intake 4,607 quinariae, — 1,752 quinariae more than are recorded. Our gauging, however, is confirmed by the fact that at the seventh mile-stone from the City, at the settling reservoir, where the gauging is without question, we find 3,312 quinariae, — 457 more than are recorded, although, before reaching the reservoir, not only are deliveries made, to satisfy private grants, but also, as we detected, a great deal is taken secretly, and therefore 1,295 quinariae less are found than there really ought to be. Moreover, in the delivery of the water also it is manifest that there is fraud, since the amount actually delivered does not agree either with the statements of the records or with the gaugings made by us at the intake, or even with those made at the settling-basins, after so many depredations. For there are only 1,750 quinariae delivered, — less than the computation given in the records by 1,105 quinariae; also less than is shown by the gauging made at the intake by 2,857 quinariae, and less also than is found at the reservoir by 1,562 quinariae. For this reason, although it arrived in the City perfectly clear in its own conduit, it was mixed within the City with the New Anio, so that by creating confusion, the quantity as well as the distribution of the two might be obscured. But should any one think that I exaggerate the measure of the water received, such a person must be reminded that the Caerulean and Curtian sources of the Claudian aqueduct are so ample for supplying to their conduit the 4,607 quinariae which I have indicated, that 1,600 besides go to waste. But at the same time I do not deny that this superabundance does not really belong to these springs, for it comes from Augusta. This was devised to supplement Marcia, but is turned into the sources of Claudia, when Marcia does not need it, though not even the conduit of Claudia itself can carry all this water.
73. New Anio was put down in the records as having 3,263 quinariae. Gauging at the intake I found 4,738 quinariae, — more than the scheduled capacity by 1,475 quinariae. In what other way could I more clearly show that I do not exaggerate the number of quinariae at the intake than by the fact that in the records of delivery most of this water is actually accounted for? For it is stated that 4,200 quinariae are delivered, although elsewhere in the same records the amount taken in is put down as only 3,263. Besides this, I have discovered that not only 538 quinariae (the difference between our gauging and the recorded delivery) are stolen, but a far greater quantity. Whence it appears that the total found by me is none too large. The explanation of this is, that the swifter current of water, coming as it does from a large and rapidly flowing river, increases the volume by its very velocity.
74. I do not doubt that many will be surprised that according to our gaugings, the quantity of water was found to be much greater than that given in the imperial records. The reason for this is to be found in the blunders of those who carelessly computed each of these waters at the outset. Moreover, I am prevented from believing that it was from fear of droughts in the summer that they deviated so far from the truth, for the reason that I myself made my gaugings in the month of July, and found the above-recorded supply of each one remaining constant throughout the entire remainder of the summer. But whatever the reason may be, it has any rate been discovered that 10,000 quinariae were intercepted, while the amounts granted by the sovereign are limited to the quantities set down in the records.
75. Another variance consists in this, that one measure is used at the intake, another, considerably smaller, at the settling-reservoir, and the smallest at the point of distribution. The cause of this is the dishonesty of the water-men, whom we have detected diverting water from the public conduits for private use. But a large number of landed proprietors also, past whose fields the aqueducts run, tap the conduits; whence it comes that the public water-courses are actually brought to a standstill by private citizens, just to water their gardens.
76. Concerning misdemeanours of this sort, nothing more nor better needs to be said than was said by Caelius Rufus, in his speech, which is entitled "Concerning Waters." And would that we were not having daily experience by actual infringement of the law that all these misdemeanours are committed just as flagrantly now as then. We have found irrigated fields, shops, garrets even, and lastly all disorderly houses fitted up with fixtures through which a constant supply of flowing water might be assured. For that some waters should be delivered under a forged name in place of other waters belongs to the lesser misdemeanours. But among the frauds that seemed to demand correction, is to be mentioned what took place in the vicinity of the Caelian and Aventine Hills. These hills, before the construction of Claudia, utilized the waters of Marcia and Julia; but after the Emperor Nero led Claudia over the arches at Spes Vetus up to the Temple of the Deified Claudius, in order to distribute it from there, the first named waters, instead of being augmented by this new supply, were themselves allowed to go unused; for he did not build new reservoirs for Claudia, but used those that already existed; and the old name of these remained, although the water had become a new one.
77. With this, enough has been said about the volume of each aqueduct, and, if I may so express it, about a new way of acquiring water; about frauds and about offences committed in connection with all this. It remains to account in detail for the supply delivered (which we found given collectively and in a lump sum, so to speak, — and even set down under false entries), and to do this according to the several aqueducts and to the several wards of the City. I know very well that such an enumeration will appear not only dry but also complicated; nevertheless, I will make it — but as short as possible — that nothing may be lacking to the data of this office. Those who are satisfied with knowing the totals, may skip the details.
78. Now the distribution of the 14,018 quinariae is so recorded that the 771 quinariae which are transferred from certain aqueducts to supplement others and are set down twice in showing the distribution, figure only once in reckoning. Of this quantity there are delivered outside the City, 4,063 quinariae, 1,718 quinariae in the name of Caesar, to private parties, 2,345. The remaining 9,955 were distributed within the City to 247 reservoirs; of these there were delivered in the name of Caesar 1,707½ quinariae, to private parties 3,847 quinariae, for public uses 4,401 quinariae, — namely to *
camps 279 quinariae, to seventy-five public structures 2,301 quinariae, to thirty-nine ornamental fountains 386 quinariae, to five hundred and ninety-one water-basins 1,335 quinariae. But the schedule must be made to apply also to the several aqueducts and to the several wards of the City.
79. Of the 14,018 quinariae, then, which we set down as the total discharge of all the aqueducts, only 5 quinariae are given from Appia outside the City because [its source is so low]. The remaining 699 quinariae were distributed within the City throughout the second, eighth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth wards, among twenty reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 151 quinariae, to private parties 194 quinariae, for public uses 354 quinariae, — namely, to one camp 4 quinariae, to fourteen public structures 123 quinariae, to one ornamental fountain 2 quinariae, to ninety-two water-basins 226 quinariae.
80. Out of Old Anio were delivered outside the City in the name of Caesar 169 quinariae, to private parties 404 quinariae. The remaining 1,508½ quinariae were distributed inside the City through the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, twelfth, and fourteenth wards, among thirty-five reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 66½ quinariae, for the use of private parties 490 quinariae, for public uses 503 quinariae, — namely, to one camp 50 quinariae, to nineteen public structures 196 quinariae, to nine ornamental fountains 88 quinariae, to ninety-four water-basins 218 quinariae.
81. Out of Marcia were delivered outside the City in the name of Caesar 261½ quinariae. The remaining 1,472 quinariae were distributed inside the City through the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and fourteenth wards, among fifty-one reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 116 quinariae, to private parties 543 quinariae, for public uses 439 quinariae, — namely, to four camps 42½ quinariae, to fifteen public structures 41 quinariae, to twelve ornamental fountains 104 quinariae, to one hundred and thirteen water-basins 256quinariae.
82. Out of Tepula there were delivered outside the City in the name of Caesar 58 quinariae, to private parties 56 quinariae. The remaining 331 quinariae were distributed within the City through the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh wards among fourteen reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 34 quinariae, to private parties 237 quinariae, for public uses 50 quinariae, — namely, to one camp 12 quinariae, to three public structures 7 quinariae, to thirteen basins 32 quinariae.
83. Out of Julia there were flowed outside the City in the name of Caesar 85 quinariae, to private parties 121 quinariae. The remaining 548 quinariae were distributed within the City to the second, third, fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth wards, among seventeen reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 18 quinariae, to private parties 196 quinariae, for public uses 383 quinariae, — namely, to *
camps 69 quinariae, to * 
public structures 181 quinariae, to three ornamental fountains 67 quinariae, to twenty-eight basins 65 quinariae.
84. Virgo delivered outside the City 200 quinariae. The remaining 2,304 quinariae were distributed within the City to the seventh, ninth, and fourteenth wards, among eighteen reservoirs. Of these there were furnished in the name of Caesar 509 quinariae, to private parties 338 quinariae, for public uses 1,167 quinariae, — namely, to two ornamental fountains 26 quinariae, to twenty-five basins 51 quinariae, to sixteen public structures 1,380 quinariae. In the amount delivered to public structures are included 460 quinariae for the Euripus alone, to which Virgo itself gave its name.
85. Alsietina has 392 quinariae. These are all used outside the City, 254 quinariae being furnished in the name of Caesar, and to private parties 138 quinariae.
392 . . . 254 . . . 138:
The Loeb text both in English and in Latin follows the manuscript, which has 392 . . . 354 . . . 138.
354 and 138 add to 492, however.
The French translation by Ch. Bailly emends 354 to 254, but without saying why.
Bailly's reasoning is probably: we know from ¶71 that 392 quinariae are delivered, so the simplest correction, and thus the correction of the likeliest error, is to change the "hundreds" digit of one of the two other numbers. The likeliest error in turn is indeed that the scribe got carried away by the 392 and wrote 354.
I've followed this reasoning and emended all my online texts to 254.
86. Outside the City, Claudia and New Anio delivered each from its own channel; inside the City they were mixed together. Claudia discharged outside the City in the name of Caesar 217 quinariae, to private parties 439 quinariae; New Anio delivered in the name of Caesar 728 quinariae. The remaining 3,498 quinariae belonging to these two were distributed inside the City through all the fourteen wards, among ninety-two reservoirs. Of these, there were furnished in the name of Caesar 820 quinariae, to private parties 1,067 quinariae, for public uses 1,014 quinariae, — namely, to nine camps 149 quinariae, to eighteen public structures 374 quinariae, to twelve ornamental fountains 107 quinariae, to two hundred and twenty-six basins 482 quinariae.
87. This is the schedule of the amount of water as reckoned up to the time of the Emperor Nerva and this is the way in which it was distributed. But now, by the foresight of the most painstaking of sovereigns, whatever was unlawfully drawn by the water-men, or was wasted as the result of negligence, has been added to our supply: just as though new sources had been discovered. And in fact the supply as been almost doubled, and has been distributed with such careful allotment that wards which were previously supplied by only one aqueduct now receive the water of several. Take for example the Caelian and Aventine hills, to which Claudia alone used to run on the arches of Nero. The result was, that whenever any repairs caused interruptions, these densely inhabited hills suffered a drought. They are all now supplied by several aqueducts, above all, by Marcia, which has been rebuilt on a substantial structure and carried from Spes Vetus to the Aventine. In all parts of the City also, the basins, new and old alike, have for the most part been connected with the different aqueducts by two pipes each, so that if accident should put either of the two out of commission, the other may serve and the service may not be interrupted.
88. The effect of this care displayed by the Emperor Nerva, most patriotic of rulers, is felt from day to day by the present queen and empress of the world; and will be felt still more in the improved health of the city, as a result of the increase in the number of the works, reservoirs, fountains, and water-basins. No less advantage accrues also to private consumers from the increase in number of the Emperor's private grants; those also who with fear drew water unlawfully, now free from care, draw their supply by grant from the sovereign. Not even the waste water is lost; the appearance of the City is clean and altered; the air is purer; and the causes of the unwholesome atmosphere, which gave the air of the City so bad a name with the ancients, are now removed. I am well aware that I ought to indicate in detail the manner of the new distribution; but this I will add when the additions are made; it ought to be understood that no account should be given until they are completed.
89. What shall we say of the fact that the painstaking interest which our Emperor evinces for his subjects does not rest satisfied with what I have already described, but that he deems he has contributed too little to our needs and gratifications merely by such increase in the water supply, unless he should also increase its purity and its palatableness? It is worth while to examine in detail how, by correcting the defects of certain waters, he has enhanced the usefulness of all of them. For when has our City not had muddy and turbid water, whenever there have been only moderate rain-storms? And this is not because all the waters are thus affected at their sources, or because those which are taken from springs ought to be subject to such pollution. This is especially true of Marcia and Claudia and the rest, whose purity is perfect at their sources, and which would be not at all, or but very slightly, made turbid by rains, if well-basins should be built and covered over.
90. The two Anios are less limpid, for they are drawn from a river, and are often muddy even in good weather, because the Anio, although flowing from a lake whose waters are very pure, is nevertheless made turbid by carrying away portions of its loose crumbling banks, before it enters the conduits — a pollution to which it is subject not only in the rain-storms of winter and spring, but also in the showers of summer, at which time of year a more refreshing purity of the water is demanded.
91. One of the Anios, namely Old Anio, running at a lower level than most of the others, keeps this pollution to itself. But New Anio contaminated all the others, because, coming from a higher altitude and flowing very abundantly, it helps to make up the shortage of the others; but by the unskilfulness of the water-men, who diverted into the other conduits oftener than there was any need of an augmented supply, it spoiled also the waters of those aqueducts that had a plentiful supply, especially Claudia, which, after flowing in its own conduit for many miles, finally at Rome, as a result of its mixture with Anio, lost till recently its own qualities. And so far was New Anio from being an advantage to the waters it supplemented that many of these were then called upon improperly through the heedlessness of those who allotted the waters. We have found even Marcia, so charming in its brilliancy and coldness, serving baths, fullers, and even purposes too vile to mention.
92. It was therefore determined to separate them all and then to allot their separate functions so that first of all Marcia should serve wholly for drinking purposes, and then that the others should each be assigned to suitable purposes according to their special qualities, as for example, that Old Anio, for several reasons (because the farther from its source it is drawn, the less wholesome a water is), should be used for watering the gardens, and for the meaner uses of the City itself.
93. But it was not sufficient for our ruler to have restored the volume and pleasant qualities of the other waters; he also recognized the possibility of remedying the defects of New Anio, for he gave orders to stop drawing directly from the river and to take from the lake lying above the Sublacensian Villa of Nero, at the point where the Anio is the clearest; for inasmuch as the source of Anio is above Treba Augusta, it reaches this lake in a very cold and clear condition, be it because it runs between rocky hills and because there is but little cultivated land even around that hamlet, or because it drops its sediment in the deep lakes into which it is taken, being shaded also by the dense woods that surround it. These so excellent qualities of the water, which bids fair to equal Marcia in all points, and in quantity even to exceed it, are now to supersede its former unsightliness and impurity; and the inscription will proclaim as its new founder, "Imperator Caesar Nerva Trajanus Augustus."
94. We have further to indicate what is the law with regard to conducting and safeguarding the waters, the first of which treats of the limitation of private parties to the measure of their grants, and the second has reference to the upkeep of the conduits themselves. In this connection, in going back to ancient laws enacted with regard to individual aqueducts, I found certain points wherein the practice of our forefathers differed from ours. With them all water was delivered for the public use, and the law was as follows: "No private person shall conduct other water than that which flows from the basins to the ground" (for these are the words of the law); that is, water which overflows from the troughs; we call it "lapsed" water; and even this was not granted for any other use than for baths or fulling establishments; and it was subject to a tax, for a fee was fixed, to be paid into the public treasury. Some water also was conceded to the houses of the principal citizens, with the consent of the others.
95. To which authorities belonged the right to grant water or to sell it, is variously given even in the laws, for at times I find that the grant was made by the aediles, at other times by the censors; but it is apparent that as often as there were censors in the government these grants were sought chiefly from them. If there were none, then the aediles had the power referred to. It is plain from this how much more our forefathers cared for the general good than for private luxury, inasmuch as even the water which private parties conducted was made to subserve the public interest.
96. The care of the several aqueducts I find was regularly let out to contractors, and the obligation was imposed upon these of having a fixed number of slave workmen on the aqueducts outside the City, and another fixed number within the City; and of entering in the public records the names also of those whom they intended to employ in the service for each ward of the City. I find also that the duty of inspecting their work devolved at times on the aediles and censors, and at times on the quaestors, as may be seen from the resolution of the Senate which was passed in the consulate of Gaius Licinius and Quintus Fabius.
97. How much care was taken that no one should venture to injure the conduits, or draw water that had not been granted, may be seen not only from many other things, but especially from the fact that the Circus Maximus could not be watered, even on the days of the Circensian Games, except with permission of the aediles or censors, a regulation which, as we read in the writings of Ateius Capito, was still in force even after the care of the waters had passed, under Augustus, to commissioners. Indeed, lands which had been irrigated unlawfully from the public supply were confiscated. Whenever a slave infringed the law, even without the knowledge of his master, a fine was imposed. By the same laws it is also enacted as follows: "No one shall with malice pollute the waters where they issue publicly. Should any one pollute them, his fine shall be ten thousand sestertii." Therefore the order was given to the Curule Aediles to appoint two men in each district from the number of those who lived in it, or owned property in it, in whose care the public fountains should be placed.
98. Marcus Agrippa, after his aedileship (which he held after his consulship) was the first man to become the permanent incumbent of this office, so to speak — a commissioner charged with the supervision of works which he himself had created. Inasmuch as the amount of water now available warranted it, he determined how much should be allotted to the public structures, how much to the basins, and how much to private parties. He also kept his own private gang of slaves for the maintenance of the aqueducts and reservoirs and basins. This gang was given to the State as its property by Augustus, who had received it in inheritance from Agrippa.
99. Following him, under the consulate of Quintus Aelius Tubero and Paulus Fabius Maximus, resolutions of the Senate were passed and a law was promulgated in these matters, which until that time had been managed at the option of officials, and had lacked definite control. Augustus also determined by an edict what rights those should possess who were enjoying the use of water according to Agrippa's records, thus making the entire supply dependent upon his own grants. The ajutages, also, of which I have spoken above, were established by him; and for the maintenance and operation of the whole system he named Messala Corvinus commissioner, and gave him as assistants Postumius Sulpicius, ex-praetor, and Lucius Cominius, a junior senator. They were allowed to wear regalia as though magistrates; and concerning their duties a resolution of the Senate was passed, which is here given:-
100. "The consuls, Quintus Aelius Tubero and Paulus Fabius Maximus, having made a report relating to the duties and privileges of the water-commissioners appointed with the approval of the Senate by Caesar Augustus, and inquiring of the Senate what it would please to order upon the subject, it has been RESOLVED that it is the sense of this body: That those who have the care of the administration of the public waters, when they go outside the City in the discharge of their duties, shall have two lictors, three public servants, and an architect for each of them, and the same number of secretaries, clerks, assistants, and criers as those have who distribute wheat among the people; and when they have business inside the City on the same duties, they shall make use of all the same attendants, omitting the lictors; and, further, that the list of attendants granted to the water-commissioner by this resolution of the Senate shall be by them presented to the public treasurer within ten days from its promulgation, and to those whose names shall be thus reported the praetors of the treasury shall grant and give, as compensation, food by the year, as much as the food-commissioners are wont to give and allot, and they shall be authorized to take money for that purpose without prejudice to themselves. Further, there shall be furnished to the commissioners tablets, paper, and everything else necessary for the exercising of their functions. To this effect, the consuls, Quintus Aelius and Paulus Fabius, are ordered, both or either one, as may seem best to them, to consult with the praetors of the treasury in contracting for these supplies.
101. "Furthermore, inasmuch as the superintendents of streets and those in charge of the distribution of grain occupy a fourth part of the year in fulfilling their State duties, the water-commissioners likewise shall adjudicate (for a like period) in private and State causes." Although the treasury has continued down to the present to pay for these attendants and servants, they have, as far as appearance goes, ceased to belong to the commissioners, who through laziness and indolence neglect their duties. Moreover, when the commissioners went out of the City, provided it was on official business, the Senate had commanded the lictors to accompany them. For myself, when I go about to examine the aqueducts, my self-reliance and the authority given me by the sovereign will stand in place of the lictors.
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 11:19 AM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
Whereupon Philip stood looking at Joseph as one suspended, for the first
time understanding rightly that the rich have their troubles as well as
the poor. At last words coming to him he said: money has been our
trouble since Jesus drew us together, for we would do without money and
yet we know not how this is to be done. Like you, Sir, I'm asking if I'm
to sell my sails, those already out and those in the unrolled material,
and if I do sell and give the money to the poor how am I to live but by
begging of those that have not given their all? But why should I worry
you with our troubles? But your troubles are mine, Joseph answered; and
Philip went away to fetch Peter, who, he said, would be able to tell him
if Jesus could accept a rich man as a disciple. If a man that has a
little be permitted to remain, who is to say how much means
interdiction? Joseph asked himself as he kept watch for Peter to appear
at the corner of the street. And does he know the Master's mind enough
to answer the question of my admission or---- The sentence did not
finish in his mind, for Peter was coming up the street at that moment, a
great broad face coming into its features and expression. The same
high-shouldered fisher as of yore, Joseph said to himself, and he sought
to read in Peter's face the story of Peter's transference from one
master to another. It wasn't the approach of the Great Day, he said, for
Peter never could see beyond his sails and the fins of a fish; and if
Jesus were able to lift his thoughts beyond them he had accomplished a
no less miracle than turning water into wine.
Well, young Master, he said, we're glad to have you back among us
again. There be no place like home for us Galileans. Isn't that so? And
no fishing like that on these coasts? But, Peter, Joseph interrupted, my
father tells me that thou hast laid aside thy nets--but that isn't what
I'm here to talk to thee about, he interjected suddenly, but about Jesus
himself, whom I've been seeking for nearly two years, very nearly since
I parted from you all, well nigh two years ago, isn't it? I've sought
him in the hills of Judea, in Moab, in the Arabian desert and all the
way to Egypt and back again. It's about two years since you went away on
your travels, Master Joseph, and a great fine story there'll be for us
to listen to when our nets are down, Peter said. I'd ask you to begin it
now, Master Joseph, weren't it that the Master is waiting for us over
yonder in my house. And from what Philip tells me you would have my
advice about joining our community, Master Joseph. You've seen no doubt
a good deal of the Temple at Jerusalem and know everything about the
goings on there, and are with us in this--that the Lord don't want no
more fat rams and goats and bullocks, and incense is hateful in his
nostrils. So I've heard. They be Isaiah's words, aren't they, young
Master? But there's no master here, only Jesus: he is Master, and if I
call you "Master" it is from habit of beforetimes. But no offence
intended. You always will be master for me, and I'll be servant always
in a sense, which won't prevent us from being brothers. The Master
yonder will understand and will explain it all to you better than I....
And Peter nodded his great head covered with frizzly hair. But, Peter, I
am a rich man, and my father is too, and none but the poor is admitted
into the Community of Jesus. That's what affrights him, Peter--his
money, Philip interjected, and I have been trying to make him understand
that Jesus won't ask him for his father's money, he not having it to
give away. I'm not so sure of that, Peter said. The Master told us a
story yesterday of a steward who took his master's money and gave it to
the poor, he being frightened lest the poor, whom he hadn't been
over-good to in his lifetime, might not let him into heaven when he
died. And the Master seemed to think that he did well, for he said: it
is well to bank with the poor. Them were his very words. So it seems to
thee, Peter, that I should take my father's money? Joseph asked. Take
your father's money! Peter answered. We wouldn't wrong your father out
of the price of two perch, and never have done, neither myself nor John
and James. Now I won't say as much for---- We love your father, and
never do we forget that when our nets were washed away it was he that
gave us new ones. I am sure thou wouldst not wrong my father, Joseph
answered, and he refrained from asking Peter to explain the relevancy of
the story he had just told lest he should entangle him. It is better, he
said to himself, to keep to facts, and he told Peter that even his own
money was not altogether his own money, for he had a partner in Jericho
and it would be hard to take his money out of the business and give it
all to the poor. Giving it to the poor in Galilee, he said, would
deprive my camel-drivers of their living. Which, Peter observed, would
be a cruel thing to do, for a man must be allowed to get his living,
whether he be from Jericho or Galilee, fisher or camel-driver or
sail-maker. Which reminds me, Philip, that thou be'st a long time over
the sail I was to have had at the end of last month. And the twain began
to wrangle so that Joseph thought they would never end, so prolix was
Philip in his explanations. He had had to leave the sail unsewn, was all
he had to say, but he embroidered on this simple fact so largely that
Joseph lost patience and began to tell them he had come to Galilee,
Pilate wishing him to add the portage of wheat from Moab to the trade
already started in figs and dates. So Pilate is in the business, Peter
ejaculated, for Peter did not think that a Jew should have any dealings
with Gentiles, and this opinion, abruptly expressed, threw the discourse
again into disarray. But Pilate is in Jerusalem, Joseph began. And has
he brought the Roman eagles with him? Peter interrupted. And seeing that
these eagles would lead them far from the point which he was anxious to
have settled--whether the trade he was doing between Jerusalem and
Jericho prevented him from being a disciple--Joseph began by assuring
Peter that the eagles had been sent back to Caesarea. Caesarea, Peter
muttered, our Master has been there, and says it is as full as it can
hold of graven images. Well, Peter, what I have come to say is, that
were I to disappoint Pilate he might allow the robbers to infest the
hills again, and all my money would be lost, and my partner's money, and
the camel-drivers would be killed; and if my convoys did not arrive in
Jerusalem there might be bread riots. How would you like that, Peter?
Now what do ye say to that, Peter? and Philip looked up into Peter's
great broad face. Only this, Peter answered, that money will shipwreck
our Community sooner or later--we're never free from it. Like a fly,
Philip suggested, the more we chase it away the more it returns. The fly
cannot resist a sweating forehead, Philip, Peter said. Thine own is more
sweaty than mine, Philip retorted, and a big blue fly is drinking his
belly full though thou feelest him not, being as callous as a camel. The
Master's teaching is, Peter continued, having driven off the fly, that
no man should own anything, that everyone should have the same rights,
which seems true enough till we begin to put it into practice, for if I
were to let whosoever wished take my boats and nets to go out fishing,
my boats and nets would be all at the bottom of the lake before the sun
went down as like as not, for all men don't understand fishing. As we
must have fish to live I haven't parted with my boats; but every time we
take that turning down yonder to the lake's edge and I see my boats
rocking I offer up a little prayer that the Master may be looking the
other way or thinking of something else. James and John, sons of
Zebedee, are of the same mind as myself--that we shouldn't trouble the
Master too closely with the working out of his teaching. The teaching is
the thing. Why, they be coming towards us, as sure as my name's Simon
Peter, sent perhaps by the Master to fetch us, so long have we been away
talking.
Joseph turned to greet the two young men, whom he had known always; as
far back as he could remember he had talked to them over the oars, and
seen them let down the nets and draw up the nets, and they had hoisted
the sail for his pleasure, abandoning the fishing for the day, knowing
well that Joseph's father would pay them for the time they lost in
pleasing his son. And now they were young men like himself, only they
knew no Greek; rough young men, of simple minds and simple life, who
were drawn to Jesus--James a lean man, whose small sullen eyes, dilatory
speech and vacant little laugh used to annoy Joseph. James always asked
him to repeat the words though he had heard perfectly. Joseph liked John
better, for his mind was sturdy and his voice grew sullen at any word of
reproof and his eyes flamed, and Joseph wondered what might be the
authority that Jesus held over him, a rough turbulent fellow, whom
Joseph had always feared a little; even now in their greeting there was
a certain dread in Joseph, which soon vanished, for John's words were
outspoken and hearty. We're glad to have you back again amongst us,
Master, I've been saying since I left Capernaum this morning. But
"Master" is a word, John, that I've heard isn't used among you. Truly it
is not used among the brotherhood, John answered. And I came to ask
admission, Joseph said. Well, that be good news, Master--brother I
should say, for our Master will be glad to meet thee. But that, Philip
began, is just the matter we were speaking of among ourselves before we
saw thee coming towards us. For there be a difficulty. He be as earnest
as any of us, but our rule is what thou knowest it to be. Despite John's
knowledge of the rule Philip began the story, and again he was so prolix
in it that Joseph, wishing John to decide on the strict matter of it,
and not to be lost in details, some of which were true and some of which
were false and all confused in Philip's telling, interrupted the
narrator, saying that he would give all the money that was strictly his,
but his father's he couldn't give nor his partner's. We've many camels,
he said, in common, and how are these to be divided? Nor is it right, it
seems to me, that my partner should be left with the burden of all the
trade we have created together; yet it is hard that I who have sought
Jesus in the deserts of Judea as far as Egypt, and found him in Galilee,
at home, should be forced to range myself apart from him, with whom my
heart is. Would that the Master were here to hear him speak, Philip
interjected. He was with the Master last night, and the Master was well
pleased with him. It all depends on what mood the Master be in, John
answered, and they all fell to asking each other what the Master's mood
was that morning. But it would seem that all read him differently, and
it was with joy at the prospect of a new opinion that they viewed Judas
coming towards them.
And taking Judas into the discussion Peter said: now I've two boats, and
John and James have four, so we aren't without money though our riches
are small compared with the young Master's. Are we to sell our boats and
give the money to the poor, and if we do who then will look after the
Master's wants? They are small it is true, a bit of fish and bread every
day, and a roof over his head; but who will give him a roof if mine be
taken from me? Is not this so? All seemed in agreement, and Peter
continued: I am thinking, John, that our new brother might help us to
buy the Master a new cloak, for his is falling to pieces and my wife's
mother is weary with patching it. He cured her of the fever, but she
thinks that a great cost is put upon me and would ask the Master
something for his keep. Whereupon John spoke out that the story of his
mother-in-law was for ever the same; and seeing that he was offending
Peter with the words he addressed against his wife's mother, though
indeed Peter liked her not too much himself, Joseph put his hand in his
pocket and said: here are some shekels, go and buy Jesus a cloak, but
say not to him whence the money came.
Say not to him! Judas interjected. No need to tell him that can read the
thoughts in the mind. It would be better for the young Master to give
him one of his old cloaks. Jesus would question the new cloak and say it
savours of money. He sees into the heart. We have tried to keep things
from him before, Judas continued turning to Joseph.... It is our duty to
save him as much as we can. Peter has done much and I've shared the
expense with Peter, though I am a poor man; we pick the stones from his
path, for he walks with his eyes fixed upon the Kingdom of God always.
Yes, he sees into our hearts, Philip interrupted, and reads through all
we are thinking even before the thoughts come into our minds. It is as
Philip says, Judas muttered: our hearts are open to him always. But
James, who had not spoken till now, put forward the opinion, and no one
seemed inclined to gainsay it, that if Jesus knew men's thoughts before
they came into men's minds he must be warned of them by the angels. He
goes into the solitude of the mountains to converse with the angels,
James said--for what else? Moses went into the clefts of Mount Sinai,
Joseph added, and he asked Peter to tell him if Jesus believed that the
soul existed apart from the body, at which question Peter was fairly
embarrassed, for the soul must be somewhere, he said, and if there be no
body to contain it---- You must ask the Master about these things, we
have not considered them. All the same we are glad that you are with us
and ready to follow him into danger, for if the Sadducees and Pharisees
are against him we are with him. Is that not so, sons of Zebedee?
At the challenge the two lads came forward again and all began to talk
of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the enthusiasm of the disciples catching
upon Joseph he, too, was soon talking of the Kingdom that was to come,
and whether they should all go down to Jerusalem together to meet the
Kingdom and share it, or wait for it to appear in Galilee. Share and
share alike, Joseph said. Ay, ay, sure we shall, and enjoy it, Peter
rolled out at his elbow. But we must set our hearts in patience, for
there be a rare lot to be converted yet. Every man must have his chance,
and seeing Jesus coming towards him Peter waited till Jesus was by him.
Haven't I thy promise, Master, he asked, laying his hand on Jesus'
shoulder, that my chair in Kingdom Come will be next to thine? Before
Jesus could answer John and James asked him if their chairs would not be
on his left and right. But not next to the Master's, Peter answered. I'm
on the right hand of the Master, and my brother Andrew on the left. Look
into his face and read in it that I have said well. But the disciples
were not minded to read the Master's face as Peter instructed them to
read it, and might have come to gripping each other's throats if Jesus
had not asked them if they would have the fat in the narrow chairs and
the thin in the wide, as often happens in this world. The spectacle of
Peter trying to sit on James' chair set them laughing, and as if to make
an end of an unseemly disputation John asked the Master whither they
were going to cure the sick that day? To which question Jesus made no
answer, for he felt no power on him that day to cure the sick or to cast
out demons. You'll see him do these things on another occasion, Peter
whispered in Joseph's ear; to-day he's deep in one of his meditations,
and we dare not ask him whither he be going, but must just follow him.
As likely as not he'll lead us up into the hills for---- But I see
Salome coming this way. You know her sons, John and James. The woman
bears me an ill will and would have my chair set far down, belike as not
between Nathaniel and Philip, who as you have noticed do not hold their
heads very high in our company. But let us hasten a little to hear what
she has to say. Listen, 'tis as I said, Master, Peter continued; you
heard her ask him that her sons should sit on either side of him. Now
mark his answer, if he answers her; I doubt if he will, so dark is his
mood.
But dark though it was he answered her with a seeming cheerfulness that
in the coming world there is neither weariness of spirit nor of body,
and therefore chairs are not set in heaven. A fine answer that, and
Peter chuckled; too wise for thee. Go home and ponder on it. We shall
lie on couches when we are not flying, he added, and being in doubt he
asked Joseph if the heavenly host was always on the wing. A question
that seemed somewhat silly to Joseph, though he could not have given his
reason for thinking it silly. Peter called on Jesus to hasten for the
disciples were half way up the principal street at a turning whither
their way led through the town by olive garths and orchards, and finding
a path through these they came upon green corn sown in patches just
beginning to show above ground, and the fringe of the wood higher up the
hillside--some grey bushes with young oaks starting through them, still
bare of leaves, ferns beginning to mark green lanes into the heart of
the woods, and certain dark wet places where the insects had already
begun to hum. But when the wood opened out the birds were talking to one
another, blackbird to blackbird, thrush to thrush, robin to robin, kin
understanding kin, and every bird uttering vain jargon to them that did
not wear the same beak and feathers, just like ourselves, Joseph said to
himself and he stood stark before a hollow into which he remembered
having once been forbidden to stray lest a wolf should pounce upon him
suddenly. Now he was a man, he was among men, and all had staves in
their hands, and the thoughts of wolves departed at the sight of a wild
fruit tree before which Jesus stopped, and calling John and James to
him, as if he had forgotten Peter, he said: you see that tree covered
with beautiful blossoms, but the harsh wind which is now blowing along
the hillside will bear many of the blossoms away before the fruit begins
to gather. And the birds will come and destroy many a berry before the
plucker comes to pick the few that remain for the table. How many of you
that are gathered about me now---- He stopped suddenly, and his eyes
falling on John he addressed his question directly to him as if he
doubted that Peter would apprehend the significance of the parable. But
Joseph, whom it touched to the quick, was moved to cry out, Master, I
understand; restraining himself, however, or his natural diffidence
restraining him, he could only ask Peter to ask Jesus for another
parable. Peter reproved Joseph, saying that it were not well to ask
anything from the Master at present, but that his mood might improve
during the course of the afternoon. Thomas, who did not know the Master
as well as Peter, could not keep back the question that rose to his
lips. Our trade, he said, is in apricots, but is it the same with men as
with the apricots, or shall we live to see the fruit that thou hast
promised us come to table? Whereupon James and John began to ask which
were the blossoms among them that would be eaten by the birds and
insects and which would wither in the branches. Shall I feed the
insects, Master? Matthew asked, or shall I be eaten by the birds? A
question that seemed to everyone so stupid that none was surprised that
Jesus did not answer it, but turning to Philip he asked him: canst thou
not, Philip, divine my meaning? But Philip, though pleased to come under
the Master's notice, was frightened, and could think of no better answer
than that the apricots they would eat in Paradise would be better. For
there are no harsh winds in Paradise, isn't that so, Master? Thy
question is no better than Salome's, Jesus answered, who sees Paradise
ranged with chairs. Then everyone wondered if there were no chairs nor
apricots in Paradise of what good would Paradise be to them; and were
dissatisfied with the answer that Jesus gave to them, that the soul is
satisfied in the love of God as the flower in the sun. But with this
answer they had to content themselves, for so dark was his face that
none dared to ask another question till Matthew said: Master, we would
understand thee fairly. If there be no chairs nor apricots in Paradise
there cannot be a temple wherein to worship God. To which Jesus
answered: God hath no need of temples in Paradise, nor has he need of
any temple except the human heart wherein he dwells. It is not with
incense nor the blood of sheep and rams that God is worshipped, but in
the heart and with silent prayers unknown to all but God himself, who
knows all things. And the day is coming, I say unto you, when the Son of
Man shall return with his Father to remake this world afresh, but before
that time comes you would do well to learn to love God in your hearts,
else all my teaching is vainer than any of the things in this world that
ye are accustomed to look upon as vain. Upon this he took them to a
mountain-side where the rock was crumbling, and he said: you see this
crumbling rock? Once it held together, now it is falling into sand, but
it shall be built up into rock again, and again it shall crumble into
sand. At which they drew together silent with wonder, each fearing to
ask the other if the Master were mad, for though they could see that the
rock might drift into sand, they could not see how sand might be built
up again into rock.
Master, how shall we know thee when thou returnest to us? Wilt thou be
changed as the rock changes? Wilt thou be sand or rock? It was Andrew
that had spoken; and Philip answered him that the Master will return in
a chariot of fire, for he was angry that a fellow of Andrew's stupidity
should put questions to Jesus whether they were wise or foolish; but
could they be aught else than foolish coming from him? Andrew,
persisting, replied: but we may not be within sight of the Master when
he steps out of his chariot of fire, and we are only asking for a token
whereby we may know him from his Father. My Father and thy Father,
Andrew, Jesus answered, the Father of all that has lived, that lives,
and that shall live in the world; and the law over the rock that
crumbles into sand and the sand that is built up into rock again, was in
that rock before Abraham was, and will abide in it and in the flower
that grows under the rock till time everlasting. But, Master, wilt thou
tell us if the rock we are looking upon was sand or rock in the time of
Abraham? Philip asked, and Jesus answered him: my words are not then
plain, that before that rock was and before the sand out of which the
rock was built, was God's love--that which binds and unbinds enduring
always though the rock pass into sand and the sand into rock a thousand
times.
And it was then that a disciple poked himiself up to Jesus to ask him if
they were not to believe the Scriptures. He answered him that the
Scriptures were no more than the love of God. This answer did not quell
the dissidents, but caused them to murmur more loudly against him, and
Jesus, though he must have seen that he was about to lose some
disciples, would retract nothing. The Scriptures are, he repeated, but
the love of God. He that came to betray him said: and the Gentiles that
haven't the Scriptures? Jesus answered that all men that have the love
of God in their hearts are beloved by God. Is it then of no value to
come of the stock of Abraham? the man asked, and Jesus replied: none,
but a loss if ye do not love God, for God asks more from those whose
minds he has opened than from those whose minds he has suffered to
remain shut. At which Peter cried: though there be not a pint of wine in
all heaven we will follow thee, and though there be no fish in heaven
but the scaleless that the Gentiles eat---- He stopped suddenly and
looked at Jesus, saying: there are no Gentiles in heaven. Heaven is open
to all men that love God, Jesus said, and after these words he continued
to look at Peter, but like one that sees things that are not before him;
and the residue followed him over the hills, saying to themselves: he is
thinking about this journey to Jerusalem, and then a little later one
said to the others: he is in commune with the spirits that lead him,
asking them to spare him this journey, for he knows that the Pharisees
will rise up against him, and will stone him if he preach against the
Temple. What else should he preach against? asked another disciple; and
they continued to watch Jesus, trying to gather from his face what his
thoughts might be, thinking that his distant eyes might be seeking a
prediction of the coming kingdom in the sky. We might ask him if he sees
the kingdom coming this way, an apostle whispered in the ear of
another, and was forthwith silenced, for it was deemed important that
the Master should never be disturbed in his meditations, whatever they
might be.
He stood at gaze, his apostles and his disciples watching from a little
distance, recalling the day his dog Coran refused to follow him, and
seeing that the dog had something on his mind, he left his flock in
charge of the other dogs and followed Coran to the hills above the Brook
Kerith, down a little crumbling path to Elijah's cave. He found John the
Baptist, and recognising in him Elijah's inheritor--at that moment a
flutter of wings in the branches awoke him from his reverie, and seeing
his disciples about him, he asked them whose inheritor he was. Some said
Elijah, some said Jeremiah, some said Moses. As if dissatisfied with
these answers, he looked into their faces, as if he would read their
souls, and asked them to look up through the tree tops and tell him what
they could see in a certain space of sky. In fear of his mood, and lest
he might call them feeble of sight or purblind, his disciples, or many
among them, fell to disputing among themselves as to what might be
discerned by human eyes in the cloud; till John, thinking to raise
himself in the Master's sight, so it seemed to Joseph (who dared not
raise his eyes to the sky, but bent them on the earth), said that he
could see a chariot drawn by seven beasts, each having on its forehead
seven horns; the jaws of these beasts, he averred, were like those of
monkeys, and in their paws, he said, were fourteen golden candlesticks.
Andrew, being misled by the colour of the cloud which was yellow, said
that the seven beasts were like leopards; whereas Philip deemed that
the beasts were not leopards, for him they were bears; and they began to
dispute one with the other, some discerning the Father Almighty in a
chariot, describing him to be a man garmented in white; his hair is like
wool, they said. And seated beside him Matthew saw the Son of Man with
an open book on his knees. But these visions, to their great trouble,
did not seem to interest Jesus; or not sufficiently for their intention;
and to the mortification of Peter and Andrew, James and John, he turned
to Thaddeus and Aristion and asked them what they saw in the clouds, and
partly because they were loath to say they could see naught, and also
thinking to please him, they began to see a vision, and their vision was
an angel whom they could hear crying: at thy bidding, O Lord; on which
he emptied his vial into the Euphrates, and forthwith the river was
turned to blood. The second angel crying likewise, at thy bidding, O
Lord, emptied his vial; and when the third angel had emptied his, three
animals of the shape of frogs crawled out of the river; and then from
over the mountains came a great serpent to devour the frog-shapen
beasts, and after devouring them he vomited forth a great flood, and the
woman that had been seated on it was borne away. It was Thaddeus that
spoke the last words, and he would have continued if Jesus' eyes had not
warned him that the Master was thinking of other things, perhaps seeing
and hearing other things. It is known to you all, he said, that Jeremiah
kneels at the steps of my Father's throne praying for the salvation of
Israel? Therefore tell me what is your understanding of the words
"praying for the salvation of Israel"? Was the prophet praying that
Israel might be redeemed from the taxes the Romans had imposed upon
them? Being without precise knowledge of how much remission Jeremiah
might obtain for them, it seemed to them that it would be well to say
that Jeremiah was praying to God to delay no longer, but send the
Messiah he had promised. At which Jesus smiled and asked them if the
Messiah would remit the taxes; and the disciples answered craftily that
the Messiah would set up the Kingdom of God on earth: in which kingdom
no taxes are levied, Jesus replied. Come, he said, let us sit upon these
rocks and talk of the great prophecies, for I would hear from you how
you think the promised kingdom will come to pass. And the disciples
answered, one here, one there, and then in twos and threes. But, Master,
thou knowest all these things, since it is to thee our Father has given
the task of establishing his Kingdom upon earth; tell us, plague us no
longer with dark questions. We are not alone, Thaddeus cried, a rich
man's son is amongst us. If he have come amongst us God has sent him,
Jesus said, and we should have no fear of riches, since we desire them
not. This kindness heartened Joseph, who dared to ask Jesus how he might
disburden himself of the wealth that would come to him at his father's
death.
As no such dilemma as Joseph's had arisen before, all waited to hear
Jesus, but his thoughts having seemingly wandered far, they all fell to
argument and advised Joseph in so many different ways that he did not
know to whom to accede so contradictory were all their notions of
fairness; and, the babble becoming louder, it waked Jesus out of his
mood, and catching Joseph's eyes, he asked him if he whom our Father
sent to establish his Kingdom on earth would not have to give his life
to men for doing it. A question that Joseph could not answer; and while
he sought for the Master's meaning the disciples began again aloud to
babble and to put questions to the Master, hurriedly asking him why he
thought he must die before going up to heaven. Did not Elijah, they
asked, ascend into heaven alive in his corporeal body?--and the cloak he
left with Elisha, Aristion said, might be held to be a symbol of the
fleshly body. This view was scorned, for the truth of the Scriptures
could not be that the disciples inherited not the spiritual power of the
prophet, but his fleshly show. Then the fate of Judas the Gaulonite
rising up in Peter's mind, he said: but, Master, we shall not allow thee
to be slain on a cross and given as food to the birds. The disciples
raised their staves, crying, we're with thee, Master, and the forest
gave back their oaths in echoes that seemed to reach the ends of the
earth; and when the echoes ceased a silence came up from the forest that
shut their lips, and, panic-stricken, all would have run away if Peter
had not drawn the sword which he had brought with him in case of an
attack by wolves, and swore he would strike the man down that raised his
hand against the Master. To which Jesus replied that every man is born
to pursue a destiny, and that he had long known that his led to
Jerusalem, whereupon Peter cried out: we'll defend thee from thyself;
for which words Jesus reproved him, saying that to try to save a man
from himself were like trying to save him from the decree that he brings
into the world with his blood. And what is mine, Master? It may be,
Jesus answered, to return to thy fishing. Whereupon Peter wept, saying:
Master, if we lose thee we're as sheep that have lost their shepherd, a
huddled, senseless flock on the hillside, for we have laid down our nets
to follow thee, believing that the Kingdom of God would come down here
in Galilee rather than in Jerusalem; pray that it may descend here, for
thou'lt be safer here, Master; we have swords and staves to defend
thee--so let us kneel in prayer and ask the Lord that he choose Galilee
rather than Judea for the setting up of his kingdom. To which Jesus
answered nothing, and his face was as if he had not heard Peter; and
then Peter's fears for Jesus' life, should he go to Jerusalem, seemed to
pass on from one to the other, till all were possessed by the same fear,
and Peter said: let us lift up our hearts to our Father in Heaven and
pray that Jesus be not taken from us. Let us kneel, he said, and they
all knelt and prayed, but to their supplication Jesus seemed
indifferent. And seeing they were unable to dissuade him from Jerusalem,
Peter turned to Joseph. Here is one, he said, who knows the perils of
Jerusalem and will bear witness, that if thou preach that God have no
need of a Temple or a sacrifice, thou'lt surely be done to death by the
priests.
Peter's sudden appeal to his knowledge of the priests of Jerusalem awoke
Joseph, who was wholly absorbed in his love of Jesus, and thought only
of rushing forward and worshipping; but he was held back and strained
forward at the same time, and seeing he was overcome, Peter did not
press him for an answer, and Joseph fell back among the crowd, ashamed,
thinking that if Peter came to him again he would speak forthright. He
had words that would bring him into the sympathy of Jesus, but instead
of speaking them he stood, held at gaze by the beauty of the bright
forehead, large and arched; and so exalted were the eyes that Joseph
could not think else than that Jesus was looking upon things that his
disciples did not see. It seemed to Joseph that Jesus was meditating
whether he should confide all he saw and heard to his disciples. He
waited, tremulous with expectation, watching the thin scrannel throat
out of which rose a voice to which the ear became attuned quickly and
was gratified as by a welcome dissonance. It rose up among the silence
of the pines, and the delight of listening to it, Joseph thought, was so
near to intoxication that he would have pressed forward if he had not
remembered suddenly that he was a new-comer into the community; one who
might at any moment be driven out of it because he possessed riches
which he could not unburden himself of. So he kept his seat in the
background among the casual followers, by two men whose accents told him
they were Samaritans, and these now seemed within the last few minutes
to have become opposed to Jesus, and Joseph wondered at the change that
had come over them and lent an ear to their discourse so that he might
discover a reason for it. And it was not long before he discovered that
their objection related to the Book of Daniel, for they were of the sort
that receive no Scriptures after the five Books of the Law.
Joseph knew the book less perhaps than any other book of the Scriptures;
he had looked into it with Azariah, but for a reason which he could not
now discover he had read it with little attention; and since his
schooldays he had not looked into it again. Peter and Andrew and John
and James were listening intently to the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream
for the sake of the story related and without thought of what might be
Jesus' purpose in relating it. But to Joseph Jesus' purpose was the
chief interest of the relation; and the purpose became apparent when he
began to tell how the great statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream,
whose head was gold, whose arms and breast were silver, whose belly was
brass, and whose legs and feet were iron and clay intermingled, was
overthrown by a stone that hand had not cut out of the mountain. This
stone became forthwith as big as a mountain and filled the whole earth,
and Joseph fell to thinking if this stone were the fifth kingdom which
the Messiah would set up when the Roman kingdom had fallen to dust, or
whether the stone were the Messiah himself. And while Joseph sat
thinking he heard suddenly that when Nebuchadnezzar looked into the
furnace and saw the four men whom he had ordered to be thrown into it
walking through the flames safely, he said: and the form of the fourth
is like the son of God.
The story wholly delighted the disciples; and they asked Jesus to tell
them the further adventures of Daniel, and as if wishing to humour them
he began to relate that a hand had appeared writing on the wall during
the great feast at Babylon, a story to which Joseph could give but
little heed, for his imagination was controlled by the words, "whose
form is like the son of God"--an inspiration on the part of the
Babylonian king. If ever a man had seemed since to another like the son
of God, Jesus was that man; and Joseph asked himself how it was that
these words had passed over the ears of the disciples--over the ears of
those who knew Jesus' mind, if any could be said to know Jesus' mind.
Jesus, though he lived near them and loved them, lived in the world of
his own thoughts, which, so it seemed to Joseph, he could not share with
anybody. Not one of the men he had gathered about him, neither Peter,
nor John, nor James, had noticed the notable words: "And the form of the
fourth is like the son of God." It was for these words, Joseph felt
sure, that Jesus had related the story of Daniel in the furnace. But his
disciples had not apprehended the significance; and like one whose
confidence was unmoved by the slowness or the quickness of his
listeners, almost as if he knew that the real drift of his speech was
beyond his hearers, Jesus began to tell that Darius' counsellors had
combined into a plot against Daniel and succeeded in it so well that
Daniel and his companions were cast in a den of lions. But there being
nothing in the story that pointed to the setting up of the Kingdom of
God upon earth, Joseph was puzzled to understand why Jesus was at pains
to relate it at such length. Was it to amuse his disciples? he asked
himself, but no sooner had he put the question to himself than the
purpose of the relation passed into his mind. Jesus had told the
marvellous stories of Daniel's escapes from death so that his disciples
might have no fear that the priests of Jerusalem would have power to
destroy him: whomsoever God sends into the world to do his work, Jesus
would have us understand, are under God's protection for ever and ever;
and Joseph rejoiced greatly at having discovered Jesus' intent, and for
a long time the glen, the silent forest and the men sitting listening to
the Master were all forgotten by him. He even forgot the Master's
presence, so filled was he by the abundant hope that his divination of
the Master's intent marked him out as one to be associated with the
Master's work--more than any one of those now listening to him, more
than Peter himself.
And so sweet was his reverie to him that he regretted the passing of it
as a misfortune, but finding he was in spirit as well as in body among
realities, he lent his ear to the story of the four winds that had
striven upon the great sea and driven up four great beasts. These beasts
Joseph readily understood to be but another figuration of the four great
empires; the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Grecian had been blown
away like dust, and as soon as the fourth, the Roman Empire, was broken
into pieces the kingdom of the whole world would be given to the people
of the saints of the Most High. It was Philip the nearly hunchback that
asked Jesus for an explanation of this vision--saying, and obtaining the
approval of several for the question, would he, Jesus, acquiesce in this
sharing of the earth among the angels who had not seen him, nor heard
him, nor served him upon earth. If the earth is to be shared among the
angels we follow thee in vain, he muttered; and Joseph felt that he
could never speak freely again with Philip for having dared to interrupt
the Master and weary him with questions that a child could answer. To
whom Philip said: but you, young Master, that have received good
instruction in Hebrew and Greek from the scribe Azariah, and have
travelled far, do you answer my question. If the earth is to be shared
among angels---- He was not allowed to repeat more of his question, for
a clamour of explanation began among the disciples that the earth would
not be shared among the angels of God--God would find his people
repentant when he arrived with his son. At last the assembly settled
themselves to listen to the story of the vision in which a ram pushed
westward and northward and southward, till a he-goat came from the
west--one with a notable horn between the eyes, and butted the ram till
he had broken his two horns. Joseph had forgotten these visions, and he
learnt for the first time, so it seemed to him, that the goat meant the
Syrian king, Antiochus, who had conquered Jerusalem, polluted the
sanctuary and set up heathen gods. But how are all these visions
concerned with the setting up of the Kingdom of God on earth? and Jesus'
purpose did not appear to him till Daniel heard a voice between the
banks of the Ula crying: make this man understand. Joseph understood
forthwith that Jesus' purpose was still the same, to make it plain to
the disciples that Daniel was protected and guided by God, and, that
being so, Jesus could go to Jerusalem fearing nothing, he being greater
than Daniel. So he sat immersed in belief, hearing but faintly the many
marvellous things that Daniel heard and saw, nor did he awake from his
reverie till Jesus announced that Gabriel flew about Daniel at the hour
of the evening oblation, telling him that seventy weeks was the measure
of time allowed by God to make reconciliation for iniquity and bring
everlasting righteousness, and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah; and
that after three score and two weeks the Messiah should be cut off but
not for himself.
The words "cut off but not for himself" troubled Joseph, and he pondered
them, while the disciples marvelled at hearing Jesus speak of these
things (he seemed to know the Scriptures by rote), and his voice went
upward into the silence of the firs, and they heard as if in a dream
that the king of the south should come into his kingdom and return to
his own land. But his sons shall be stirred up and shall revolt against
him, Jesus said, and the disciples marvelled greatly, for Jesus made
clear the meaning that lay under these dark sayings, and they heard and
understood how the robbers of the people should exalt themselves and
establish a vision; but these shall fall and the king of the north shall
come and cast up mounds and take the fortified cities. And they heard of
destructions and leagues and armies and sanctuaries that were polluted,
and of peoples who did not know their God, but who nevertheless became
strong; and they heard of Edom and Moab and the children of Ammon, but
at the end of all these troubles the Tabernacle was placed between the
seas of the glorious holy mountain. And that day the fishers from the
lake of Galilee and others heard that Michael had told the people of
Israel that those that were dead should rise out of the earth and come
into everlasting life. But can the dead be raised up and come to life in
their corruptible bodies? asked the Samaritans that sat by Joseph, and
their mutterings grew louder, and they denied that the prophet Daniel
had spoken truth in this and many other things, and as he had not spoken
truth he was a false prophet; whereupon so great a clamour arose that
the wild beasts in the ravine began to growl, being awaked in their
lairs. The disciples, foreseeing that it would soon be dark night in the
forest, fell to seeking the way back to Capernaum, the Galileans in one
group with Jesus among them, the Samaritans speeding away together and
stopping at times for fresh discussion with the Galileans, asking among
many other things how the corruptible body might be raised up to heaven
and live indulging in the many imperfections inherent in our bodies. It
was vain to ask them what justice there would be if the men that had
died before the coming of the Kingdom of God were not raised up into
heaven. If this were true the dead had led virtuous lives in vain; they
might for all it had profited them have lived like the heathen.
It was at Capernaum that the truth became manifest that not only was
Daniel denied, but Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all the prophets since
Moses, at which the disciples were greatly incensed and raised their
staves against the Samaritans, but Jesus dissuaded his followers, and
the dissidents were suffered to depart unhurt. Let them go, Jesus said,
for they are in the hands of God, like ourselves, and he bade them all
good-night, and there seemed to Joseph to be a great sadness in Jesus'
voice, as if he felt that in this world there was little else but
leave-taking.
Joseph too resented this parting, though it was for but a few hours; he
would unite himself to Jesus, become one, as the mother and the unborn
babe are one--he would be of the same mind and flesh; all division
seemed to him loss, till, frightened at his own great love of Jesus, he
stopped in the Plain of Gennesaret, star-gazing. But the stars told him
nothing, and he walked on again. And it was about a half-hour's walk
from Magdala that he overtook the Samaritans, who sought to draw him
into argument. But he was in no humour for further discussion, and
dismissed them, saying: what matter if all the prophets were false since
the promised Messiah is among us. He has come, he has come! he repeated
all the way home: and at every flight of the high stairs he tried to
collect his thoughts. But his brain was whirling, and he could only
repeat: he has come, he has come!
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 11:25 AM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
Dear Readers,
Hi. Pastor Mike here. We have been in a house Church now for 20 years. We have had a lot of interaction off and on with victory Baptist. We love them, appreciate them, send folks to Dr Al for serious helpful counselling, and believe they are being greatly used of god. We find these folks to be friendly, loving, caring and on and on. Maybe some folks need to stick with them for 20 years and see for yourself! for all of us the time is getting short, I find no love in all these ugly remarks about people we know to love Jesus. Grow up children. Pastor Mike Joe communicates isn't that what we say we want? Thank you. be about the Masters business. love Pastor Mike
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 06:48 PM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
MediaWiki is available as a part of Fedora Extras (4 or later). In order to install it, you should run
as root. After installation, open the file /usr/share/doc/mediawiki-x.y.z/INSTALL.fedora and follow the instructions there.
Note that in recent installations the INSTALL file is at /usr/share/mediawiki/INSTALL or more recently at /usr/share/doc/mediawiki-x.xx.x/INSTALL
If you need support for mathematical formulas, you also need to install mediawiki-math:
If you have a more recent Fedora, there is no package mediawiki-math. Because mediawiki requires "texvc" for LaTeX you'll also need to install LabPlot
On Fedora Core 4, installing version 1.5.8-1, additional steps are needed to enable inline LaTeX translation. Some of these steps are described in the following file:
If LaTeX formulas are displayed without translation, you might need to uncomment the following line manually in LocalSettings.php, and possibly also restart your httpd server:
Here is a method to restart the httpd server under Fedora:
After enabling $wgUseTeX, you might see an error message such as this:
Failed to parse (Can't write to or create math output directory):
In MediaWiki file Math.php one finds this source code line:
In my default LocalSettings.php I found these lines:
$IP = "/var/www/mediawiki"; $wgUploadDirectory = "$IP/images"; # ... $wgMathDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/math"; $wgTmpDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/tmp"; $wgTexvc = '/usr/bin/texvc'; $wgUseTeX = true;Which suggested this fix:
And then there was math.
For Fedora-specific bug reports, use http://bugzilla.redhat.com/ with the product field set to "Fedora Extras" and the component field to "mediawiki".
(PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert) :
If you have no error with php but no png generated, it's seems to be a problem with a configuration file of Tex. I solved my problem executing
RE: victory baptist church rochester ny
Posted on December 07, 2011 at 11:46 PM (UTC) ( about 1 month ago )wrote the following:
but in formidable proportions was really "the Gars,"--a name given by
the Chouans to the Marquis de Montauran on his arrival from England.
The information sent to Hulot by the War department proved correct in
all particulars. The marquis gained after a time sufficient ascendancy
over the Chouans to make them understand the true object of the war,
and to persuade them that the excesses of which they were guilty
brought disgrace upon the cause they had adopted. The daring nature,
the nerve, coolness, and capacity of this young nobleman awakened theWe used to play with Patriot by the hour," said Francine,--"I know
that; but he always ended by serving us some bad trick." So saying,
Francine threw herself hastily back close to her mistress, whose hands
she caught and kissed in a coaxing way; saying in a tone of deep
affection: "You know what I mean, Marie, but you will not answer me.
How can you, after all that sadness which did so grieve me--oh, indeed
it grieved me!--how can you, in twenty-four hours, change about and
become so gay? you, who talked of suicide! Why have you changed? I
have a right to ask these questions of your soul--it is mine, my claim
to it is before that of others, for you will never be better loved
than you are by me. Speak, mademoiselle."
"Why, Francine, don't you see all around you the secret of my good
spirits? Look at the yellowing tufts of those distant tree-tops; not
one is like another. As we look at them from this distance don't they
seem like an old bit of tapestry? See the hedges from behind which the
Chouans may spring upon us at any moment. When I look at that gorse I
fancy I can see the muzzles of their guns. Every time the road is
shady under the trees I fancy I shall hear firing, and then my heart
beats and a new sensation comes over me. It is neither the shuddering
of fear nor an emotion of pleasure; no, it is better than either, it
is the stirring of everything within me--it is life! Why shouldn't I
be gay when a little excitement is dropped into my monotonous
existence?"
"Ah! you are telling me nothing, cruel girl! Holy Virgin!" added
Francine, raising her eyes in distress to heaven; "to whom will she
confess herself if she denies the truth to me?"
"Francine," said the lady, in a grave tone, "I can't explain to you my
present enterprise; it is horrible."
"Why do wrong when you know it to be wrong?"
"How can I help it? I catch myself thinking as if I were fifty, and
acting as if I were still fifteen. You have always been my better
self, my poor Francine, but in this affair I must stifle conscience.
And," she added after a pause, "I cannot. Therefore, how can you
expect me to take a confessor as stern as you?" and she patted the
girl's hand.
"When did I ever blame your actions?" cried Francine. "Evil is so
mixed with good in your nature. Yes, Saint Anne of Auray, to whom I
pray to save you, will absolve you for all you do. And, Marie, am I
not here beside you, without so much as knowing where you go?" and she
kissed her hands with effusion.
"But," replied Marie, "you may yet desert me, if your conscience--"
"Hush, hush, mademoiselle," cried Francine, with a hurt expression.
"But surely you will tell me--"
"Nothing!" said the young lady, in a resolute voice. "Only--and I wish
you to know it--I hate this enterprise even more than I hate him whose
gilded tongue induced me to undertake it. I will be rank and own to
you that I would never have yielded to their wishes if I had not
foreseen, in this ignoble farce, a mingling of love and danger which
tempted me. I cannot bear to leave this empty world without at least
attempting to gather the flowers that it owes me,--whether I perish in
the attempt or not. But remember, for the honor of my memory, that had
I ever been a happy woman, the sight of their great knife, ready to
fall upon my neck, would not have driven me to accept a part in this
tragedy--for it is a tragedy. But now," she said, with a gesture of
disgust, "if it were countermanded, I should instantly fling myself
into the Sarthe. It would not be destroying life, for I have never
lived."
"Oh, Saint Anne of Auray, forgive her!"
"What are you so afraid of? You know very well that the dull round of
domestic life gives no opportunity for my passions. That would be bad
in most women, I admit; but my soul is made of a higher sensibility
and can bear great tests. I might have been, perhaps, a gentle being
like you. Why, why have I risen above or sunk beneath the level of my
sex? Ah! the wife of Bonaparte is a happy woman! Yes, I shall die
young, for I am gay, as you say,--gay at this pleasure-party, where
there is blood to drink, as that poor Danton used to say. There,
there, forget what I am saying; it is the woman of fifty who speaks.
Thank God! the girl of fifteen is still within me."
The young country-girl shuddered. She alone knew the fiery, impetuous
nature of her mistress. She alone was initiated into the mysteries of
a soul rich with enthusiasm, into the secret emotions of a being who,
up to this time, had seen life pass her like a shadow she could not
grasp, eager as she was to do so. After sowing broadcast with full
hands and harvesting nothing, this woman was still virgin in soul, but
irritated by a multitude of baffled desires. Weary of a struggle
without an adversary, she had reached in her despair to the point of
preferring good to evil, if it came in the form of enjoyment; evil to
good, if it offered her some poetic emotion; misery to mediocrity, as
something nobler and higher; the gloomy and mysterious future of
present death to a life without hopes or even without sufferings.
Never in any heart was so much powder heaped ready for the spark,
never were so many riches for love to feed on; no daughter of Eve was
ever moulded, with a greater mixture of gold in her clay. Francine,
like an angel of earth, watched over this being whose perfections she
adored, believing that she obeyed a celestial mandate in striving to
bring that spirit back among the choir of seraphim whence it was
banished for the sin of pride.
"There is the clock-tower of Alencon," said the horseman, riding up to
the carriage.
"I see it," replied the young lady, in a cold tone.
"Ah, well," he said, turning away with all the signs of servile
submission, in spite of his disappointment.
"Go faster," said the lady to the postilion. "There is no longer any
danger; go at a fast trot, or even a gallop, if you can; we are almost
into Alencon."
As the carriage passed the commandant, she called out to him, in a
sweet voice:--
"We will meet at the inn, commandant. Come and see me."
"Yes, yes," growled the commandant. "'The inn'! 'Come and see me'! Is
that how you speak to an officer in command of the army?" and he shook
his fist at the carriage, which was now rolling rapidly along the
road.
"Don't be vexed, commandant, she has got your rank as general up her
sleeve," said Corentin, laughing, as he endeavored to put his horse
into a gallop to overtake the carriage.
"I sha'n't let myself be fooled by any such folks as they," said Hulot
to his two friends, in a growling tone. "I'd rather throw my general's
coat into that ditch than earn it out of a bed. What are these birds
after? Have you any idea, either of you?"
"Yes," said Merle, "I've an idea that that's the handsomest women I
ever saw! I think you're reading the riddle all wrong. Perhaps she's
the wife of the First Consul."
"Pooh! the First Consul's wife is old, and this woman is young," said
Hulot. "Besides, the order I received from the minister gives her name
as Mademoiselle de Verneuil. She is a /ci-devant/. Don't I know 'em?
They all plied one trade before the Revolution, and any man could make
himself a major, or a general in double-quick time; all he had to do
was to say 'Dear heart' to them now and then."
While each soldier opened his compasses, as the commandant was wont to
say, the miserable vehicle which was then used as the mail-coach drew
up before the inn of the Trois Maures, in the middle of the main
street of Alencon. The sound of the wheels brought the landlord to the
door. No one in Alencon could have expected the arrival of the
mail-coach at the Trois Maures, for the murderous attack upon the coach
at Mortagne was already known, and so many people followed it along the
street that the two women, anxious to escape the curiosity of the
crowd, ran quickly into the kitchen, which forms the inevitable
antechamber to all Western inns. The landlord was about to follow
them, after examining the coach, when the postilion caught him by the
arm.
"Attention, citizen Brutus," he said; "there's an escort of the Blues
behind us; but it is I who bring you these female citizens; they'll
pay like /ci-devant/ princesses, therefore--"
"Therefore, we'll drink a glass of wine together presently, my lad,"
said the landlord.
After glancing about the kitchen, blackened with smoke, and noticing a
table bloody from raw meat, Mademoiselle de Verneuil flew into the
next room with the celerity of a bird; for she shuddered at the sight
and smell of the place, and feared the inquisitive eyes of a dirty
/chef/, and a fat little woman who examined her attentively.
"What are we to do, wife?" said the landlord. "Who the devil could
have supposed we would have so many on our hands in these days? Before
I serve her a decent breakfast that woman will get impatient. Stop, an
idea! evidently she is a person of quality. I'll propose to put her
with the one we have upstairs. What do you think?"
When the landlord went to look for the new arrival he found only
Francine, to whom he spoke in a low voice, taking her to the farther
end of the kitchen, so as not to be overheard.
"If the ladies wish," he said, "to be served in private, as I have no
doubt they wish to do, I have a very nice breakfast all ready for a
lady and her son, and I dare say wouldn't mind sharing it with you;
they are persons of condition," he added, mysteriously.
He had hardly said the words before he felt a tap on his back from the
handle of a whip. He turned hastily and saw behind him a short,
thick-set man, who had noiselessly entered from a side room,--an
apparition which seemed to terrify the hostess, the cook, and the
scullion. The landlord turned pale when he saw the intruder, who shook
back the hair which concealed his forehead and eyes, raised himself on
the points of his toes to reach the other's ears, and said to him in a
whisper: "You know the cost of an imprudence or a betrayal, and the
color of the money we pay it in. We are generous in that coin."
He added a gesture which was like a horrible commentary to his words.
Though the rotundity of the landlord prevented Francine from seeing
the stranger, who stood behind him, she caught certain words of his
threatening speech, and was thunderstruck at hearing the hoarse tones
of a Breton voice. She sprang towards the man, but he, seeming to move
with the agility of a wild animal, had already darted through a side
door which opened on the courtyard. Utterly amazed, she ran to the
window. Through its panes, yellowed with smoke, she caught sight of
the stranger as he was about to enter the stable. Before doing so,
however, he turned a pair of black eyes to the upper story of the inn,
and thence to the mail-coach in the yard, as if to call some friend's
attention to the vehicle. In spite of his muffling goatskin and thanks
to this movement which allowed her to see his face, Francine
recognized the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, with his heavy whip; she saw
him, indistinctly, in the obscurity of the stable, fling himself down
on a pile of straw, in a position which enabled him to keep an eye on
all that happened at the inn. Marche-a-Terre curled himself up in such
a way that the cleverest spy, at any distance far or near, might have
taken him for one of those huge dogs that drag the hand-carts, lying
asleep with his muzzle on his paws.
The behavior of the Chouan proved to Francine that he had not
recognized her. Under the hazardous circumstances which she felt her
mistress to be in, she scarcely knew whether to regret or to rejoice
in this unconsciousness. But the mysterious connection between the
landlord's offer (not uncommon among innkeepers, who can thus kill two
birds with one stone), and the Chouan's threats, piqued her curiosity.
She left the dirty window from which she could see the formless heap
which she knew to be Marche-a-Terre, and returned to the landlord, who
was still standing in the attitude of a man who feels he has made a
blunder, and does not know how to get out of it. The Chouan's gesture
had petrified the poor fellow. No one in the West was ignorant of the
cruel refinements of torture with which the "Chasseurs du Roi"
punished those who were even suspected of indiscretion; the landlord
felt their knives already at his throat. The cook looked with a
shudder at the iron stove on which they often "warmed" ("chauffaient")
the feet of those they suspected. The fat landlady held a knife in one
hand and a half-peeled potato in the other, and gazed at her husband
with a stupefied air. Even the scullion puzzled himself to know the
reason of their speechless terror. Francine's curiosity was naturally
excited by this silent scene, the principal actor of which was visible
to all, though departed. The girl was gratified at the evident power
of the Chouan, and though by nature too simple and humble for the
tricks of a lady's maid, she was also far too anxious to penetrate the
mystery not to profit by her advantages on this occasion.
"Mademoiselle accepts your proposal," she said to the landlord, who
jumped as if suddenly awakened by her words.
"What proposal?" he asked with genuine surprise.
"What proposal?" asked Corentin, entering the kitchen.
"What proposal?" asked Mademoiselle de Verneuil, returning to it.We used to play with Patriot by the hour," said Francine,--"I know
that; but he always ended by serving us some bad trick." So saying,
Francine threw herself hastily back close to her mistress, whose hands
she caught and kissed in a coaxing way; saying in a tone of deep
affection: "You know what I mean, Marie, but you will not answer me.
How can you, after all that sadness which did so grieve me--oh, indeed
it grieved me!--how can you, in twenty-four hours, change about and
become so gay? you, who talked of suicide! Why have you changed? I
have a right to ask these questions of your soul--it is mine, my claim
to it is before that of others, for you will never be better loved
than you are by me. Speak, mademoiselle."
"Why, Francine, don't you see all around you the secret of my good
spirits? Look at the yellowing tufts of those distant tree-tops; not
one is like another. As we look at them from this distance don't they
seem like an old bit of tapestry? See the hedges from behind which the
Chouans may spring upon us at any moment. When I look at that gorse I
fancy I can see the muzzles of their guns. Every time the road is
shady under the trees I fancy I shall hear firing, and then my heart
beats and a new sensation comes over me. It is neither the shuddering
of fear nor an emotion of pleasure; no, it is better than either, it
is the stirring of everything within me--it is life! Why shouldn't I
be gay when a little excitement is dropped into my monotonous
existence?"
"Ah! you are telling me nothing, cruel girl! Holy Virgin!" added
Francine, raising her eyes in distress to heaven; "to whom will she
confess herself if she denies the truth to me?"
"Francine," said the lady, in a grave tone, "I can't explain to you my
present enterprise; it is horrible."
"Why do wrong when you know it to be wrong?"
"How can I help it? I catch myself thinking as if I were fifty, and
acting as if I were still fifteen. You have always been my better
self, my poor Francine, but in this affair I must stifle conscience.
And," she added after a pause, "I cannot. Therefore, how can you
expect me to take a confessor as stern as you?" and she patted the
girl's hand.
"When did I ever blame your actions?" cried Francine. "Evil is so
mixed with good in your nature. Yes, Saint Anne of Auray, to whom I
pray to save you, will absolve you for all you do. And, Marie, am I
not here beside you, without so much as knowing where you go?" and she
kissed her hands with effusion.
"But," replied Marie, "you may yet desert me, if your conscience--"
"Hush, hush, mademoiselle," cried Francine, with a hurt expression.
"But surely you will tell me--"
"Nothing!" said the young lady, in a resolute voice. "Only--and I wish
you to know it--I hate this enterprise even more than I hate him whose
gilded tongue induced me to undertake it. I will be rank and own to
you that I would never have yielded to their wishes if I had not
foreseen, in this ignoble farce, a mingling of love and danger which
tempted me. I cannot bear to leave this empty world without at least
attempting to gather the flowers that it owes me,--whether I perish in
the attempt or not. But remember, for the honor of my memory, that had
I ever been a happy woman, the sight of their great knife, ready to
fall upon my neck, would not have driven me to accept a part in this
tragedy--for it is a tragedy. But now," she said, with a gesture of
disgust, "if it were countermanded, I should instantly fling myself
into the Sarthe. It would not be destroying life, for I have never
lived."
"Oh, Saint Anne of Auray, forgive her!"
"What are you so afraid of? You know very well that the dull round of
domestic life gives no opportunity for my passions. That would be bad
in most women, I admit; but my soul is made of a higher sensibility
and can bear great tests. I might have been, perhaps, a gentle being
like you. Why, why have I risen above or sunk beneath the level of my
sex? Ah! the wife of Bonaparte is a happy woman! Yes, I shall die
young, for I am gay, as you say,--gay at this pleasure-party, where
there is blood to drink, as that poor Danton used to say. There,
there, forget what I am saying; it is the woman of fifty who speaks.
Thank God! the girl of fifteen is still within me."
The young country-girl shuddered. She alone knew the fiery, impetuous
nature of her mistress. She alone was initiated into the mysteries of
a soul rich with enthusiasm, into the secret emotions of a being who,
up to this time, had seen life pass her like a shadow she could not
grasp, eager as she was to do so. After sowing broadcast with full
hands and harvesting nothing, this woman was still virgin in soul, but
irritated by a multitude of baffled desires. Weary of a struggle
without an adversary, she had reached in her despair to the point of
preferring good to evil, if it came in the form of enjoyment; evil to
good, if it offered her some poetic emotion; misery to mediocrity, as
something nobler and higher; the gloomy and mysterious future of
present death to a life without hopes or even without sufferings.
Never in any heart was so much powder heaped ready for the spark,
never were so many riches for love to feed on; no daughter of Eve was